Societal Challenges are the big aspects associated with food systems. In SUSFANS 4 such challenges are defined, on which the food systems are measured. To address these societal challenges, policy makers define policy visions to agree upon a general direction for progress concerning each challenge.
For SUSFANS challenge areas, it would be ensuring balanced and sufficient food for EU citizens; reducing environmental impacts of the food system; improving the competitiveness EU agri-food businesses; and promoting a more equitable distribution of costs and benefits emerging from food systems. A policy vision is often accompanied by a policy goal, i.e. a certain target that needs to be reached.
To assess the status of the food system in respect to a certain policy goal, SUSFANS has come up with indicators that aim to measure the status of this policy goal. This is done by building up performance metrics; the four components that make up this policy goal.
The following section describes policy goal equitable outcomes and conditions of EU food systems that was embedded in Deliverable 6.3.
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Equity: Equitable outcomes and conditions of the EU food system
One of the principal values underlying sustainable development is social equity. For food systems to deliver sustainable food and nutrition security, they must deliver not just the right nutritional outcomes but also in a way that considers equitable access to food, profitability of the sector and environmental health (Tirado von der Pahlen et al. 2018). Since global efforts to reduce inequalities and secure food security and sustainable development (e.g. MDGs and the more recent SDGs) have as of yet not been very effective. While the number of undernourished people has decreased from little over 1 million (19% of world population) to 795 million people (11% of world population) in 2014-2016 (FAO, 2015), it has grown again in 2017 to nearly 820 million (FAO 2018).
Earliest recognition of the importance of equity in a broader sense, can be traced back to adding of elements aiming to capture equity within the concept food security (Sen 1981). Here, the aim was to understand wider socioeconomic and cultural context that affect opportunities to access food. Since then equity considerations have been on the broader development agenda but have mostly matured in fields other than food security. The equity agenda in food focussed on human rights (See e.g. Esterik 1999), livelihoods (See e.g. Scoones 1998), and food sovereignty (Via campesina 1996). More recently calls for integration of equity considerations in the broader food systems thinking have intensified (IPES Food 2015; O’Neill 2018). This starts with bridging the gap between food sovereignty and food security communities; which arguably have only served to further define the differences between the field, rather than how they can complement each other (Clapp 2014). Moreover, it requires defining what equity in sustainable food systems means (Tirado von der Pahlen et al. 2018) and the definition of indicators (O’Neill et al. 2018).