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Understanding food systems drivers: A critical review of the literature

Article  in  Global Food Security · May 2019

DOI: 10.1016/j.gfs.2019.04.009

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 Global Food Security 23 (2019) 149–159

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Global Food Security

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gfs

Understanding food systems drivers: A critical review of the literature T

a,∗ a,∗∗ a a
Christophe Béné , Steven D. Prager , Harold A.E. Achicanoy , Patricia Alvarez Toro ,
Lea Lamottea,b, Camila Bonilla Cedrezc, Brendan R. Mapesd
a
Decision and Policy Analysis Program, International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia
b
Institut D’Etudes Politiques de Lyon, France
c
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, USA
d
Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, USA

1. Introduction Systems for Nutrition, 2016; HLPE, 2017; Béné et al., 2019).
Improving our comprehension of the dynamics of food systems and
As a general term, the concept of a “food system” is undergoing a their (un)sustainability will depend on the identification of the main
rapid evolution in meaning. Early literature on food systems typically drivers that affect those dynamics. Understanding better food system
focused on addressing key dimensions of food systems in relation to the drivers - both what they are and how they function - is therefore one of
need to feed growing populations. The treatment of the subject ranged the first steps toward supporting policy-makers at the global, national
from production and distribution issues (Collins, 1963) to more con- and subnational/municipality levels in designing and implementing
sumption and consumer oriented questions in increasingly in- appropriate policy and interventions. Unfortunately, although some
dustrialized economies (Padberg, 1970). In recent years, a more holistic conceptual and theoretical advances in defining food systems and their
concept of a “food system” has gained traction amongst both scholars related indicators and metrics have shed light on important aspects of
and policy-makers (Ericksen, 2008; Global Panel on Agriculture and these complex dynamics (e.g. Fanzo et al., 2012; FAO, 2013; Gustafson
Food Systems for Nutrition, 2016) with a perspective that integrates, et al., 2016; Chaudhary et al., 2018), researchers and analysts are still
“all the elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infra- struggling with one critical question: What drives the rapid changes
structures, institutions, etc.) and activities that relate to the production, seen in the current food systems worldwide? A few recent attempts to
processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and the address this question have been proposed in the literature – see e.g.
output of these activities, including socio-economic and environmental Godfray et al. (2010); Ericksen et al. (2010); Herforth and Ahmed
outcomes,” (HLPE, 2017). A graphical representation of food system (2015); Allen and Prosperi (2016). While important and comprehensive
based on this holistic interpretation is proposed in Fig. 1 and will be steps in their own right, one or more conceptual or methodological
discussed in greater detail in section 2.2 below. difficulties challenge each of these analyses:
As an outgrowth of this more encompassing interpretation of food
systems, experts from diverse disciplines and intellectual traditions are ⁃ Lack of clear definition – a review of these different analyses re-
now increasingly interested in questions related to the nature and origin veals a lack of consistency and clarity about what exactly a food
of the unsustainability of our modern food systems (e.g. Eakin et al., system driver is (or is not). In effect, very little of this literature
2016; Béné et al., 2019). To date, however, this reflection has been provides a clear definition of what is understood by food system
largely qualitative, as the data that is currently available in relation to drivers. This lack of clarity leads to confusion as to what should be
food systems tends to be fragmented and incomplete. The lack of appropriately included in these analyses and raises a more funda-
comprehensive datasets impedes our ability to comprehend holistically mental issue in relation to the inter-comparability of their findings.
the dynamics and complexity of food systems (Seto and Ramankutty, ⁃ ‘Replication’ and/or strong cross-correlation amongst drivers –
2016). as a consequence of this lack of definition, one often faces what
Because of those limitations, there is an urgent need to better un- might be termed a ‘shopping list syndrome,’ whereby very long
derstand the ways in which food systems are currently evolving. Food catalogues of potential drivers are proposed without necessary
systems are transitioning and transforming very rapidly in high, middle consideration of whether data exist for these drivers, or whether
and low-income countries, with important implications for growing these drivers are replicating one another. This lack of precision and
challenges such as under and over nutrition, but also environmental conciseness reduces substantially the usefulness of those proposed
and social sustainability issues (Global Panel on Agriculture and Food inventories.

∗
Corresponding author.
∗∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C. Béné), [email protected] (S.D. Prager).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2019.04.009
Received 16 December 2018; Received in revised form 14 April 2019; Accepted 16 April 2019
2211-9124/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
C. Béné, et al. Global Food Security 23 (2019) 149–159

Fig. 1. Conceptual framework of food systems – the drivers listed in this framework are those discussed in the paper.

