“We are what we eat.” We’ve all heard this common expression and may think of it in nutritional and biological terms: for example the way that the chicken or beans we consume are turned into muscle tissues. However, this simple phrase has a deeper meaning: Food production, food culture, and organization of food transport and consumption loom very largely in the way that our society "is". These food-related activities also strongly impact the earth's fundamental surface processes and ecosystems. So, we are what we eat, but in a societal as well as an individual sense. This wider vision of food as a driving presence within society is increasingly relevant as groups and individuals like you become more interested in the ramifications of their food for themselves and for the environment. This course is designed to provide you with the tools to understand the combined environmental and human dimensions of food production and consumption. To do so we must start with some simple questions and reflect a bit on how we can address them.

Figure 1.1.1. The above image of a food festival in the United Kingdom captures both the excitement food creates in our culture, the varied cultural influences leading to different types of street food, and behind the scenes, the pathways of production and transportation that keep food moving to consumers' plates at all times.

Credit Helen (Afeitar), used with permission, Flickr: Liverpool food festival, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Where does our food come from? And, how can we make our food supply more sustainable? These two questions may seem simple, but they lead us to a range of considerations that are covered through the remainder of this course. As we consider these questions in each module, we'll explore a model of food systems as human systems in interaction with natural systems, or coupled human-natural systems (Fig. 1.1.2). As the name suggests, the concept of Coupled Human-Natural Systems (CHNS) tries to describe two major components that are involved in the production and consumption of food. The first component is the natural world and a set of interacting natural factors. Some of you may know the term ecosystem, and ecosystems developed from interacting natural components such as water, soils, plants, and animals (e.g. Fig. 1.2.1 in module 1.2) are the context for most food production. Throughout the course, we may also refer to the elements and processes of ecosystems as the earth system and earth system processes, or simply as the environment. These natural systems are a basic foundation of the food supply that we will learn more about in modules four through six (Environmental Dynamics and Drivers). The continued productivity of natural systems is evaluated as being crucial to sustainability, as you will see in the short reading below.

On the other hand, the two questions posed above involve the role of people, both as individuals in groups such as communities, institutions (including colleges and universities, farm and food processing businesses, and farmer organizations, for example) and political units such as countries. To introduce this dimension we often refer to this globally as the "human system" within a coupled human-natural system (Fig. 1.1.2.; a complete definition of human and natural systems are given in Module 1.2). Within the human system, factors such as styles of farming and food choices, tastes, economic inequality, and farmer and scientific knowledge that inform humans' management of ecosystem emerge from human cultural, social, economic, and political influences.

Figure 1.1.2. A simple illustration of coupled human and natural systems with reference to food production. The list of human (households: urban and rural, businesses, governments, knowledge and science, diet and food traditions, belief systems) and natural system components (water, atmosphere, soils, plants and animals, biodiversity) on each side of the diagram is not exhaustive, and the diagram will be revisited throughout the course. The reciprocal arrows represent the mutual effects of each subsystem on the other, and are highly schematic, although they can denote specific impacts or feedbacks that will be addressed in module 1.2 and beyond.

Credit: Steven Vanek, adapted from the National Science Foundation (NSF)

The end result of these interactions between human and natural systems are what we call a food system, which has has also been called an "environment-food system" (see the introductory reading on the next page) with "environment" pointing to the natural components and the "food system" pointing to the human organization needed to produce, transport, and deliver food to consumers, along with a host of cultural, regulatory, and other aspects of human society that relate to food. In terms of geography, the interactions of environment-food systems exhibit a huge range of variation across the world. As we all know this variation exists between countries, so that food and farming types can be associated with “Chinese food,” “French food,” “Peruvian food”, or scores of other examples. Farming and food also vary a great deal among regions within a country and sometimes even among local places, as we know if we compare a large dairy or grain farm with a fresh vegetable farm serving local markets here in the United States. Understanding the geographic variations of environment-food interactions is key to recognizing their increased relevance and importance to people and places.

