Abstract
This Analysis presents a recently developed food system indicator framework and holistic monitoring architecture to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience. Each theme is divided into three to five indicator domains, and indicators were selected to reflect each domain through a consultative process. In total, 50 indicators were selected, with at least one indicator available for every domain. Harmonized data of these 50 indicators provide a baseline assessment of the world’s food systems. We show that every country can claim positive outcomes in some parts of food systems, but none are among the highest ranked across all domains. Furthermore, some indicators are independent of national income, and each highlights a specific aspiration for healthy, sustainable and just food systems. The Food Systems Countdown Initiative will track food systems annually to 2030, amending the framework as new indicators or better data emerge.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1090-1110 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Nature Food |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2023 |
Funding
We acknowledge the essential contribution made by the external experts and participants in the regional stakeholder consultations. Our work would not have been possible without their input. Their names are listed in Supplementary Appendix . We also thank R. A. Bejarano of American University and A. Bellows of the University of Edinburgh for their assistance with R coding as well as Z. (B.) Zhang for her contributions to the data team. We thank R. Ibrahim of the World Food Programme; G. Martini, also of the World Food Programme; and the MUFPP team for facilitating access to data underlying their online displays in dataset formats. And we thank C. Pedersen of GAIN for her contributions to the indicator selection process. The views expressed in this paper are the authors\u2019 only and cannot be taken to represent any organization\u2019s (FAO, GAIN, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University or the institutional home of any other author) policies or views on the subject matter. We acknowledge the following sources of funding for this work: the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (D.A., D.D., M.D.G., L.H., G.K., N.Q., S.N., K.S. and T.B.), the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Distinguished Professorship (J.F., L.M., Q.M., R.M. and K.S.), FAO (N.A., A.C., C. Cafiero, P. Conforti, I.E., C.F., P.L., H.M., J.R.M. and M.T.C.), the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability (M. Herrero), Bloomberg Philanthropies (S.B.), the CGIAR Initiative on Foresight (K.W.), the Swiss Federal Office of Agriculture (F.N.T.), the Ohio State University (R.L.), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (U.R.S.), USAID and the Feed the Future Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab (P.W.) and the World Food Programme (P.F. and J.-L.V.-P.). All remaining authors declare they had no funding for this work. We acknowledge the essential contribution made by the external experts and participants in the regional stakeholder consultations. Our work would not have been possible without their input. Their names are listed in Supplementary Appendix 3. We also thank R. A. Bejarano of American University and A. Bellows of the University of Edinburgh for their assistance with R coding as well as Z. (B.) Zhang for her contributions to the data team. We thank R. Ibrahim of the World Food Programme; G. Martini, also of the World Food Programme; and the MUFPP team for facilitating access to data underlying their online displays in dataset formats. And we thank C. Pedersen of GAIN for her contributions to the indicator selection process. The views expressed in this paper are the authors\u2019 only and cannot be taken to represent any organization\u2019s (FAO, GAIN, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University or the institutional home of any other author) policies or views on the subject matter. We acknowledge the following sources of funding for this work: the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (D.A., D.D., M.D.G., L.H., G.K., N.Q., S.N., K.S. and T.B.), the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Distinguished Professorship (J.F., L.M., Q.M., R.M. and K.S.), FAO (N.A., A.C., C. Cafiero, P. Conforti, I.E., C.F., P.L., H.M., J.R.M. and M.T.C.), the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability (M. Herrero), Bloomberg Philanthropies (S.B.), the CGIAR Initiative on Foresight (K.W.), the Swiss Federal Office of Agriculture (F.N.T.), the Ohio State University (R.L.), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (U.R.S.), USAID and the Feed the Future Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab (P.W.) and the World Food Programme (P.F. and J.-L.V.-P.). All remaining authors declare they had no funding for this work.