Five spheres around the food chain

An earlier post looked at the future of the Living Field project through a diagram of the food system used as a guide at the Nourish Scotland conference in November 2019. The diagram was constructed by the Centre for Food Policy at City University London and is reproduced here in full with permission.

The diagram shows the Food Chain in the centre surrounded by the five spheres of Politics, Health, Environment, Society and Economy. The implication (with which we agree) is that the human food system is so intimately connected to the spheres that it should not be examined in isolation. Moreover, research in any one sphere or aspect of the food chain has to be aware of their connectedness to all the others.

For example, research may find solutions to improving the environment of agricultural landscapes but has to accept that progress is unlikely without political backing and without buy-in from society as a whole …. because there will be cost.

Sources

The Food System diagram was published in the following brief: Parsons K, Hawkes C, Wells R. 2019. Brief 2: What is the food system? A Food Policy perspective. In: Rethinking Food Policy: a fresh approach to policy and practice. London: Centre for Food Policy. Available through this link.

Further information on the Centre for Food Policy, City University of London: http://www.city.ac.uk/foodpolicy.

Thanks to Prof Corinna Hawkes for additional information and permission to use the Food System diagram.