Introductory Reading Assignment:

1. Read the brief section (pp 1-7) of Colin Sage's book "Environment and Food", entitled "Why Environment and Food?" (see the assignments page). The author explains why we are interested in considering food's relationship to the environment (the latter is what we are also calling "natural systems"). He presents a provocative and critical account of our relation to food in modern societies (human systems) and the need to think about food production and consumption patterns in relation to the environment.
2. As you read, try to identify three to five main points of the reading, which is always a good practice when you read in this course and other courses.
3. After reading the assignment, continue reading below and see whether your perceptions of this author's analysis agree with the main arguments we have noted below. You may have noted similar points, or additional ones not noted here.

Consult AFTER Reading:

First, consider the list below of some of the main ideas in the reading. Do these roughly agree with your list of main points? You may have identified additional points in the reading.

1. The essential need of humans to eat has defined the relation of all societies to food production and the environment through history.
2. Transformation of food production systems in the last 100 years has dramatically changed diets and societies' impact on the environment:
   • Yields have increased with industrial methods and food for many in the world has become more available.
   • However, diets have worsened in many cases so that human nutrition has suffered.
   • Inequality in access to food based on wealth and poverty of consumers has continued.
3. Negative impacts on the environment have multiplied, which is expressed in the large amounts of water needed to produce food, the strong dependence of food production on fossil fuels, and the contribution of food production to CO₂ methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
4. A sustainable food system, which is increasingly the vision promoted by some food producers and consumers, involves reducing fossil fuel use in food production, cutting waste of food in transport and consumption, and increasing the just distribution of food to consumers at all levels of wealth.

We can also think of the way that these main points fit into a diagram, sometimes called a concept map, like the one that is drawn here. As part of the final assignment or summative assessment for module 1, and in the capstone assignment for the entire course, you will be drawing concept maps of a food system example. This diagram may get you started on visualizing human and natural components of food systems and their interaction. You'll note that a concept map can start from a very preliminary drawing or rough draft (like this one), and gradually be reorganized as you learn more about a topic use an organizational principle like the coupled human-natural systems concept we present in this course.

Text description of the Figure 1.1.3 image.

The image is a hand-drawn concept map illustrating the interaction between human systems and natural systems within the context of food systems and sustainability. On the left side, labeled “Human System” in pink, several interconnected elements are shown: Sustainable food movements (with goals such as protecting resources, reducing waste, and promoting social equity), fossil fuels, farmers, food companies and retailers, agricultural and food system science, and modern consumers. Arrows indicate flows of products and relationships among these components, such as farmers providing products to companies and consumers, and fossil fuels influencing production. Additional notes highlight social challenges like need income, poor are left out, and issues of diet inequality, child labor, and poverty. On the right side, labeled “Natural System” in green, a box titled Environment lists key elements: landscapes, soil, fresh water, biological diversity, and livestock. Surrounding this are concerns such as climate change and greenhouse gases, as well as the need for healthier food. The diagram uses arrows and annotations to show how human activities impact natural resources and vice versa, emphasizing the complexity of food systems and the interplay between environmental sustainability, social equity, and economic factors.

Credit: Steven Vanek

After reading Colin Sage's brief introduction to the modern-day issues surrounding environment and food, you should be aware of the fact that food production by human societies has transformed the earth's natural systems. In fact, it is very difficult to understate the enormous impact that food production to support human societies has had on the surface of our planet as the earth's population has grown. Here are some of them:

• Humans have replaced permanent forests and wild grasslands with farm fields that allow much higher rates of soil erosion where the soil is not covered year-round. This has led to trillions of tons of soil being washed into rivers, lakes, and oceans, where it is unavailable as a key resource for food production.
• The expansion of farming and grazing has contributed to the reduction and elimination of wild forest and grassland species of plants and animals: the loss of earth's biodiversity.
• In some cases, previously unproductive dryland areas have been made highly productive through the movement of irrigation water into desert areas, allowing the expansion of human settlements.
• In other cases, elimination of forest in favor of farmland has contributed to the expansion of desert areas and worsening droughts.
• Humans have intensively fertilized cropland to make it more productive with manures and chemical fertilizers, leading to excesses of nutrients and pollution in many of the world's waterways.
• Farming and the other human activities that support modern food systems are major contributors to changes in earth's climate linked to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

