Food Systems and Social-Ecological Transformation

Food systems include food production, distribution, and consumption that need to be changed in the social-ecological transformation. The modernisation of agriculture and food systems since the twentieth century brought social and environmental damage. Social damages include increasing social and economic inequality, deteriorating food quality, and increasing food waste. Ecological damages include deforestation, degradation of agroecosystems, reduction of biodiversity, loss of fertile soils through erosion, pollution of groundwater and soils through agrochemicals, and emissions of greenhouse gases. In future food production, the decoupling of food production from the land and the sea can create new risks and problems in factory-like forms of vertical agriculture.