⁃ Lack of conceptual precision – finally, the review also reveals several multidisciplinary databases including Google Scholar, JSTOR,
inconsistencies about how drivers are described and what char- and Scopus. The research publications were limited to the period
acterizes their relationship with the food systems that they are ex- 2000–2017 and to English (language) literature. Thirty three docu-
pected to influence. In particular, distinctions between endogeneity ments were identified. In turn, we evaluated each document relative to
vs. exogeneity and “intended” vs. “unintended” drivers are often the three aforementioned issues.
overlooked, further limiting conceptual clarity and comparability.
2.2. Absence of clear definition
In this context,1 the objective of this paper is to carry out a rigorous
review of food system drivers and, from this review, to derive a sub-set While many documents frequently mention drivers in various sec-
of drivers that offer a more robust basis for further analysis and inter- tions of their analysis (mainly introduction and/or discussion) (see
comparison. By ‘rigorous’ we mean a review that follows a clear and Table 1 for details), only a handful of documents discuss food system
conceptually solid approach, and that maintains strict consistency with drivers more thoroughly. Those include Ericksen (2008); Kearney
certain predefined quality parameters – in particular in relation to the (2010); Allen and Prosperi (2016); Zurek et al. (2016); HLPE (2017).
three technical issues listed above: lack of clear definition, risk of re- However, none of these documents actually clarify what they mean
plication amongst proposed drivers, and poor conceptual basis. exactly by “drivers” of food systems ,2 and a closer look reveals that
what is presented as “drivers” (in those documents but also in the wider
2. Methodology literature) are often simply processes and events that are known (or
simply theoretically expected) to have an impact on food systems.
In this section the different steps that were adopted to rigorously Food price volatility offers insight into this definitional issue. Food
scan the literature and identify a robust set of food system drivers are price volatility is often presented as a driver of food systems (e.g. Allen
presented. The first of those steps was to carry out a critical assessment and Prosperi, 2016). We argue, however, that this is not necessary the
of the literature whereby articles which mention drivers of food systems case. For a specific process to be considered as a driver the effect of this
were identified and their content thoroughly analyzed with regards to process needs to be continuous over a certain period of time so that it
the issues of (i) definition, (ii) replication, and (iii) conceptual clarity. effectively alters or influences the system durably and consistently.3 In
the case of price volatility, this distinction means that, while the con-
tinuous impact of volatility of input or output prices could eventually
2.1. Critical literature review
become a driver, a given time-bounded episode of volatility in those
prices would not qualify from this perspective. In this case, an episode
First, a series of targeted search criteria were used to identify which
of price volatility might be a crisis or a shock, but would not have the
of the peer-reviewed articles and gray literature (documents and reports
from expert groups and international development agencies) that dis-
cuss food systems, also mention food systems drivers. The key-words 2
In an earlier version (Draft V0), the HLPE report had defined food system
used for this search were therefore “food system(s)” AND “driver(s)” in drivers as “Key elements and inputs that drive the activities, actors, environ-
the title, abstract, or body of the document. A systematic search fa- ments and outcomes of the food system” (HLPE draft 2016, p.15). Un-
cilitated the identification of the relevant documents available in fortunately this definition was not retained in the final version of the document.
3
This understanding is in line with the various definitions of driver found in
the general literature. A driver is for instance defined in the Collin Dictionary as
1
In addition to those three conceptual shortcomings, other major issues can “a mechanical component that exerts a force on another to produce motion”
be found in the literature on food systems. Those include issues related to while in computer science the choice of the term “driver” is said to have derived
boundary definition and terminology. Those will not be discussed in this paper from the “to direct the motions and course of (a draft animal)" meaning of “to
however, which focuses only on drivers. drive” (Merriam-Webster dictionary).

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C. Béné, et al. Global Food Security 23 (2019) 149–159

