A Whole-of-Society Systems Approach to The Integrated Health And Agri-food Strategy For Canada

Current policies and frameworks suggest that the health, agriculture and agri-food sectors in Canada recognize that better linkages must be created between these fields, bolstered by multi-level, multi-stakeholder partnerships.

In recent years, a growing recognition has emerged among nutrition, public health, and medical communities that the food industry is not necessarily the evil to avoid, but rather can be a powerful ally in achieving the changes needed to combat obesity, chronic disease, and other challenges related to food and diet. The industry can be a particularly strong ally if its power of innovation, technology, and logistics is harnessed. The agri-food industry has also recognized the economic opportunity of partnering with the health sector, in terms of enhancing its ability to understand and meet consumer demands for health and wellness products. Consequently, the private and public sectors in both the health, and the agriculture and agri-food realms have undertaken a significant effort to entice producers, processors, marketers, retailers and restaurants to shift the drivers of food supply in a healthier direction. At the same time, the health community has made efforts to educate consumers about healthy eating. Despite these efforts, and even though policy-makers in both sectors are aware that supply and demand are completely intertwined, no complete and systematic approach has been developed to move supply and demand toward health and nutrition in a convergent and sustainable manner.

In order to shift the food supply and consumer demand towards the desired outcomes, society must be engaged beyond the nutrition, health, and agriculture and agri-food sectors. A Whole-of-Society Systems approach (Figure 9)⁹⁷ will be required. This system will influence the local and global culture and media, communities, education and other systems such as transportation and civil engineering. It will also address the environmental aspects of food production.

Above all, these changes must place the consumer at the center of the focus. Consumers, far from being generic entities, vary along numerous dimensions and hold a variety of behavioural motivations, which impact their food choices in different manners and to different degrees.

Figure 9. The whole-of-society systems driving food supply and consumer demand. Modified from the report Food: an analysis of the issues, by the Strategy Unit, UK Cabinet Office, 2008.

Varying cultures and norms must also be taken into account in developing an integrated health and agri-food strategy. Cultures vary in the values they attach to food and its relationship to health. For example, some cultures rationally emphasize health and nutrition, while others focus on hedonism or guilt. Many cultures view food as a core social engine. Cultural values and social norms also shape the activities, interactions, and transactions within and between health, agriculture and agri-food systems. For instance, viewpoints vary between cultures about: the relative moral value attached to profit-making motives; the degree of nurturance and protection given to children or to the concept of family; the relative dominance of the individual vis-à-vis the society; or the degree of guidance the state can appropriately have over individuals.

In recent decades, industrialization, urbanization, and globalization have significantly changed the agriculture and agri-food system. These changes have had global consequences for food safety, nutritional quality, and food access. Globalization has resulted in increasingly complex cross-national and cross-continental supply chains of agriculture and agri-food products. It connects daily grocery shoppers in Canada and the United States to small farmers in developing countries, with transnational agri-food corporations as the bridge between them. For example, Canada imports almost 80% of its fruits and vegetables, with 80% of these imports coming from the U. S. and the remainder from over 100 other countries.⁹⁸ Understanding the complex processes of agri-food, industrial and commercial development at the national level — and in the context of global markets — is critical to developing appropriate strategies and policies at the interfaces of health, agriculture and agri-food. As illustrated in Figure 10⁹⁹ in terms of fast food, local value chains in both developed and developing countries and global value chains interact in complex ways.

Rapid changes have been occurring in global food trade patterns. As a result, current policies do not fully account for the fact that – particularly for the agriculture and agri-food system – developing and developed countries are now part of the same local and global systems. This phenomenon presents both challenges and opportunities for Canada’s domestic and international agenda, in matters of nutrition and health promotion, innovation, competitiveness, and economic performance in the food industry. Several factors urgently signal that simply producing enough calories to feed the world is not sufficient, such as recent food security and safety crises, the persistent progression of obesity and chronic diseases, and the economic challenges facing all systems worldwide. It is also critical to ensure that these calories are of appropriate nutritional quality, and made accessible wherever they are needed through safe and efficient production and distribution.

In conclusion, a whole-of-society systems approach is required that engages both individuals and actors in health, agriculture and agri-food, and other social and economic systems. This system must account for the broader cultural and environmental context at local and global levels, and must have the ability to achieve change at the scale required to attain the health and economic outcomes envisioned by an integrated health and agri-food strategy.

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