Why Do We Need Food Systems Informatics? Introduction to This Special Collection on Smart and Connected Regional Food Systems

Thomas P. Tomich (), Casey Hoy, Michael R. Dimock, Allan D. Hollander, Patrick R. Huber, Ayaz Hyder, Matthew C. Lange, Courtney M. Riggle, Michael T. Roberts and James F. Quinn
Additional contact information
Thomas P. Tomich: Food Systems Lab, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Casey Hoy: Department of Entomology, Agroecosystems Management Program, Ohio State University, Wooster, OH 44691, USA
Michael R. Dimock: Roots of Change, Public Health Institute, Oakland, CA 94607, USA
Allan D. Hollander: Food Systems Lab, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Patrick R. Huber: Food Systems Lab, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Ayaz Hyder: College of Public Health and Translational Data Analytics Institute, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Matthew C. Lange: International Center for Food Ontology Operability Data and Semantics (IC-FOODS), Davis, CA 95616, USA
Courtney M. Riggle: Food Systems Lab, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Michael T. Roberts: Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
James F. Quinn: Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-20

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 wide-spread 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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6556/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6556/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:8:p:6556-:d:1122008

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().