Food and sustainability: the sustainable food system index

Sustainable transitions have become the guiding principles of today’s century with food systems at the core of it. Food and nutrition illustrate a basic human need, inevitable for any living organism, and deeply entangled within the ecosystem. Thus, food systems represent predominant endeavours when aiming towards Agenda 2030. In line with displaying complex socio-ecological processes, heavily affected by ongoing interrelations among human and natural components, three categories identify as crucial for sustainable food systems – food security, ecosystem stability and resilience and sociocultural wellbeing. In combination with the research aim of assessing the sustainability degree of performing food systems in place, a Sustainable Food System Index (SFSI) has been established. The SFSI measures food system sustainability across 33 countries among 3 categories and 9 dimensions by employing 39 indicators, 65 sub-indicators and 38 sub-sub-indicators. The results display the varying degree of sustainable food systems among performing countries across selected indicators. The overall index score highlights Sweden as the front runner, closely followed by France and the United Kingdom, while laggards illustrate Ethiopia, Nigeria and India. With food systems being caught in a vicious circle with the ecosystem and the environment, economically poor regions are particularly vulnerable due to its smallholder dependency on agricultural systems. The SFSI outcomes provide more insights into the sustainability’s state of analysed food systems in the categories of food safety, ecosystem stability and resilience, as well as sociocultural wellbeing and might serve as foundation for future sustainable food system research. ; Transições sustentáveis têm se tornado os princípios orientadores do século de hoje, com sistemas alimentares em seu núcleo. Alimentação e nutrição ilustram uma necessidade humana básica, inevitável para qualquer organismo vivo e, profundamente entrelaçada com o ecossistema. Assim, sistemas alimentares ...