FOOD SYSTEMS RESOURCES: Overview

A food system includes the who, what, where, when, why and how of our food – from farm to fork. We belive the food system encompasses six domains: producing, processing, distributing, retailing, preparing and eating. The producing domain includes food derived from plants and animals (including fish) through cultivation or harvested from the wild. Processing concerns any transformation, packaging and labeling of food. Distributing includes the wholesaling, storage and transportation of food. Food retailing may be done via supermarkets, grocery stores, and farmers markets. In the preparing domain, we consider restaurants, institutional food service and procurement. Finally, the eating domain includes issues of nutrition, consumption, recycling and waste management. 

Locally Integrated Food Systems: a Circle of Connections

Usually, we think of food as following a linear path from farm to table—produced on farms, processed in factories, distributed by trucks and purchased by consumers at grocery stores or restaurants. Thinking, instead, of the food system as a circle reminds us that we are all linked in multiple ways. By paying attention to these connections and, when possible, strengthening them within our community, we begin to see that a host of outcomes are possible. The outer ring in the diagram suggests some outcomes of a community-based food system. When local agriculture and food production are integrated in community, food becomes part of a community’s problem-solving capacity rather than just a commodity that’s bought and sold. --Marty Heller