About Food Supply Chain & Health
The importance of this research is key to developing a sustainable healthy local food supply system.
The current food supply system is a direct result from all of the strategic research from the last section. Globalisation, profit, poor management of scarce resources and the burning of carbon are the foundation of the food we now eat.
This research is to look at how we have allowed this food supply chain have a dramatic impact on our health and wellbeing.
more importantly to strategically look at what actions we can take to offer a community based healthy sustainable food supply system.
The Network Forum
Despite being considered as the greatest health emergency of the 21st century, climate change’s wide-ranging impact on human health deserves far more attention. In the current difficult humanitarian, geopolitical and economic context, we cannot afford to lose sight of the urgent call by two recent UN-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports to take concrete action to address climate change.
British Medical Journal
The commercial food system is of increasing concern to those responsible for improving population health.1 The transition in global nutrition is rapidly changing agricultural practices and increasing the consumption of nutritionally poor processed foods, which are associated with increases in non-communicable diseases.2 The growth of childhood obesity, in particular, continues largely unchecked, risking enormous burdens of future disease, health system costs,3and intergenerational inequalities.4
United Nations
In June 2021, on the margins of World Environment Day, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners launched the Transformative Partnership Platformon agroecology – a farming approach that’s inspired by natural ecosystems combines local and scientific knowledge and focuses on the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment.
Lloyds Register Foundation
An estimated 600 million people, almost 1 in 10 people in the world, fall ill as a result of eating contaminated food and 420,000 die every year. In 2004, 160 countries voted at the United Nations to make food – safe food – a human right rather than a commodity, but risks to safety continue with many challenges putting strains on supply chains.
The Food Foundation
Examining vital signs indicating the health of our food system, how it impacts on our lives and how we must change the food environment so that it delivers healthy and sustainable diets for everyone
Brighton &Hove Connected
What we eat matters to the health and quality of life of individuals across all life stages and to wider society and the environment. Poor diet can affect
life , and mental wellbeing , and food systems can have
a Topic summaries are available on some health conditions related to diet on the Brighton & Hove Connected website 2
physical health , participation and quality of
environmental impacts
The Health Foundation
When we think about the food we eat, we have to acknowledge some challenging paradoxes. Food is vital for health and wellbeing, but the quality of our diets has deteriorated. We have an epidemic of obesity, while many people experience hunger. And food has never been more widely available, yet many people struggle to access the good food they need for a healthy diet.
The NHS 75
Poor diet and nutrition are recognised as major contributory risk factors for ill health and premature death.
UK Parliament
There has been notable scrutiny of the link between health and food, including in 2020 by an ad hoc committee in the House of Lords. It found that the UK food system was failing to enable people to make healthy and affordable dietary choices. This briefing examines those findings and the challenges faced by both consumers and the UK agri-food sector, and the government’s policy response.
Strategic Actions from research
The research demonstrates a wide body of data and reports on the impact of diet on our health and the health of the planet. But it again appears that the message is not getting through, or the globalised food supply chain putting a tempting pizza in front of families is too hard to resist.
Action 1
To develop ways that educate and enable our community to change the way they see the food they buy, cook and eat.
Action 2
To work closely with other agencies to bring the importance of a healthy sustainable diet as the normal, not the exceptional.
Action 3
To provide the supply chain with a viable community based food supply chain.
Growing Links Academy 