Agrifood systems


Agrifood systems encompass the primary production of food and non-food agricultural products, as well as in food storage, aggregation, post-harvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal and consumption. Within agrifood systems, food systems comprise all food products that originate from crop and livestock production, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, and from other sources such as synthetic biology, and that are intended for human consumption.
Agrifood systems have three main components:
  1. primary production, which includes food from agricultural and non-agricultural origins, as well as non-food agricultural products that serve as inputs to other industries;
  2. food distribution that links production to consumption through food supply chains and domestic food transport networks. Food supply chains include all actors and activities involved in post-harvest handling, storage, aggregation, transport, processing, distribution and marketing of food; and
  3. household consumption, which is the downstream outcome of functioning agrifood systems, subject to varying degrees of demand shocks, such as loss of income, depending on the proportion of vulnerable groups in the population. The higher this proportion, the more difficult it is to protect food security and nutrition from shocks.
The world's agrifood systems comprise a gargantuan global enterprise that each year produces approximately 11 billion tonnes of food and a multitude of non-food products, including 32 million tonnes of natural fibres and 4 billion m3 of wood. The estimated gross value of agricultural output in 2018 was US$3.5 trillion. Primary production alone provides about one-quarter of all employment globally, more than half in sub-Saharan Africa and almost 60 percent in low-income countries. Including middle and downstream segments – from food storage and processing to transportation, retailing and consumption – agrifood systems are the backbone of many economies. Even in the European Union, the food and beverage industry employs more people than any other manufacturing sector.FAO approximates that 1.23 billion people are employed globally in agrifood systems, amounting to about one-third of the global labor force.
The 2024 edition of the FAO report The State of Food and Agriculture 2024 adopts an agrifood systems typology with six categories – protracted crisis, traditional, expanding, diversifying, formalizing and industrial – to reveal that different systems face unique challenges and require targeted interventions. The typology uses a set of four variables, comprising agricultural value added per worker, number of supermarkets per capita, diet diversity, and urbanization. It is based on the food systems typology developed by Marshall et al. with the aim to offer a distinct classification of countries based on various aspects of their national agrifood systems, serving as a valuable addition to context-specific studies. The FAO typology adds the category for protracted crises to address the major disruptions caused by prolonged conflicts and vulnerabilities in agrifood systems, following the designation made in the "Global Report on Food Crises."

Challenges

Hunger and malnutrition

is increasing, and more so in countries affected by conflict, climate extremes and economic downturns, and with high income inequality. The magnitude and severity of food crises also worsened in 2020 as protracted conflict, the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and weather extremes exacerbated pre-existing fragilities. Economic downturns in 2020, including those resulting from COVID-19 restrictions, delivered the hardest blow in decades to those suffering from hunger, increasing the number of undernourished people by 118 million in 2020 alone and illustrating the devastating impact of a shock that occurs alongside existing vulnerabilities. According to Béné et al., there is little evidence of reduced food supply, which may be attributable to government exemptions for the agrifood sector. However, lockdowns and other mobility restrictions drastically reduced the movement of people and goods, which impacted livelihoods. Loss of income and purchasing power sharply reduced the food security and nutrition of billions of people, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. Families were forced to shift consumption to cheaper, less nutritious foods at a time when they needed to protect and strengthen their immune system. Reduced access to nutritious food and a shift to low-quality and energy-dense diets triggered by the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, also risk increasing the levels of overweight and obesity in almost all regions of the world. Adult obesity is on the rise with no reversal in the trend at global or regional level for more than 15 years, increasing the non-communicable diseases associated with those forms of malnutrition.

Demographic and environmental pressures

To feed a world population forecast to reach 9.7 billion in 2050, FAO estimates that agriculture may need to produce 40–54 percent more food, feed and biofuel feedstock than in 2012, depending on the scenario. Urbanization and greater affluence are shifting diets in many low-income and middle-income countries towards increased consumption of more resource-intensive animal source and processed food. If those trends continue, by 2030, diet-related health costs linked to non-communicable diseases will exceed US$1.3 trillion a year, while the annual cost of associated greenhouse gas emissions will exceed US$1.7 trillion.
This increased food demand is compounded by shocks and stresses, including more frequent and intense extreme and slow-onset events due to climate change, which threaten both agricultural production – crops, livestock, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry – and the middle and downstream stages of agrifood systems. But as agrifood systems are affected by climate shocks and stresses, they are themselves a major driver of climate change.

