Journal:Why do we need food systems informatics? Introduction to this special collection on smart and connected regional food systems

Full article title	Why do we need food systems informatics? Introduction to this special collection on smart and connected regional food systems
Journal	Sustainability
Author(s)	Tomich, Thomas P.; Hoy, Casey; Dimock, Michael R.; Hollander, Allan D.; Huber, Patrick R.; Hyder, Ayaz; Lange, Matthew C.; Riggle, Courtney M.; Roberts, Michael, T.; Quinn, James F.
Author affiliation(s)	University of California; Ohio State University; Public Health Institute; International Center for Food Ontology Operability Data and Semantics; University of California, Los Angeles
Primary contact	tptomich at ucdavis dot edu
Editors	Brewster, Christopher
Year published	2023
Volume and issue	15(8)
Article #	6556
DOI	10.3390/su15086556
ISSN	2071-1050
Distribution license	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Website	https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6556
Download	https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6556/pdf?version=1681698750 (PDF)

Abstract

Public interest in where food comes from and how it is produced, processed, and distributed has increased over the last few decades, with even greater focus emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mounting evidence and experience point to disturbing weaknesses in our food systems’ abilities to support human livelihoods and wellbeing, and alarming long-term trends regarding both the environmental footprint of food systems and mounting vulnerabilities to shocks and stressors. How can we tackle the “wicked problems” embedded in a food system? More specifically, how can convergent research programs be designed and resulting knowledge implemented to increase inclusion, sustainability, and resilience within these complex systems, support widespread contributions to and acceptance of solutions to these challenges, and provide concrete benchmarks to measure progress and understand tradeoffs among strategies along multiple dimensions?

This article introduces and defines food systems informatics (FSI) as a tool to enhance equity, sustainability, and resilience of food systems through collaborative, user-driven interaction, negotiation, experimentation, and innovation within food systems. Specific benefits we foresee in further development of FSI platforms include the creation of capacity-enabling verifiable claims of sustainability, food safety, and human health benefits relevant to particular locations and products; the creation of better incentives for the adoption of more sustainable land use practices and for the creation of more diverse agro-ecosystems; the widespread use of improved and verifiable metrics of sustainability, resilience, and health benefits; and improved human health through better diets.

Keywords: assessment workflow, informatics, ontology, knowledge graph, semantic web of food (SWoF), internet of food (IoF), food justice, resilience, democratization, sustainability

Introduction

We begin by providing a conceptual framing of food systems and associated challenges within rapidly changing global conditions and politically contested food systems policy issues. The daunting list of challenges and pressures that have exposed shocking vulnerabilities in our food systems include Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; the COVID-19 pandemic; climate change and associated fires, floods, and droughts; racial and economic inequality; and profound polarization along several axes across scales, from among global hemispheres to localized rural-vs-urban divides. In concert, these pressures threaten human health and wellbeing and the sustainability of the natural resources upon which we rely for our food. These realizations have spawned a burgeoning scientific literature on the alarming long-term trends relative to food system environmental footprints, shortcomings in outcomes for people, and mounting systemic vulnerabilities to shocks and stressors (and many others). [1,2,3,4,5,6] This is further highlighted by the work of Steffen et al. [7] and their discussion on the societal importance of a planetary boundary framework, and Campbell et al. [8], who report that more than two dozen food system publications have appeared in the past two years.

An important theme emerging in this recent literature is what Turnhout et al. [9] refer to as "knowledge controversies"—deficiencies in access to information and not "simply controversies over competing values or interests"—in their call for new, pluralistic "knowledge–policy" interfaces for food systems. Similarly, Campbell et al. [8] call for "greater efforts in collecting, collating, and curating the data needed for decision making." There has been significant progress in generating relevant data on food and on agricultural production, particularly precision agriculture. [10,11,12] However, integration across data stores in ways that make useful information widely accessible to diverse food system stakeholders remains elusive. [4,13]

Before going on, we must define what "food systems" means within the context of this work. Our point of departure in this review is one of the earliest published definitions of a food system: “the set of activities and relationships that interact to determine what, how much, by what method, and for whom food is produced and distributed” [14], with emphasis added for reasons explored in greater depth below. Tangentially, the work of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) concludes that “the growing demand for a more holistic ‘food systems approach’ to policy making is based on the realization that there are potential synergies and trade-offs between food security and nutrition, livelihoods, and environmental sustainability.” [4] The OECD adds that "this complexity makes it hard to generalize, and highlights the importance of evidence: while it is easy to speculate about possible synergies or trade-offs, it is imperative for policy makers to scrutinize those hypotheses before using them as a basis for policy decisions." [4] More generally, it also is necessary to ground our conceptual framing to encompass a deeper “systems approach to address underlying structural problems and system dynamics that affect production, people, and the planet (i.e., sustainability)." [15]

The goal of positively transforming food systems comes with a variety of challenges in linking knowledge with action. First, through the food systems "activities" lens, there are particular conceptual framing challenges regarding food system boundaries, especially as these relate to drivers and disruptors arising outside the food and agriculture system. Nexus framing may be a way to a depict this, e.g., "food x water x climate x energy" or "food x poverty x hunger x disease." "Syndromes" also may be a way to make these "nexus" ideas more dynamic. Either way, these linkages become a strong element of our rationale for a convergence approach harnessing informatics to enhance effectiveness in participation, inclusion, and engagement.

