The proportion of the world that is suffering from diet-related malnutrition is one in three and, if left unchecked, will increase to one in two, according to a report entitled “Food systems and diets: Facing the challenges of the 21st century,” published by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. In addition, if the direction of current governing policies remains the same, estimates suggest that by 2030, the number of overweight and obese people will have increased from 1.33 billion in 2005 to 3.28 billion—or around one-third of the total world population.

Chapter six of the study provides an in-depth look at food systems, which comprise all the processes from farm to fork—more specifically, agricultural production, processing, storage, transportation and retail/provisioning. While agriculture has generally increased food availability, the trend in food systems has been moving away from local systems with short food chains (or supply chains) to global systems, which involve long supply chains with multiple pathways and/or process transformations. In local systems, consumers are close to farm markets and can purchase fresh, unprocessed foods. With long supply chains, consumers are geographically removed from the source of food in its unprocessed state and may rely more on heavily processed foods at retail locations.