Hidden costs

Recent studies aimed at measuring and valuing the hidden costs of agrifood systems have used True Cost Accounting, an accounting approach that measures and values the hidden impacts of economic activities on the environment, society and health. These impacts are regarded as hidden because they are not reflected in the market prices of products and services, i.e. not included in the operational profit and loss accounts.
The scope of these studies differs depending on the research question being addressed, the geographical coverage and the hidden impacts to be included in the analysis. There are many hidden impacts and some are difficult to measure or quantify. For example, environmental externalities such GHG emissions are easy to include in any TCA analysis due to a wide availability of relevant data. However, the hidden impacts related to human and social capitals might be more difficult to find. Examples include impacts on working conditions and cultural identity.
In 2019, a study by the World Bank estimated the hidden costs of foodborne diseases in low and middle-income countries and found these to amount to USD 95.2 billion.
Three other studies have attempted to estimate the hidden costs of global agrifood systems. FOLU estimated them at USD 12 trillion, while Hendricks et al estimated them at USD 19 trillion. However, the latter, acknowledges the uncertainly in the estimate and concludes that the value would be between USD 7.2 trillion and USD 51.8 trillion. The third estimate in the 2023 edition of the FAO report: The State of Food and Agriculture estimates global hidden costs from agrifood systems to be USD 12.7 trillion. This study also acknowledges the uncertainty in the estimate. The FAO report shows the global value of the hidden costs has a 95 percent chance of being at least USD 10.8 trillion and a 5 percent chance of being at least USD 16 trillion. Differently from the other two studies, the FAO report assesses hidden costs of agrifood systems at the national level for 154 countries. It states these national numbers are consistent and comparable covering the major dimensions of agrifood system hidden costs, allowing not only comparison across countries, but also across the different dimensions.
Following up on the 2023 edition of the FAO report – The State of Food and Agriculture – the subsequent edition provides a detailed breakdown of the hidden costs associated with unhealthy dietary patterns that lead to non-communicable diseases for 156 countries. The report finds that in 2020, global health hidden costs amounted 8.1 trillion 2020 PPP dollars, 70 percent of all of the hidden costs of agrifood systems. Diets low in whole grains are the leading concern, alongside diets high in sodium and low in fruits, although there is significant variation across countries.

Resilience of agrifood systems

The resilience of agrifood systems refers to the capacity over time of agrifood systems, in the face of any disruption, to sustainably ensure availability of and access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for all, and sustain the livelihoods of agrifood systems' actors. According to FAO, truly resilient agrifood systems must have a robust capacity to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt and transform in the face of any disruption, with the functional goal of ensuring food security and nutrition for all and decent livelihoods and incomes for agrifood systems' actors. Such resilience addresses all dimensions of food security, but focuses specifically on stability of access and sustainability, which ensure food security in both the short and the long term.

Defining agrifood systems resilience

The resilience of agrifood systems builds on the concept of resilience, which originated in the study of ecosystems and evolved over 50 years into an object of study across an array of disciplines, including engineering, agriculture, economics and psychology. Although there is little agreement today as to a precise definition across disciplines, broadly speaking, resilience can be defined as the dynamic capacity to continue to achieve goals despite disturbances.
In a call for cross-sectoral collaboration to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt and transform in the face of shocks and stresses across all sectors of society, the United Nations has developed and adopted the UN Common Guidance on Helping Build Resilient Societies. Since there is a wide variety of risks relating to understanding resilience, the UN offers the following definition: "the ability of individuals, households, communities, cities, institutions, systems and societies to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt, and transform positively, efficiently and effectively when faced with a wide range of risks, while maintaining an acceptable level of functioning and without compromising long-term prospects for sustainable development, peace and security, human rights and well-being for all." Resilience building is a system-wide multi-risk, multi-actor and multisectoral effort.
In 2021, FAO released the first definition of agrifood systems and agrifood systems' resilience in The State of Food and Agriculture 2021 – Making agrifood systems more resilient to shocks and stresses. The definition of agrifood systems' resilience is adapted from Tendall et al.'s definition of food system resilience, which is "capacity over time of a food system and its units at multiple levels, to provide sufficient, appropriate and accessible food to all, in the face of various and even unforeseen disturbances". Agrifood systems are broader than food systems, as these encompass the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities in the primary production of food and non-food agricultural products, as well as in food storage, aggregation, post-harvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal and consumption.