Food Systems Thinker
Lesson 2.3 Impact of Food Systems
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to identify inputs and outputs in the food systems and understand the concepts of stock and flow.
What we choose to eat has an impact on the environment!!!
Be aware that food goes through steps such as transporting, processing, and packaging that use a lot of energy and natural resources, and creating waste.
Choosing foods that use less energy and resources, and create less waste can help the environment.
Before moving forward with this lesson, download and review the worksheet.
Activity 1: Study the diagram about inputs and outputs in a food system.
INPUTS are resources and materials entering a system.
OUTPUTS come out of the system in the forms of:
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by-products: unintended result from producing something else.
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pollutants: gases, smokes, chemicals that make the environment dirty or adversely affect the usefulness of a resource.
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wastes: unwanted or unusable materials.
Download PDF file here
Complete the worksheet.
(Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, n.d.)
SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS
Food systems that aim to achieve food and nutrition security and healthy diets while limiting negative environmental impacts and improving socio-economic welfare especially focusing on protecting biodiversity and ecosystems as well as providing culturally acceptable, affordable, and safe foods
Activity 2: You will be learning about stock and flow, the two important concepts of any system.
A STOCK is an accumulation of material or information that has built over time. It maybe the water in a bathtub, a population, the books in a bookstore, the wood in a tree, the money in a bank, your own self-confidence, or your hope that the world can be better.
Stocks can change over time because of a FLOW. Flows are filling and draining, births and deaths, purchases and sales, growth and decay, deposits and withdrawals, successes and failures.
A stock takes time to change, because flows take time to flow.
Stock-and-flow diagram: Stocks are shown as boxes and flows as arrow-headed pipes leading into or out of the stocks. The faucet shows that each flow can be turned higher or lower, on or off. Look at some examples below.
In the first example, you harvest or buy food from farmers, the stores, or markets to fill your kitchen pantry. Then you or your family cook and eat the food. It depends on how much food you get and how quick you eat until the kitchen pantry needs to be restocked again.
The second example should get you to thinking that the body weight does not only depend on how much food you eat and how much CO2 you breathe back into the air or how much waste leaves your body into the toilet. Body weight depends on other variables. This diagram is only part of the complex system that has to do with your body weight. The diagram makes a complex system simpler to understand.
Now, let's look at another complex example.
To paint a better picture for the stock-and-flow diagram, this picture shows an input flow of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions into the giant bathtub or a stock that represents the atmosphere. In the food systems, greenhouse gases come from food production, food processing, packaging, transportation, and waste management. Basically, any steps in the food systems can emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
An output flow takes the greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere by the oceans or the forests that absorb some of the gases. We see an impact on the environment such as climate change and global warming because the faucet of input flow has been turned on high. But the faucet of output flow cannot keep up with that because we have fewer forests and the oceans can absorb a smaller proportion of fossil-fuel emissions.
Complete the worksheet.
CONCLUSION
You learned several concepts that are important to understand a system. You learned that inputs are materials or resources that go into the food systems and outputs that come out and have an impact on our health and the environment. Stock and flow are the concepts that represent an accumulation of information and material that can increase or decrease in a system.
Quote
Sustainability is treating ourselves and our environment as if we are to live on this earth forever.
- Arron Wood
References
Astudillo, A. L., Rodríguez, L. M., Lubo, C. M., Arenas, F., & Sierra, B. E. (2014). Evaluating carbon footprint behavior in the agriculture and
energy sectors: A review. Sistemas & Telemática, 12(31), 35-53. https://doi.org/10.18046/syt.v12i31.1914
Benjamin, D., & Virkler, L. (2016). Farm to table: The essential guide to sustainable food systems for students, professionals, and
consumers. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical. (n.d.). Sustainable food systems. Retrieved from
https://ciat.cgiar.org/about/strategy/sustainable-food-systems
Koch, P. A., Calabrese Barton, A., & Contento, I. R. (2008). Farm to table and beyond. New York, NY: Teacher College Columbia
University.
Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Yakovleva, N., & Flynn, A. (2004). Innovation and sustainability in the food system: A case of chicken production and consumption in the
UK. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 6(3-4), 227-250.