Table 1 or indicators which replicate each other's effect may distort the analysis
List of documents identified through the literature review, which mention or and lead to erroneous conclusions. Absence of data, on the other hand,
discuss food system drivers. means that the conclusions of those analyses are generally based on
Document Level of analysis(1) –and therefore biased toward- the situations/countries for which data
are available (usually high income or OECD countries). The thorough
Allen, and Prosperi (2016). thoroughly discussed review of the initial 33 documents mentioning food system drivers led
Allen and Cogill, 2014. mentioned
to the inventory of more than 155 drivers. A careful check for possible
Berdegué et al. (2014). discussed
Bernstein (2016). mentioned replication and for drivers for which datasets do not exist or are
Biel (2016). mentioned available for only a few countries revealed that more than 80% of the
Brunner et al. (2010). discussed 155 drivers proposed in the literature are effectively either overlapping
Choffnes et al. (2012). mentioned
(replicating each other), do not have any associated existing indicator,
Eakin et al., 2016. mentioned
Epstein and Roy (2001). Discussed
or those indicators are available only for a limited number of (high
Ericksen et al. (2010). mentioned income) countries.
Ericksen (2008). thoroughly discussed
Fanzo et al. (2012). mentioned
FAO (2014). discussed (4) 2.4. Lack of conceptual clarity
FAO-IFAD-WFP (2015). discussed
FCRN, Food climate research FCRNFood climate discussed
research network, 2015. A third issue revealed by the review of the literature relates to some
Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for discussed of the characteristics of those drivers, and in particular their status as
Nutrition, 2016. external or internal factors –or using different jargon: as exogenous or
Godfray et al. (2010). Discussed
endogenous to the food system. In the socio-ecological systems litera-
Grace (2016). mentioned
Grando et al. (2016). discussed ture, Walker et al. (2012) consider drivers as exogenous.4 They remark,
Herforth and Ahmed (2015). mentioned “The system changes as a consequence of both (…) internal relation-
HLPE (2017). thoroughly discussed ships and the effects of external drivers —variables that, within the
Kearney (2010). thoroughly discussed(2) scale of the analysis, are not considered to be part of the system and are
Kotir et al. (2017). discussed (3)
Melesse, van den Berg et al. (in prep) mentioned
not affected by what happens within the system.” (Walker et al., 2012,
Prosperi et al. (2016). discussed p.1, our emphasis).5 Similarly, in the food system literature, Allen and
Prosperi et al., 2014. mentioned Prosperi (2016), who propose to conceptualize food systems as socio-
Ranganathan et al. (2016). mentioned ecological systems, also consider that drivers of food systems are “ex-
Schipanski et al. (2016). mentioned
ternal variables” (2016, p.962) - see also their Fig. 1 p.961.
UNEP, 2016. mentioned
Walker et al. (2012). discussed (5) We take a different stand in this paper. Our view is that drivers of
WEF, 2017. mentioned food systems can be internal or external –and that this characteristic
WWF, 2016. mentioned depends on the boundaries of the system. Take the case of consumers
Zurek et al. (2016). thoroughly discussed for instance. Based on the definition of “food system” adopted in this
paper, consumers are considered as internal elements/components of
Notes: (1) “mentioned” refers to documents which simply mention series of
‘potential’ drivers without discussing them (those documents usually suffer
food systems. Yet, changes in their behavior, choices or life styles are
from one or several of the conceptual or methodological limitations discussed in recognized to be amongst some of the most powerful drivers of food
the text); “discussed” refers to documents which contain paragraphs dedicated systems (Kearney, 2010; Godfray et al., 2010; Herforth and Ahmed,
to the subject. Those may still however suffer from one or several of the lim- 2015; Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition,
itations discussed in the text. “thoroughly discussed” refers to documents which 2016). On the other hand, some other important drivers of food systems
specifically address the question of food system drivers as a central element in are clearly exogenous. The aforementioned increase in severity and
their analysis. frequency of weather-related extreme events which we mentioned
(2) discusses thoroughly drivers of food consumption only. earlier is a good example. Another example would be the population's
(3) discusses “drivers of change”. general improvement in access to information through social media.
(4) discusses value chain drivers only.
Those last two examples (weather-related extreme events or access to
(5) theoretical analysis - not specifically applied to Food Systems.
information through social media) along with others mentioned in the
following paragraph (e.g. policies on urban infrastructure) are defini-
persistent effect that makes it a driver. Similarly “climate change” is
tively external drivers of the food systems.6
often presented as a driver of food systems (see e.g. Grando et al., 2016;
Separate but similar to this issue of exogeneity vs. endogeneity is
Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, 2016;
another characteristic of drivers, related to their “intended” vs. “unin-
HLPE, 2017). However climate change per se is too vague as a generic
tended” nature: like in other systems, drivers of food systems can in-
concept to be useful in this discussion. In particular, weather-related
deed be either intended/deliberate or on the contrary unintended/ac-
extreme events such as floods or droughts are not drivers of food sys-
cidental. The terms intended vs. unintended has been chosen
tems (even if they can disturb/affect them). On the other hand, the
specifically in reference to the concept of “unintended consequences”
recurrence or the increase in the frequency and the intensity of those
which is commonly used, in particular in social sciences or policy
extreme events will eventually become a driver –as people, individually
analysis literature (see e.g. Anderson, 2004; Friedson, 2012) where
or collectively, will start to adapt (change their behavior/technology),
unintended consequences (sometimes termed unanticipated con-
which will eventually alter the system durably.
sequences or accidental consequences) are defined as outcomes that are

2.3. Risk of replicated or empty datasets 4

Note here that those authors did not specifically aim at discussing or de-
scribing food systems but more generally social-ecological systems.
A direct consequence of the absence of clear definition is the issue 5
Note that not all of the socio-ecological systems literature holds drivers as
which we referred to as the “shopping list syndrome” (the tendency of fundamentally external –see e.g. Cooper and Dearing (2019).
authors to propose endless lists of drivers without consideration of 6
We recognize the existence of long-term feedback loops whereby the
possible replication and without checking whether actual data exist for changes in food system dynamics eventually also impact in return those ex-
these drivers). If not properly accounted for, the presence of variables ternal processes – level of greenhouse gas emission for instance- see Fig. 1.