One term that is used to summarize these human impacts within the history of the earth is the Anthropocene, from Anthropos (human) and cene, a suffix used within the geologic timescale to denote the recent past. The Anthropocene has been proposed as a new geologic epoch because of the profound and unprecedented human alteration of earth's natural systems that we point to above. Scientists researching the Anthropocene tend to agree that it was the beginnings of agriculture that probably marked the onset of the Anthropocene. We will introduce you to the history of agriculture in Module 2. The concept of sustainable food systems that Colin Sage points to in the introductory reading are currently a major topic of debate and discussion in human societies and are a consequence of the sustainability issues that are a key feature of the Anthropocene. The idea of sustainable food systems is also a major topic of this course, and you will be asked to contribute to this discussion in your capstone project. The term Anthropocene helps us to appreciate the epochal change of the extent and degree of these changes. Yet these changes do not suggest or imply that all is lost, or that all cropping and livestock-raising are pervasively damaging to the environment. As you’ll see throughout this course there are already well-developed options worth considering and pursuing in order to expand sustainable environment-food systems.

Studies of the changes in the type of ecosystems that cover different areas of the earth or land cover (e.g. crop fields versus forest versus desert) allow us to appreciate the impact on earth during the Anthropocene (Fig. 1.1.4 below). We can see in the bar chart reflecting changes over time in land cover that farmed and grazed areas involved in food production for rising populations have expanded from less than 10% of earth's usable (ice-free) surface in the 1700s to over 50% in 2000, a stupendous change considering the size of earth's land area (similar expansion of human influence in food production in earth's ocean fisheries has also occurred).

Figure 1.1.4. A graph showing the global allocation of the ice-free land area, on all five continents, to human land use versus wild (bottom stippled bar section) across three centuries from 1700 to 2000, during the rapid expansion of human population in the Anthropocene.

Click for a text description of Figure 1.1.4

(Approximate estimate of the percentages of global allocation in ice-free land area)

Year 1700:

• Wild (uninhabited) ≈ 49%
• Seminatural (e.g. inhabited forests) ≈ 45%
• Rangeland (grazed livestock, non-cropped) ≈ 1.5%
• Cropland ≈ 3%
• Villages ≈ 0.25
• Urban ≈ 0.25%

Year 1800:

• Wild (uninhabited) ≈ 45%
• Seminatural (e.g. inhabited forests) ≈ 45%
• Rangeland (grazed livestock, non-cropped) ≈ 5%
• Cropland ≈ 3%
• Villages ≈ 1.5%
• Urban ≈ 0.5%

Year 1900:

• Wild (uninhabited) ≈ 35%
• Seminatural (e.g. inhabited forests) ≈ 35%
• Rangeland (grazed livestock, non-cropped) ≈ 19.5%
• Cropland ≈ 8%
• Villages ≈ 1.75%
• Urban ≈ 0.75%

Year 2000:

• Wild (uninhabited) ≈ 24.5%
• Seminatural (e.g. inhabited forests) ≈ 20%
• Rangeland (grazed livestock, non-cropped) ≈ 32%
• Cropland ≈ 14%
• Villages ≈ 8.5%
• Urban ≈ 1%

Credit: Steven Vanek, adapted from Ellis et. al. 2010. Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700-2000; Global Ecol. Biogeogr 19, 589–606.

Similarly important is that the Anthropocene, or the "human recent history of the earth" if we translate the word slightly, brings to our attention to not only the changes in natural systems or the environment but also the significant alterations of the human dimension of human-natural systems related to food. It’s safe to say that for nearly all of us this human dimension is significantly different than it was for our grandparents or even our parents. Some basic examples can be used to illustrate this trend. In the United States, for example, the population of farmers has continued to shrink. It is now less than 4 percent of the national population. At present this fraction, though generally declining worldwide, is somewhat higher in European countries and much higher in Asia and Africa. The continued importance of food-growing agriculture among large sectors of the populations in Africa and Asia, for example, creates different patterns of livelihoods (Fig 1.1.5a) and landscapes (Fig. 1.1.5b).

