Food Systems Thinker
Lesson 1.2 Levels of Food Systems
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to appropriately set a boundary to analyze part of a food system.
Setting Boundaries
A systems thinker creates boundaries arbitrarily to help separate one area from another. The boundaries show what parts of the overall system are left in, and which are left out. System boundaries define what area a systems thinker is analyzing or trying to affect.
We invent boundaries for clarity. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the questions we want to ask or the problems we want to solve. The boundaries should be reconsidered for each new discussion, problem, or purpose.
Example: A rancher wants to improve a dairy farm’s economic system. The boundary could be at:
- The cow level (genetics, feed management, etc.)
- The farm level (cost and returns, management skills of the farmer, etc.)
- The societal level (milk supply and demand, land use, labor, etc.)
The overall system of dairy farming comprises a hierarchy of systems with different boundaries.
The cow is a living system, and it is part of the dairy herd which can be analyzed as a system. The herd is part of the farming system that includes crop, land, and facilities management. The farm is embedded in the local or regional dairy farming community, which is a system within the national dairy industry system.
In this lesson, you will learn about six levels of food systems as boundaries that are used to address topics in the food systems.
Before moving forward with this lesson, download and review the worksheet.
Activity 1: Learn from the video below and respond to questions on the worksheet.
"In Indiana, we can grow everything that our body needs to be healthy"
- Mary Lutz
Say hi to Mary Lutz on Sun and Moon Farm facebook.
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Where would you get food from if all the stores in the area were closed?
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Name two things that can disrupt food from traveling to your grocery stores.
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What are the sizes of your three balloons?
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What were three things Mary suggested you could do to prevent your rubber band of food resilience from breaking?
Activity 2: Learn about six levels or scales of food systems. These levels, or scales, are often operational at the same time, and they interact with each other.
A food system has a hierarchy of levels, or scales, and each reflects and responds to social, cultural, political, economic, health, and environmental conditions.
INDIVIDUAL
This level is focused on personal decision including how to acquire, prepare, serve, give away, eat, store, and clean food. These decisions and resulting behaviors are influenced by many factors including life experience; cultural and social factors; and the need to balance different values such as affordability and quality. The decisions depend on the situation and can change over time.
HOUSEHOLD
Most households are groups of people, often related, that live together. They may eat together, share a household food budget, and affect one another’s eating behaviors, especially through parental influence on children. Some households are food insecure, meaning that their food intake is disrupted at times because they lack money or other resources for food.
LOCAL
With no universally accepted definition, local foods are often based on the distance between food producers and consumers from town to a state. Direct-to-consumer markets include farm stands, farmers’ markets, and community supported agriculture (CSA), while direct-to-retailer sales include convenience markets, supermarkets, restaurants, and institutions.
REGIONAL
Regional food systems accommodate larger scales of production and economic activity. Regional identity has value in the food marketplace to consumers and producers. The system tries to be self-reliant within the region for maximum resilience, minimum importation, and significant economic and social return to all stakeholders within a state or a cluster of states.
NATIONAL
In the United States, farm labor, food safety, pesticide use, and product labeling are all guided by federal regulations. Cooperative Extension, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, the National Institute for Food and Agriculture have enormous influence on lower levels of the food system. Market agreements for commodities like apples and milk affect supply and prices on the national level.
GLOBAL
Food is measured by overall production, its movement around the planet, and food security of the world’s population. 12% of the world’s population don't meet their metabolic energy requirements. U.S. imports of agricultural products exceed $100 billion annually. Global food system has significant influence on our diets, economies, environmental quality, and policies of all levels of the food system.
Match the words in the left-hand column with the appropriate phrase in the right-hand column.
Individual
Household
Local
Regional
National
Global
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a boundary to analyze self-resilience within a state or a cluster of states
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a boundary to analyze direct-to-retailer sales
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a boundary to analyze U.S. imports of food products
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a boundary to analyze the influence of eating behaviors of parents to their children
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a boundary to analyze whether a person can afford food
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a boundary to analyze the label regulation
An Iranian Folk Tale
...Nasreddin frantically searches for something under the light of a lamp post in the dusty street outside his home.
A kind neighbor comes by and asks, ‘Mulla, what have you lost?’
Nasreddin replies, ‘I have lost my keys.’
The neighbor, being the good person he is, gets down on his hands and knees and begins to search with Nasreddin through the dust. After a long time, the neighbor says to Nasreddin, ‘Mulla, are you certain you lost your keys here in the street?’
‘Oh no!’ says Nasreddin, ‘I lost them in the house.’
‘If you lost them in the house,’ says the neighbor, ‘then why are we looking for them under this lamp post?’
‘The light is better here,’ Nasreddin replies.
(Booth Sweeney, Meadows, & Mehers, 2011)
Nasreddin needs to draw some boundaries to find the lost keys. He considers the visibility boundary by searching under the lamp post, but he did not consider the territorial boundary. The territorial boundary of the lost keys includes the inside of the house and excludes the street, even though the light is better!
Activity 3: Determine how boundaries are set arbitrarily.
No single definition of "local" or "local food systems" exists. The geographic distances between production and consumption varies.
Google three sources or ask three people:
- What geographic area do you consider local food come from?
- What geographic area is not local?"
CONCLUSION
In this lesson, you learned about six levels of food systems: individual, household, local, regional, national, and global levels. These levels are examples of boundaries that help analyze food systems. You were also introduced to the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social pillars. Finally, you learned about resilience and how to become resilient.
Research
Instruction: Find out more about your regional food system based on USDA
• Which region are you in?
• What are the main characteristics of this region?
References
Booth Sweeney, L., Meadows, D., & Mehers, G. M. (2011). The systems thinking playbook for climate change: A toolkit for interactive
learning. Bonn, Germany: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit.
Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, farms, and community: Exploring food systems. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press.