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C. Béné, et al. Global Food Security 23 (2019) 149–159

Table 2
Typology of drivers of food systems.
Exogenous/external driver Endogenous/internal driver

Intended/controllable driver Example: National policy aiming at supporting the transition to green Example: Any civil society or governmental actions aiming at
energy use. reducing the consumption of carbonated beverages.
Unintended/accidental Example: The progressive increase in temperature in certain part of the Example: The tendency of consumers of low and middle income
driver world, which will lead to the decrease in agricultural production of several countries to consume more meat as their income increase.
crops.

not the “ones foreseen and intended by a purposeful action” (Merton, 2.6. Inductive analysis
1936, p.895). Specific policies or combinations of policies which aim at
influencing or nudging behaviors of food system actors (suppliers or Building on the critical review presented in section 2.1, we con-
consumers) purposely in a particular direction would fall under the ducted an inductive analysis of the literature on food systems. Inductive
category of intentional drivers (see Englberger et al., 2013; Downs learning (in relation to science and logic) refers to the “process of in-
et al., 2013; Garrett et al., 2016 for some examples of intentional food ferring a general law or principle from observation of particular in-
system policies). Some of those intentional policies may even be for- stances” (Gauch, 2003, p.159). In our case the objective was therefore
mulated in domains or sectors that are only remotely or not directly to determine whether a core set of drivers could be identified more
related to food systems, and may therefore be considered as exogenous. ‘qualitatively’ from the literature on food systems, that is, based on the
A good example would be policies around urban planning trying to ban relevance of their contribution to an overall understanding of food
street vendors from specific urban areas. system function.
Other drivers, however, are unintended or accidental. Urbanization For this, we began by identifying specific observations and trends
is one such example. Urbanization is an important driver of food sys- made in the literature about what processes influence food systems,
tems (see below), yet this is a process that is largely considered as subsequently looking for patterns in those empirical observations/
unintended and is not explicitly controlled. But those unintended dri- documents and then formulating a series of propositions on what the
vers don't have to be systematically exogenous. One can also find en- key drivers generating these patterns are. An effort was made to ensure
dogenous drivers which lead to unintended consequences. Tillotson that only main processes were considered amongst the pool of the in-
(2003) for instance in his article “Pandemic Obesity: Unintended Policy fluencing factors so that only major drivers were eventually retained.
Consequences” discusses the possible contribution of various food po- To help further structure our analysis, we classified food systems dy-
licies to the occurrence of obesity. namics along three distinct elements: production-supply, trade-dis-
Table 2 presents a typology of drivers that captures some of the tribution, and demand-consumption. The assumption is that key drivers
elements discussed above. In the light of this, we propose that ‘drivers’ of food systems are affecting different processes within all of those three
of food systems be defined as “endogenous or exogenous processes that dimensions. Finally, to increase the policy-relevance of the analysis, we
deliberately or unintentionally affect or influence a food system over a considered future (expected) drivers in addition to those currently ob-
long-enough period so that their impacts result in altering durably the servable.
activities, and subsequently the outcomes, of that system”.
2.7. Key-findings of the inductive analysis

2.5. Conceptualization of food systems Twelve principle drivers of food system were identified through the
inductive analysis. Table 3 confirms that those 12 drivers comply with
Prior to undertaking a more in-depth analysis of the drivers of food the definition elaborated above - in particular that (i) their effects in-
system, it is useful to present the conceptual foundation on which the fluence durably the actors and/or activities of the systems -and there-
analysis is build. The framework (Fig. 1), which acknowledges previous fore are not just temporary shocks; (ii) that they are not replicating each
(old or more recent) works (e.g. Ericksen, 2008; Global Panel on other and that indicators documenting their dynamics exist for a large
Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, 2016; HLPE, 2017), details number of countries, and (iii) that their origin (external or internal) and
the main components of food systems (supply chain actors/activities, the nature of their effects (deliberate or unintentional) on food systems
food environment, consumers, final outcomes, drivers, and general can be determined.
context) and how those different elements are linked and interact with Table 4 and sections 2.8 to 2.10 below provide a more detailed
one another. It emphasizes the four types of food system outcomes: description of each of those drivers7 and how they contribute to the
nutrition, food security and health; environment; social; and economic overall dynamics of food systems across the dimensions of demand-
outcomes, and that those different outcomes are characterized by sy- consumption, trade-distribution, and production-supply.
nergies but also trade-offs (Béné et al., 2019). It underlines the ex-
istence of feedbacks from the system activities, food environment,
2.8. Drivers of consumption-demand dynamics
consumers, but also from the outcomes. This “system-thinking” fosters a
more appropriate conceptualization of food systems, one that presents
The literature appears to be relatively consistent on the consump-
food system not just as a linear chain of activities spreading from
tion-demand side where three distinct but related drivers have been so
production to consumption – the famous “farm to fork”- but as a
far systematically highlighted: population growth, increases in income,
complex, heterogeneous and circular system replete with linear as well
and urbanization (e.g. Ingram, 2011; Miller et al., 2016; Ranganathan
as non-linear feedbacks. The framework also stresses the multi-causality
et al., 2016). Those drivers are recognized to induce some fundamental
of food systems resulting from multiple interactions among those in-
changes in people's diet and corresponding demand for food (Popkin,
terdependent components. Finally it highlights that drivers can have
2001, 2006; Baker and Friel, 2016). In particular, urbanization [1]
effects on supply actors/activities, food environment; consumers -or
(combined with increasing involvement of women in economic
combinations of those. The rest of the paper discusses in greater detail
those drivers.
7
Numbers in bracket in sections 3.1 to 3.4 refer to drivers as listed in Tables 3
and 4

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 C. Béné, et al.