Figure 1.1.5a.Farmer Cleaning Soybeans, Malawi

Credit: Max Orenstein; used with permission.

Figure 1.1.5b. Rice-growing landscape, Vietnam. This photo illustrates the intensive interactions that exist between human habitation and farming communities in the background and food production which occupies the entire foreground.

Credit: Tommy Chiu, used with permission under a creative commons license.

One important point: familiarity with environment-food systems through immediate experience among human populations, including you and your fellow learners in this course, is presumably at an all-time low. It’s also an interesting reflection on the human dimension of the Anthropocene. Other statistics could be quoted to show related trends. For example, the average amount of time being spent on food preparation is roughly one-quarter the standard allocation of time devoted to this activity 40-50 years ago. This course takes these statistics as a challenge and opportunity since environment-food interactions are both less-known than previously and, at the same time, have a very high level of importance to the environment and society.

The guided reading in this module on concerns around "Environment and Food" and our consideration of the Anthropocene as an era defined by the dramatic expansion of food production on earth's surface lead us naturally to the concept of sustainability, which is a common term in much of our discourse in the present day, in many different settings from the coffee shop and classroom, to dinner tables and company boardrooms, to government offices. As we think about the increasingly obvious impacts of our food system on the global environment and on the social dynamics of global society, we are concerned that this food system needs to (a) be part of society and communities with adequate opportunities for all and just relationships among people and (b) not compromise the future productivity and health of earth's many different environments. As part of the introductory work of this first module, we ought to consider a definition of sustainability that is broad enough to encompass both human and natural systems, and geographic scales from communities to single farming communities to the worldwide reach of food production and transport in the modern global food system. We present below in figure 1.1.6 one relatively common definition of sustainability as a "three-legged stool" (we will return to this concept later in Module 10 when we return to food systems).

Figure 1.1.6. Three-legged Stool of Sustainability

Click for a text description of the three-legged stool of sustainability image.

A green three-legged stool. The seat is labeled Sustainable Food System. One leg is labeled Environment, one leg is labeled Community, and the third is labeled Economy. There is a list for each as follows. Environment: reduce pollution and waste, use renewable energy, conservation, restoration. Community and Social Sustainability: good working conditions, health care, education, community, and culture; Economy: employment, profitable enterprises, infrastructure, fair trade, security.

Credit: Steven Vanek, based on multiple sources and common sustainability concepts

In the model of the three-legged stool, environmental sustainability reflects protecting the future functioning, biodiversity, and overall health of earth's managed and wild ecosystems. Community and social sustainability reflect the maintenance or improvement of personal and community well-being into the future, versus relations of violence and injustice within and among communities. In the case of food systems, this reflects especially the just distribution of food and food security among all sectors of society, the just treatment of food producers and the rights of consumers to healthy food, and the expression of cultural food preferences. Economic sustainability within food systems has often been conceptualized as relationships of financial and supply chains that support sufficient prosperity for food producers and the economic access of consumers to food at affordable prices.

Dividing the concepts of sustainability into three parts of an integrated whole allows us to think about food production practices or food distribution networks, for example, are sustainable in different aspects. Excessive water use or fossil fuel consumption, for example, are aspects of environmental sustainability challenges in food systems considered further on in this course. Meanwhile, issues of food access, poverty, and displacement from war, and their impacts on human communities and their food security are issues that combine social and economic sustainability, which will also be considered by this course. The three-legged stool is a simple, if sometimes imperfect, way to combine the considerations of sustainability into a unified whole. As you consider the sustainability challenges at the end of module one and in your capstone project, you may be able to use these three different concepts along with the concepts in the guided reading to describe the sustainability challenges of some food system examples. You may want to ask yourself, is this practice or situation environmentally sustainable? socially sustainable? economically sustainable?

