World Food Policy Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 116

Advancing Health Promoting Food Systems

society auspiced food systems; and (B)
advancement of human development and
security systems, namely: linking human
security policies with food security
policies; and the pursuit of healthsensitive development.
4.1 - Three action domains to advance
nutrition and bio-sensitive food systems
4.1.1 - Bio-sensitive environmental stewardship

The geo-spatial and agroecological conditions which influence the
viability of different approaches to national
food supplies vary between countries.
Hence, there is no one internationally
applicable response. Instead the response
has to be based on a resilient systems
principle: diversity in approaches—urban
and rural agriculture, non-commodified
and commodified food systems, smallscale and industrial-scale sectors, local
food self-sufficiency and the fair-free trade
in food—and an agro-ecology approach.
Agro-ecology refers to a holistic systems
approach, which not only acknowledges
the specificities of local natural conditions,
but the specifics of historical approaches to
food production and producer capacities
in terms of education, incomes, access
to technological developments, market
access. It reorients practices to those that
are most sustainable in the natural and
social environment, which tends to favor
small-hold producers8.

In terms of advancing sustainable
and healthy diets, a “healthy agriculture

for healthy populations” approach is being
advocated (Simopoulos, Bourne, and
Faergeman 2013; Dangour et al. 2012).
Under this new “agri-health” paradigm,
healthy populations reflect healthy
agriculture systems and healthy agriculture
systems reflect healthy populations
attuned to sustainability principles.
In the UK, the Leverhulme Centre for
Integration of Research on Health and
Agriculture (LCIRAH) has been working
to develop a set of tools and indicators
to measure progress in advancing food
system impacts on livelihoods, health
outcomes, and environmental outcomes
simultaneously (see http://www.lcirah.
ac.uk/node/9; Hawkesworth et al. 2010).

There have been other highlevel agency interventions arguing
that “business as usual” approaches
will not guarantee food and nutrition
security. The Standing Committee on
Agricultural Research (SCAR), European
Union, has contrasted a productivist
approach to agriculture with a sufficiency
approach, which involves internalizing
the environmental impacts of food
production and consumption through a
combination of technological innovations,
behavior change and food system-wide
structural changes (SCAR 2011). The UNand World Bank-sponsored International
Assessment of Agricultural Science and
Technology for Development (2008) noted
increasing scientific and development
practitioner consensus that sustaining the
earth and its people requires less reliance
on industrial agriculture made possible
by non-renewable resource inputs.

8

See also resources from The Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems, University of California, Santa Cruz.
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