Table 3
The twelve principle drivers identified through the inductive analysis and their level of compliance with the criteria characterizing food system drivers.
Driver Durable influence Effect on actors or activities Replica of other Global-scale dataset Origin (external/ Nature (deliberate/
drivers in the table (number of countries) internal) unintentional)

[1] Urbanization •started in 19th century effect on demand for processed food No World Bank data1 (213) external unintentional
[2] Raise in consumers' income •started in 19th century effect on demand for animal-based protein No World Bank data2 (192) internal unintentional
[3] Population growth •accelerating since 1960s effect on overall demand for food No World Bank data3 (214) external unintentional
[4] Attention paid to diet and health issues •current growing trend effect on consumer consumption and health No Google trends data4 (68) internal deliberate
[5] Technological innovations •since beginning of 20th effect on per capita agricultural outputs No World Bank data5 (149) internal deliberate
century
[6] Intensification and homogenization of the •since the 1950s effect on soils and agro-ecological conditions No World Bank data6 (179) internal unintentional
agricultural sector
7
[7] Increase in frequency and intensity of extreme •observed since the early effect on agricultural production of crops No World Bank data (205) external unintentional
events 2000s

153
[8] General degradation in soils and agro-ecological •started in the 1930s effect on agricultural production of crops No Stoorvogel et al. (2017)8 internal unintentional
conditions (214)
[9] Improved access to infrastructure and •since the 1950s effect on producers' capacity to engage in No NOAA9 (214) external unintentional
information food systems
10
[10] Trade policies and other processes influencing •since the 1950s effect on demand for food quality and safety No World Bank data (144) external/internal unintentional/deliberate
trade expansion standards
11
[11] Internationalization of private investments •accelerating since 1970s “supermarketization” of food systems No World Bank data (196) internal deliberate
[12] Concerns for food safety •growing since the 2000s increase in demand for food quality and No Google trends data12 (68) internal deliberate
safety standards

Notes: Data links Access. 1https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS; 2https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG 3; https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW; 4https://

trends.google.com 5;(https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ag.con.fert.zs; https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG; https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ag.con.fert.zs) 6;(https://data.worldbank.org/
indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG?view=chart; https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ag.lnd.agri.zs); 7https://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportal/index.cfm?page=downscaled_data_download&menu=historical 8;
https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.2721; 9https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/NOAA_DMSP-OLS_CALIBRATED_LIGHTS_V4; 10https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/tx.val.food.zs.un 11;(https://
data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD; https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX.VAL.MRCH.CD.WT); 12https://trends.google.com.
Global Food Security 23 (2019) 149–159
C. Béné, et al. Global Food Security 23 (2019) 149–159

Table 4
Present and future key drivers and their observed or expected impacts on the food systems.