Individuals, Communities, and Organizations Taking Action on Sustainability: Information Resources on Real-World Efforts

The interest in the sustainability of environment-food systems, as we've just defined them -- see the "three-legged stool" on the previous page -- has skyrocketed in recent years. A brief sampling of these issues involves the following:

• Health and Nutrition concerns over the nutritional quality and nutrient content of food and food-producing environmental systems
• Food security among approximately 1.1 billion persons around the world with low income and other limitations that do not allow them to access sufficient food.
• The need to design food and agricultural systems that can respond successfully to climate change.

We aim that this course will allow you as a learner to this rapidly expanding suite of interests while it offers background and the capacity to understand better and more fully these issues. You will pursue this aim through the readings and evaluations in this course, and also in completing a capstone project on the food system of a particular region.

One way to begin learning about this expanding interest is to consider the activities of individuals, communities, and governments as well as organizations ranging from nonprofits to international and global groups. In the case of individuals and communities, much interest is being generated by local food initiatives, such as farmers’ markets, and other local groups of producers and consumers seeking to improve environment-food systems. A variety of government agencies in the United States and other countries have also become increasingly involved in environment-food issues.

The United States Department of Agriculture, for example, now offers a focus on environment-food issues such as responses to climate change and dietary guidelines in its range of research and science activities. The USDA website also includes the compilation of data through its different research services that you will use in this course.

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which is based in Rome, Italy, is one of a number of international organizations focused on environment-food issues. It addresses nearly all the topics raised in the course, as well as many others. The statistical branch of the FAO, known as FAOSTATS, is an important source of information on the international dimension of issues involving food and the environment.

Numerous non-profit organizations are involved in environment-food issues in the United States and in other countries. One of these organizations in the U.S., which is called Food Tank, periodically provides the lists of other organizations that it considers leaders in environment-food issues. In 2014, for example, Food Tank named the "101 Organizations to Watch in 2014”. This interesting list, complete with brief descriptions, includes a number of both well-known and lesser-known groups active in environment-food issues. Other organizations have greatly expanded their environment-food focus. National Geographic, for example, now has a major focus on environment-food issues. Its website includes an important section on food and water within the organization’s initiative on EarthPulse: A Visual Guide to Global Trends. This section includes a number of excellent global maps of environmental and food conditions, challenges, and potential solutions.

These resources may be a help to you as you consider not just the learning resources we present in this text, but the real efforts to promote environmental, social, and economic sustainability in food systems, which you will address in the final section of the course and in your capstone project.

Instructions

Look over Food Tank's "101 organizations to Watch in 2014".

Choose one organization from this website that treats the combination of environment-and-food issues. You'll need to be selective since some of the organizations specialize in food-related issues but have little emphasis on environmental one. Also, read the assignment from Colin Sage, pp. 1-8 on "Introduction: Why environment and food?" in Environment and Development that is one of the required readings for this module (see the assignments page)

Then,

1. Write a brief overview description of the organization you chose from the Foodtank website, its summary goals in relation to the environment and food issues - distinct from the more detailed description of issues and factors below, funding source or sources, location and scope (local, national, and/or global), longevity (including when it was founded), and what you perceive as its intended audience and/or client or target population.
2. After addressing these overview questions for the organization, continue and address briefly the following two questions where you can draw on the assigned reading from C. Sage:
   • What factors or issues of importance to environment-food systems does it address - a more complete elaboration of its summary goals in the previous overview? (1 paragraph)
   • How is sustainability defined and addressed by this organization? (1 paragraph)

Your writing should be between one and one and a half pages long, and no longer than two pages. When appropriate, you can relate the work of this organization to the other material in this introductory module regarding multidisciplinary approaches or the concept of the Anthropocene. Be sure to describe what types of environmental and food issues are being addressed by this organization, as well as the wider factors and sustainability questions.

Submitting Your Assignment

Please submit your assignment in Module 1 Formative Assessment in Canvas.

Grading Information and Rubric

Your assignment will be evaluated based on the following rubric. The maximum grade for the assignment is 25 points.