Rewiring food systems to enhance human health and biosphere stewardship

TLDR

Food lies at the heart of both health and sustainability challenges. The study aims to rewire food systems to enhance transparency between producers and consumers, mobilize key actors as biosphere stewards, and reconnect people to the biosphere. Using a social‑ecological framework, the authors illustrate how changes in food system volume, nutrition, and safety since 1961 have impacted health and sustainability. These changes have almost halved undernutrition while doubling overweight prevalence, pushed four of six planetary boundaries beyond safe limits, widened the gap between consumers and producers with power concentrated in a few actors, and point to solutions such as shifting from volume‑focused production to quality, nutrition, resource‑use efficiency, and reduced antimicrobial use.

Abstract

Food lies at the heart of both health and sustainability challenges. We use a social-ecological framework to illustrate how major changes to the volume, nutrition and safety of food systems between 1961 and today impact health and sustainability. These changes have almost halved undernutrition while doubling the proportion who are overweight. They have also resulted in reduced resilience of the biosphere, pushing four out of six analysed planetary boundaries across the safe operating space of the biosphere. Our analysis further illustrates that consumers and producers have become more distant from one another, with substantial power consolidated within a small group of key actors. Solutions include a shift from a volume-focused production system to focus on quality, nutrition, resource use efficiency, and reduced antimicrobial use. To achieve this, we need to rewire food systems in ways that enhance transparency between producers and consumers, mobilize key actors to become biosphere stewards, and re-connect people to the biosphere.