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IOM, NRC release report on analyzing food systems

The Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council today released a report on a framework for assessing the health, environmental, social, and economic effects of proposed changes to the food system.

Often, making a change that affects one part of the food system for one purpose has consequences — intended or unintended — for other parts of the system, the report says.

For example, a recommendation to increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables to promote healthier diets raises questions about the potential environmental or social impacts of increasing their supply, such as driving a greater need for irrigation water or farm labor.

The framework encourages broad and methodical thinking about the complexity of the food system and its relationship to health, environment, society, and the economy.

The report’s framework includes a set of principles to be considered throughout all steps of the process:
* Consider effects across the full food system. Positive and negative health, environmental, social, and economic effects occur all along the food supply chain.
* Address all domains and dimensions of effects. Any single assessment should consider health, environmental, social, and economic effects and recognize that trade-offs between the different effects will often be necessary.
* Account for system dynamics and complexities. An assessment should account for the food system being a complex, adaptive system with a wide variety of actors and processes that are interdependent and can adapt their behavior.
* Choose appropriate methods. Careful choice of metrics and methods is fundamental to conducting a meaningful assessment; these vary across health, environmental, social, and economic effects because of measurement challenges specific to each of these domains. The report identifies selected metrics, data sources, analytical techniques, and simulation models that might be used in an assessment of a policy or action affecting the food system.

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies — A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System (Read online)
— Report Brief
— Key Figures
— Food System Graphic