activities) has been consistently documented to lead to structural substantial and sustained growth in agricultural yields and productivity
changes in consumer lifestyle and food culture. These changes translate in most of the world - with the noticeable exception of sub-Saharan
in more work-away and eat-away-from-home habits, with a direct im- Africa (Hazell and Wood, 2008; Pingali, 2012). It seems therefore ap-
pact on the demand for (ultra)-processed food (Swinburn et al., 2011; propriate to consider technological innovation as a key driver of food
Oppert and Charreire, 2012; Gómez and Ricketts, 2013; Laverty et al., systems.
2015; Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, Another major driver that has been steadily identified as shaping
2016). the production-supply component of food systems over the same period
Distinct from, but related to urbanization, is the increase in con- is the intensification and homogenization of the agricultural sector [6]
sumer income in low- and medium-income countries [2]. As a driver, (Pimbert et al., 2003; Thow and Hawkes, 2009; Tilman et al., 2011;
rise in income leads to a well-documented change in diet composition Khoury et al., 2014). This intensification and homogenization process,
including growing demand for animal-based protein in the middle which is closely related but distinct from technological innovation,8
classes of those countries in both urban and rural areas (Popkin, 2006; also contributed to the increase in per capita outputs, especially in the
Kearney, 2010; Tilman and Clark, 2014; Herforth and Ahmed, 2015; context of what is referred to as the ‘modern food system’ (Thow and
Miller et al., 2016). Hawkes, 2009; IPES, 2016). But intensification and homogenization are
Urbanization and increase in income are themselves closely linked a also widely recognized to have led to major degradation in soils and
third driver, population growth [3], and the subsequent increase in other agro-ecological conditions (Lenzen et al., 2012; Amundson et al.,
general food demand (Tilman and Clark, 2014; UNEP, 2016). We 2015; Whitmee et al., 2015; Chaudhary and Kastner, 2016).
contend that those trends (demand for (ultra)-processed food, demand Still on the production/supply side, the literature also highlights the
for animal-based protein, and overall demand for food) and their as- effect of climate change and more specifically the progressive increase
sociated changes in diet reflect the main dynamic of food systems from in temperature [7] that will affect certain parts of the world. This in-
the consumer-demand perspective. crease in temperature, combined to higher intensity and severity of
A fourth key driver expected to have increasing future influence on extreme weather events, is expected to lead to a general decline in
this consumer-demand component of food systems is the growing at- agricultural production of several key crops in the next two to three
tention paid by actors at all levels (from individual consumer to in- decades (Lobell et al., 2011; Battisti and Naylor, 2009; IPCC et al.,
ternational agencies) to diet and health-related issues [4] (Mejia-Acosta 2012; Springmann et al., 2016). It is now well established that those
and Fanzo, 2012). Although this new phenomenon has, up to now, only aspects of climate change will become another major driver of food
led to marginal change (see, e.g., He et al., 2014; Martorell et al., 2015; systems in the near future (McMichael et al., 2015; HLPE, 2017). In
Garrett et al., 2016 for some examples), it is likely to become a key parallel, the general degradation of soil quality and agro-ecosystem
driver in the future. This merits inclusion in the list of food system conditions that was mentioned above (and listed on the right-hand side
drivers. of Table 4 as an impact of the intensification and homogenization of
farming activities), appears also on the left-hand side of the same table
as a driver [8] leading to a general decrease in agricultural production
2.9. Drivers of production-supply dynamics (Amundson et al., 2015). This dual dynamic (being an impact and a
driver) reflects the feedback nature of this factor (Ericksen, 2008;
On the production-supply side, the literature indicates that expan-
sion of agricultural area has played only a marginal role in increasing
agricultural production in recent decades (Cassman and Wood, 2005). 8
Although technological innovation and intensification are often perceived as
In contrast, technological innovation [5] in many forms (e.g. mechan- one and unique process (as innovation has essentially led so far to accelerate
ical, irrigation, plant breeding, management of inputs, along with in- intensification), they are distinct. Technological innovation could be used for
creasing access to global and locally specific information) has led to instance to “de-intensify” agriculture.

