GGR107H1 Chap.1 Food Systems and Their Feedback Loops
Food Systems and Their Feedback Loops
The definition behind Week 2
The course defines a food system, following Neff and Lawrence, as every activity and resource used to grow, move and eat food, plus the forces behind those processes, what they produce, and the relationships and feedback loops that connect them.
The last part is what separates a system from a supply chain.
Scale and place
Week 2 contrasts Indigenous food systems on Turtle Island with the contemporary North American system, and its graphics sheet sets the scale of food in the United States: most consumptive water use and half of land use.
A line attributed to Marianne Lien holds the geography together: food is always locally embedded.
Where students lose marks
The most common gap is scope. An answer that lists farms, processors and supermarkets has described the movement of food, but the course definition also asks what drives those activities and what they produce besides meals.
A second gap is direction: a feedback loop has to say which way each change runs, for example that a falling price raises demand. A third is evidence: the U.S.
shares are strong support only when you keep their scope and units.
How Week 2 is assessed
The first weekly quiz, due in Week 2, covers the Neff and Lawrence chapter and the three mini-lectures on food systems, Indigenous food systems on Turtle Island and the contemporary North American system, plus a United Nations Environment Programme video on why the food system needs to change.
Expect definition questions with near-identical options, so learn the wording of each part of the definition.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The Neff and Lawrence definition of a food system
- 02
Drivers, outcomes and feedback loops
- 03
Industrial farming and its single goal
- 04
Indigenous food systems and the Three Sisters
- 05
The scale of the U.S. food system
- 06
Food as always locally embedded
Worked example · free
Turn a supply chain into a system
- 1Keep the activities but add the resources they use, such as land, water and labour.
- 1Add drivers that shape the activities, such as prices or policy.
- 1Add an outcome beyond food, such as water drawn from a river.
- 1Close a loop: the outcome changes a driver, for example scarce water raising costs.
Key terms
- Food System
- Activities and resources for producing, distributing and consuming food, with their drivers, outcomes and feedback loops.
- Locally Embedded
- A description of food as always tied to particular land, climate and people, wherever it is eaten.
- Three Sisters
- The Indigenous practice of planting corn, beans and squash together.
- Consumptive Water Use
- Water that is withdrawn and not returned to its source, the measure behind the U.S. food system share.
- Driver
- A force such as price, policy or culture that shapes how food is produced, distributed or consumed.
Food Systems and Their Feedback Loops FAQ
Why does the course define a food system so broadly?
Because the narrower picture of farms, factories and shops hides most of what food does. Counting drivers, outcomes and feedback loops lets you see effects on water, land, labour and culture, and how those effects return to reshape the way food is produced.
What does the Week 2 graphics sheet say about the U.S. food system?
Under the heading In the U.S., it gives the food system 80% of consumptive water use, about half of land use at 51%, 16% of energy use and one job in five. These figures apply to the United States, the setting of the Week 2 reading, and should be cited with that scope.
What are the Three Sisters?
The Week 2 quiz describes them as an Indigenous farming practice in which corn, beans and squash are grown together as companions. They illustrate a food system organised around relationships among plants rather than the single-crop specialization of industrial farming.
How should I use Wendell Berry's line in an answer?
Treat it as a conceptual claim and pair it with empirical support. Berry's point that eating is an agricultural act gains force when you add a figure such as the food system's share of U.S. consumptive water use, and you should say which part of your answer is the idea and which is the evidence.
Exam move
Draw the system map from memory with drivers, activities, outcomes and one feedback loop, then explain an everyday food with it in five sentences, citing one figure from the graphics sheet with its U.S. scope. Finish by writing one quiz-style question of your own with three options, each built on a different part of the definition, and explain why only one option is complete.
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