Home to one-quarter of humanity—one-fifth of whom are youth—South Asia has the world’s largest concentration of poverty and malnutrition (1–3). Despite producing one-quarter of the world’s consumed food, the region’s agrifood systems face formidable challenges in producing an adequate and affordable supply of the diverse foods needed for sustainable healthy diets (4,5). Unhealthy food consumption is rising, and farming systems are threatened by unsustainable groundwater withdrawal due to poorly developed food and energy policies. In addition, South Asia’s farmers are both contributors and victims of climate change and extreme weather, which contributes to rural out-migration—particularly of youth—resulting in rising labor scarcity and increased production costs. TAFSSA (Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia), a CGIAR Regional Integrated Initiative, aims to address these challenges by delivering actionable evidence and scalable innovations across these regions through a coordinated program of research and engagement from farmer to consumer. One of the roadblocks to addressing these challenges is the lack of credible and high-resolution data on food systems in the region. The TAFSSA food systems assessment aims to provide a reliable, accessible and integrated evidence base that links farm production, market access, dietary patterns, climate risk responses, and natural resource management in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. It is intended to be a multi-year assessment.

There is growing evidence that gender disparities in the distribution of paid and unpaid work impose constraints on women’s well-being and livelihoods, reducing access to paid employment, and time for education, leisure, and social activities. Yet, gender disparities in unpaid work often go undiagnosed by traditional household surveys. While time-use surveys are well-suited for measuring unpaid work, they are often expensive to administer and take substantial amounts of survey time, leading to respondent fatigue, particularly in multi-topic surveys where other outcomes are also being collected. In this paper, we compare data collected using the task allocation module in the Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) integrated household survey and the time-use module in the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) survey. We begin by describing the methods used to collect the data in each of the surveys. We present an overview of the characteristics of the study sites in the TAFSSA integrated survey and sites in the same countries where the WEAI data were collected. We then present comparable data from each of the two methods. The findings confirm the gendered patterns in involvement in different activities as measured by both survey modules. While women’s participation in agricultural activities is high across Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, the amount of time they spend on agricultural activities is less than that spent by men. Both survey tools confirm that women undertake most of the food preparation-related activities, and men contribute through shopping/purchasing food.

Food systems around the world face a triple challenge: providing food security and nutrition for a growing global population; supporting livelihoods for those working along the food supply chain; and contributing to environmental sustainability. Better policies hold tremendous promise for making progress in these domains.

This comprehensive overview of local food systems explores alternative definitions of local food, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of the economic and health impacts of local food systems. Defining ¿local¿ based on marketing arrangements, such as farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers¿ markets or to schools, is well recognized. Statistics suggest that local food markets account for a small, but growing, share of U.S. agricultural production. For smaller farms, direct marketing to consumers accounts for a higher percentage of their sales than for larger farms. Charts and tables.

Food systems are currently facing tremendous challenges and changes globally. On the one hand, population growth, urbanization, and increased affluence are expected to catalyze dietary shifts and broader changes to food systems in the coming decades. On the other hand, food systems (and changes therein) have major environmental and social ramifications. As a result, fostering the sustainable transformation of food systems is seen as one of the major challenges for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, understanding food systems, and transforming them in a sustainable manner is far from straightforward, especially as our food systems have multiple intersecting economic, social, technological, and cultural dimensions. Moreover, food systems encompass different stakeholders operating at different levels with enormously different interests and worldviews.

Sustainable Food System Assessment provides both practical and theoretical insights about the growing interest in and response to measuring food system sustainability. Bringing together research from the Global North and South, this book shares lessons learned, explores intended and actual project outcomes, and highlights points of conceptual and methodological convergence. Interest in assessing food system sustainability is growing, as evidenced by the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact and the importance food systems initiatives have taken in serving as a lever for attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book opens by looking at the conceptual considerations of food systems indicators, including the place-based dimensions of food systems indicators and how measurements are implicated in sense-making and visioning processes. Chapters in the second part cover operationalizing metrics, including the development of food systems indicator frameworks, degrees of indicator complexities, and practical constraints to assessment. The final part focuses on the outcomes of assessment projects, including impacts on food policy and communities involved, highlighting the importance of building connections between sustainable food systems initiatives. The global coverage and multi-scalar perspectives, including both conceptual and practical aspects, make this a key resource for academics and practitioners across planning, geography, urban studies, food studies, and research methods. It will also be of interest to government officials and those working within NGOs. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/Sustainable-Food-System-Assessment-Lessons-from-Global-Practice/Blay-Palmer-Conare-Meter-Battista-Johnston/p/book/9781032083933, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans' well-being than any other human activity. The food industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality, and the federal budget. From the earliest developments of agriculture, a major goal has been to attain sufficient foods that provide the energy and the nutrients needed for a healthy, active life. Over time, food production, processing, marketing, and consumption have evolved and become highly complex. The challenges of improving the food system in the 21st century will require systemic approaches that take full account of social, economic, ecological, and evolutionary factors. Policy or business interventions involving a segment of the food system often have consequences beyond the original issue the intervention was meant to address. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System develops an analytical framework for assessing effects associated with the ways in which food is grown, processed, distributed, marketed, retailed, and consumed in the United States. The framework will allow users to recognize effects across the full food system, consider all domains and dimensions of effects, account for systems dynamics and complexities, and choose appropriate methods for analysis. This report provides example applications of the framework based on complex questions that are currently under debate: consumption of a healthy and safe diet, food security, animal welfare, and preserving the environment and its resources. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System describes the U.S. food system and provides a brief history of its evolution into the current system. This report identifies some of the real and potential implications of the current system in terms of its health, environmental, and socioeconomic effects along with a sense for the complexities of the system, potential metrics, and some of the data needs that are required to assess the effects. The overview of the food system and the framework described in this report will be an essential resource for decision makers, researchers, and others to examine the possible impacts of alternative policies or agricultural or food processing practices.