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Tilman and Clark, 2014; Allen and Prosperi, 2016). described and discussed. Examples include the “supermarketisation” of
Smaller and medium-size producers who still represent today the the food systems in LMICs (e.g. Reardon et al., 2003; Dries et al., 2004),
vast majority of the producers in low and middle income countries or the increase in demand for animal-based protein observed in those
(LMICs), have seen their capacity to engage with markets increased, same LMICs (Swinburn et al., 2011; Henchion et al., 2017). “Globali-
both at local and international levels (Hernandez et al., 2007; zation” of the food trade (Kennedy et al., 2004; Hawkes et al., 2009;
Mergenthaler et al., 2009; Michelson et al., 2012; Bush et al., 2013). Brunelle et al., 2014) is another example of a now widely-documented
This trend has been essentially driven by their improved access to local transformation of food systems. In contrast some other transformations
infrastructure [9] (e.g. power grid, roads) and to local supermarkets are not (yet) observed but only projected; such as the decrease in
(Michelson et al., 2012; Andersson et al., 2013), along with their agricultural productivity predicted to affect certain regions of the world
proximity to growing urban centers (Swanson, 2009; Hawkes and Ruel, in the coming decades as a result of the combined effect of climate
2011; Brummett et al., 2011). Note however that this dynamic is often change and general degradation in soils and other agro-ecological
offset by the difficulties that smaller producers face in complying with conditions (Lobell et al., 2011; Vermeulen et al., 2012; Ray et al., 2013;
increasingly standardized procurement processes that accompany UNEP, 2016).
trends in systematic “supermarketization” and internationalization of An important element of the analysis is captured by the series of
the markets (Reardon et al., 2003). arrows that link food system drivers to their effects in Table 4. These
The final key driver generally mentioned in the literature in relation arrows show that the interactions between drivers and effects are
to the supply component of food systems, but with clear links to dis- generally not bound by a one-to-one relationship. Instead, specific ef-
tribution/trade (see below), is the combination of trade policies and fect can be the result of the combination of two or more distinct drivers.
related national and international processes established to facilitate or The increase in the capacity of small and medium size producers to
mitigate trade expansion and exportation of agricultural products [10] engage in national and international food systems can be used as an
(Thow, 2009; Brooks and Matthews, 2015; Wise, 2015). This includes example. It is largely recognized that trade expansion at national or
national-level agriculture policies (e.g. subsidies in OECD countries), as international levels facilitates broader participation of smallholders
well as the various actions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) (de (e.g. Dolan and Humphrey, 2004; Birner and Resnick, 2010), but that
Gorter and Hranaiova, 2004; Thow and Hawkes, 2009; Action Aid, this participation also reflects the improved access to infrastructure
2012; Schram et al., 2015). All those have been said to constitute a (e.g. power grid, roads) from which smaller-scale producers have ben-
major driver, at least for some form of agriculture and its exportations, efitted at the local level (e.g. Dethier and Effenberger, 2012). On the
and eventually for the food system (Hawkes, 2006; Brunelle et al., other hand, one specific driver may influence several different food
2014; Smith et al., 2014). system dynamics with potentially simultaneous positive and negative
effects. For example, intensification and homogenization of the agri-
2.10. Drivers of distribution-trade dynamics cultural sector has been shown to contribute to increased agricultural
output per capita (especially in middle and high income countries – see
Trade policies [10] are also associated with the third component in e.g. Tilman et al., 2011), but also to the general degradation in soils and
our framework - distribution-trade - as they have also been recognized other agro-ecological conditions observed in many parts of the world
as playing a major role in the general “globalization” or inter- (e.g. Chappell and LaValle, 2011; UNEP, 2016).
nationalization of food trade (Regmi, 2001; Hawkes et al., 2009; The causal links between the 12 drivers and the different transfor-
Brunelle et al., 2014; Schram et al., 2015; Qaim, 2016). Food trade and mational changes taking place within the world's food systems are ob-
its globalization is, however, also associated with the recent increase in viously more complex than depicted in Table 4. In that sense we do not
attention paid to quality and food safety standards - which is now be- claim that the list of interactions represented by the arrows are ex-
coming a major element of bilateral and international food trade dis- haustive. But we argue that based on the rigorous analysis of the lit-
cussions (Swanson, 2009; Minten et al., 2009; Reardon et al., 2010; erature completed here, those represent the core set of causal re-
Hawkes and Ruel, 2011). lationships that are critical to analyze in order to better understand
In this distribution-trade component, the two other key drivers food system dynamics.
identified in the literature are internationalization of private invest-
ments [11] and growing concerns from local and national policy ma-
3.2. Non-trivial and context-specific impacts
kers/governments for food safety [12] (Dries et al., 2004; Minten and
Reardon, 2008; Hjelmar 2011; Englberger et al., 2013). Together those
As a consequence of these complex9 relationships between drivers
two drivers have contributed to the rapid development of supermarket-
and their impacts, the literature suggests that we should also expect to
based distribution - what some have called the ‘supermarket revolution’
observe context-specific and non-trivial effects. By ‘context-specific’ we
- in a large number of low- and middle-income countries (Reardon
mean that even when a driver is assumed to have a direct monotonic
et al., 2003, 2012; Dolan and Humphrey, 2000, 2004).
impact -that is, an overall positive (negative) effect-, a more in-depth
analysis may reveal potentially important variations in the outcomes
3. Discussion
that this driver has effectively on the ground. First, some countries may
be more sensitive than others to the effects of that specific driver.
3.1. Drivers and their impacts
Second, within country, some groups of actors may also be more af-
fected than others. This combination of multi-level, multi-scale het-
The analysis pointed at 12 different drivers that have been widely
erogeneities (Cash et al., 2006) can result in a situation where the ef-
acknowledged in the literature as influencing the dynamics of different
fects of a specific driver may be buffered, intensified, distributed or
aspects of food systems. Those drivers are listed in the second column in
restricted by “local” contexts.
Table 4 and the relevant references are shown in the last column on the
Non-triviality refers to the implications that this context specificity
right-hand side of the same table.
and complexity of interactions have for our ability to ‘untangle’ and
Another important information synthesized in Table 4 (middle
predict the combined effect of those drivers on food systems. In
column) is the list of observed and expected effects induced by these 12
drivers. Those induced effects are often presented or referred to as
“transformation” or “transition” in the literature (Popkin, 2001; 9
The term ‘complex’ is used here in reference to system literature (e.g.
Mendez et al., 2005; Mergenthaler et al., 2009; Baker and Friel, 2016; Johnson, 2001) where complexity is generally used to characterize a system
HLPE, 2017). Amongst those, some have already been extensively with many parts and where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways.

