Purpose
The SNi® has developed tools to test scenarios for sustainable food systems. The three models are available from this website.To make understanding and identifying sustainable nutrition accessible, and actionable.
A challenge we face is our ability to sustainably nourish an increasing global population without exceeding the capacity of the planet.
There are many different ways of approaching this challenge, and many suggestions for what the answer may be.
The SNi® provides evidence and scenarios for sustainable food systems to guide decisions and policy. The SNi® has developed three separate modelling approaches to test various scenarios for globally sustainable future food systems.
This website was developed to have these tools freely accessible and to help people explore this challenge themselves by manipulating the major components of the food system to see the impact on the supply of key nutrients.
Mission
We live in a complex system
The global food system is complex, heterogeneous and involves multiple inputs, outputs and feedback loops. Understanding it and identifying opportunities for improvement requires a comprehensive view of the whole system, including its nutritional, socio-economic and environmental dimensions.
Global Food System Map
Before we know what to think about changes to make to our diets or food supply, we need to first determine how to think about the food system:
Under what scenarios is it POSSIBLE for the global food system to provide the bioavailable nutrients to feed the global population?
What scenarios are PRACTICAL to achieve. In terms of level of change required, for example cost of that change or affordability of food?
What is the OPTIMAL scenario to deliver a sustainable food system?
We must thoroughly understand the problems to be solved before embarking on making changes that will be difficult and slow to introduce, and extremely challenging to reverse if we get them wrong. The global food system of the future will be shaped by the shifts in thinking that we make today.
To support this thinking we have developed a model – the DELTA Model® – that aims to initiate informed discussion. It can generate a wide range of possible scenarios to explore and expand thinking.