There are further correlated challenges when viewed through the food systems "relationships" lens. Consensus on causal mechanisms and public policy goals in food systems has been elusive (in part) because [16]:

• these multiple links involve systems of numerous components, in which major interactions can be non-linear, complex, and interdependent;
• interventions aimed at affecting components and outcomes also are numerous, complex, and interdependent;
• implementation of interventions requires partnership and concerted cooperation across multifarious organizations and scales;
• key phenomena (e.g., both socioeconomic and ecological processes) display emergent properties, meaning that there may be no clear “line of sight” linking intervention points (say in fields, farms, or firms) with desired impacts (viz., poverty reduction); and
• prospects for desired impacts are context-dependent.

Given the nature of their many challenges, food system transformation for greater resilience, sustainability, and equity means tackling what Rittel and Webber call "wicked problems" [17], requiring multiple sources of expertise and information spanning many disciplines and involving multiple individuals and organizations with a stake in outcomes, often with conflicting interests and values and even disagreeing on what the problem actually is or whether there is a problem at all. Schuler [18] applies pattern language (introduced by Alexander et al. in 1977 [19]) to refute the assertion of Rittel and Webber [17] that "every wicked problem is essentially unique." Clark et al. [20] demonstrate the need for investment to build negotiation support capacity when multiple knowledge sources are essential and when multiple divergent stakeholder interests must be engaged. Anderies et al. [21] draw a similar distinction between what we call the "textbook" natural resource management problem—singular welfare goal and optimal allocation by a social planner with considerable certainty about cause and effect—with a "real world" policy problem involving multiple interrelated and contested goals, complexity of actors and social dilemmas, poorly understood (or missing) institutional capabilities, and considerable uncertainty in a complex dynamic system with multiple interactions, feedbacks, and somewhat chaotic patterns produced by external drivers.

Discussion of these challenges and related topics on informatics approaches to them is paramount, and a special collection, Smart & Connected Regional Food Systems, has been created for the journal Sustainability. The focus of this special collection is a growing wave of innovations that hold potential to address underlying deficiencies in data and analytical capabilities so that innovation and sustainable transformation of our food systems can be accelerated in the face of growing threats. The scope of the collection spans informatics and data science innovations in network engagement, analytics, and translation to enable equitable access to better data and assessment capabilities for use by any and all food system actors and advocates, facilitating information discovery for evidence-based negotiation support and co-creation of innovative solutions. Much of what is presented was developed through application, from use cases focused on food system challenges and opportunities. Topics include new conceptualizations related to informatics, innovative information exchange standards, such as ontologies and controlled vocabularies, knowledge graphs, generalized workflows, and data governance standards, as components of a smart and connected food system platform. The overarching purpose is to enhance equity, sustainability, and resilience through collaborative, user-driven experimentation within complex food systems toward a set of guideposts: diverse agro-ecosystems, circular economies, and equity-based cultural norms.

Within the existing literature, many studies take a partial approach to food system sustainability and resilience, covering some aspects (e.g., economic, environmental, or social) but missing others, thereby failing to provide a comprehensive framework. Among these, some use top-down, static approaches. Other innovations in data science that can be monetized tend to be proprietary, and hence exclusive (and unpublished). In comparison, this collection's articles emphasize an open approach to data and research, seek interoperability among linked data and tools, and strive for holistic, comprehensive, and dynamic approaches to challenges and opportunities to support food system sustainability. This encompasses tools for systems analysis as well as community engagement, incubation of entrepreneurship, and legal aspects of data sharing (e.g., IP, privacy, and data ethics). The articles in this collection span a wide range of the food system domain, although they are not exhaustive, as there are other relevant topics, such as food waste [22], that are not well-represented. These articles, and others in the emerging body of literature, do not yet constitute a comprehensive "food systems informatics" approach (discussed further in the next section). Rather, many take the form of use cases and thus show how information technology can address a wide range of food systems questions and challenges, and, therefore, collectively and cumulatively point toward a complete approach (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Use cases in this collection of the journal Sustainability situated within a food systems schematic. Figure adapted from Tomich et al. [16] Citations to articles in this collection: Thompson et al. [23], Medici et al. [24], Hollander et al. [25], Chicoine et al. [26], Huber et al. [27], and Hyder et al. [28]

Notes

This presentation is faithful to the original, with only a few minor changes to presentation and updates to spelling and grammar. In some cases important information was missing from the references, and that information was added. The URL to the Deloitte paper was broken; an archived version of the document was used for this version.