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particular, it means that although the literature is relatively assertive depending on the specification used, the turning point varies between
about the existence of food system drivers, their analysis is poor and the $32,000 and $55,000 USD (constant 2005 dollars) per capita, making
little available reveals a rather ‘messy’ landscape where global analysis the estimation of any precise relationship quasi-country-specific and the
(e.g. cross-country studies) do not always lead to as clear and con- emergence of a trend at the global level difficult to identify empirically.
clusive empirical trends as we might initially have hypothesized.
In the rest of this section, we provide examples of those non-trivi- 3.5. Population growth
alities and context-specificities, with the objective to illustrate more
concretely the complex and sometimes chaotic nature of the challenges we Current projections suggest a global population of more than 9
face when engaging in the (quantitative) analysis of these drivers10. For billion people by 2050, with most of this anticipated demographic
this we focus our attention on the first group of drivers listed in Table 4, growth occurring in Africa (+1.3 billion people) and in Asia (+750
those which fall in the demand-consumer category. The relatively rich million people)11 (UNDESA, 2017). This population growth is asso-
literature already available and the good understanding of urbaniza- ciated with a mechanical increase in food demand ceteris paribus and is
tion, income, population and diet and health motivated the choice of usually presented as a key driver of our current and future food systems
those examples; we argue, however, that a similar analysis would be (Godfray et al., 2010; Ranganathan et al., 2016). Though a seemingly
equally feasible with any of the other drivers listed in Table 4. simple dynamic, it is well recognized that this mechanical effect is
strongly distorted or mitigated by other drivers (such as changes in
3.3. Urbanization income) or contextual factors (such as inequality). The HLPE report on
Nutrition and Food systems (2017) points out that while rising income
The first of these drivers in Table 4 is urbanization and the asso- is important when it comes to food security, income disparity can ef-
ciated change in lifestyle (reduced physical activity, reduced time at fectively cancel any positive effect if it skews the distribution system to
home and associated increasing exposure to, and preference for pro- cater to the demands of higher-income consumers at the expense of the
cessed and ultra-processed food), which, together, have been re- availability of more affordable food for lower income populations.
cognized to contribute actively to the rapidly rising prevalence of There is therefore only a weak relationship between population growth
overweight and obese peoples amongst urban populations (e.g. Guthrie and increase in food demand, meaning that population growth becomes
et al., 2002; Baker and Friel, 2016). From a distance one could therefore another non-trivial driver.
expect a strong positive correlation between urbanization and pre-
valence of overweight/obese populations across countries. A more 3.6. Growing attention paid to diet and health issues
careful reading of the literature sheds light on the nuances of this trend.
Monteiro, Popkin and their colleagues (Monteiro et al., 2004; Mendez The last entry in the consumption-demand category in Table 4 is the
et al., 2005) show, for instance, that in LMICs, high prevalence of growing attention paid to diet and health-related issues (Hjelmar,
obesity is primarily observed in groups of higher socioeconomic status 2011). This driver results from a complex mixture of local (city-level),
households in urban areas (thus confirming the expected positive re- national and international public policies and advocacy campaigns (see
lationship between urbanization and obesity). But they also show that, e.g. the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact12) that aim at reorienting con-
as GDP increases across countries, the burden of obesity shifts to groups sumer behavior (and wellness) through increased societal attention to
with lower socioeconomic status and to rural areas, making the re- and uptake of healthier diets. The effects of some of these supporting
lationship between obesity and urbanization much less tractable policies such as national dietary guidelines are promising in certain
(Swinburn et al., 2011), and changing the nature of the driver as a country contexts (FAO, 2017), but are also strongly influenced by ex-
function of an exogenous factor (or factors). ternal socio-economic factors that vary at the individual level (e.g.
education, access to information, etc.). Against this positive (yet still to
be confirmed) evolution, is the fact that many of those “successes” are
3.4. Income
observed essentially in high-income countries (Gonzalez Fischer and
Garnett, 2016) and the recognition that overall (in both LMICs and
Parallel to urbanization, income has also been identified as another
higher income countries) the cost of a healthy diet is usually higher
powerful driver of some of the transitions observed in food systems,
than that of an unhealthy diet (Rao et al., 2013; Morris et al., 2014).
contributing in particular to the increase in demand for (ultra)-pro-
These moderating factors add layers of intricacy and substantially
cessed food (see above), but also to the increase in demand for animal-
complicate characterization of current and emerging trends.
based protein (e.g. Ranganathan et al., 2016; Seto and Ramankutty,
2016). Here again the conventional wisdom is that we should observe a
strong positive correlation between income growth (the driver) and 4. Conclusion
increased per capita meat consumption (the outcome). More recent
analyses have shown that the reality is more complicated. Vranken Though the conceptualization of food systems per se is progressing
et al. (2014) for instance examined meat consumption in relation to rapidly (see, e.g. HLPE, 2017 and Fig. 1), our collective understanding
income for 120 countries worldwide between 1970 and 2007. Their of the drivers of food systems is still insufficient. In this context, the
analysis confirmed that GDP per capita and meat consumption tend to objective of this paper was to carry out a rigorous review of food system
increase concurrently, but that there exists a threshold after which in- drivers and identify a sub-set of drivers that would offer a more robust
come continues to increase while meat consumption plateaus or de- and common foundation for further analysis.
clines. They posit the existence of a “turning point” in the relation Scanning the literature reveals several conceptual and methodolo-
between income and meat consumption. The problem is that, gical issues with the current characterization of food system drivers. In
particular, the lack of clarity on what a food system driver is (and what
it is not) and the corresponding absence of clear definitions led to the
10
The recognition of complexity, non-trivialities and context-specificities also
‘explains’ the occurrence of unintended and unanticipated effect of drivers in
11
food systems. As a sub-component of complexity (in the scientific sense), the These figures also means that the concentration of population growth will
chaotic nature of the world—and especially its quality of having small, ap- take place in majority in low income countries –even if the most populous
parently insignificant changes with far-reaching effects (the famous “butterfly countries (China, India, Nigeria) are expected to have transitioned to middle
effect”)—applies here and can be used to explain some of the unintended income countries at that time.
12
consequences discussed earlier. http://www.milanurbanfoodpolicypact.org/.

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