food supply research paper

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• Published: 09 October 2018

Review of the sustainability of food systems and transition using the Internet of Food

• Nicholas M. Holden 1 ,
• Eoin P. White 2 ,
• Matthew. C. Lange   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6148-7962 3 &
• Thomas L. Oldfield 1  

npj Science of Food volume  2 , Article number:  18 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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Environmental impact

Many current food systems are unsustainable because they cause significant resource depletion and unacceptable environmental impacts. This problem is so severe, it can be argued that the food eaten today is equivalent to a fossil resource. The transition to sustainable food systems will require many changes but of particular importance will be the harnessing of internet technology, in the form of an ‘Internet of Food’, which offers the chance to use global resources more efficiently, to stimulate rural livelihoods, to develop systems for resilience and to facilitate responsible governance by means of computation, communication, education and trade without limits of knowledge and access. A brief analysis of the evidence of resource depletion and environmental impact associated with food production and an outline of the limitations of tools like life cycle assessment, which are used to quantify the impact of food products, indicates that the ability to combine data across the whole system from farm to human will be required in order to design sustainable food systems. Developing an Internet of Food, as a precompetitive platform on which business models can be built, much like the internet as we currently know it, will require agreed vocabularies and ontologies to be able to reason and compute across the vast amounts of data that are becoming available. The ability to compute over large amounts of data will change the way the food system is analysed and understood and will permit a transition to sustainable food systems.

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Introduction.

The food we eat today is unsustainable for two reasons: the food system causes unacceptable environmental impacts and it is depleting non-renewable resources. Our food can be regarded as ‘fossil food’ because its production relies on fossil fuel, non-renewable mineral resources, depletion of groundwater reserves and excessive soil loss. The idea of sustainable food systems is at the heart of global efforts to manage and regulate human food supply. 1 The sustainable development goals focus on a number of critical global issues, but Goal 2 (‘end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’), Goal 12 (‘ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns’) and Goal 13 (‘take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts’) are intimately related to the need to transition global food systems from fossil to sustainable. To understand how to meet the challenge presented by these goals, it is necessary to consider what is meant by ‘sustainable’ in the context of a food system. In 1989, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) council defined sustainable development as ‘the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment and continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations. Such sustainable development (in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors) conserves land, water, plant and animal genetic resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable’. 2 The important ideas in this definition are working within the planetary boundary (‘the natural resource base’), having a future-proof system (‘continued satisfaction’, ‘present and future generations’), limiting impacts to those manageable by the buffering capacity of the planet (‘environmentally non-degrading’), considering the financial needs of business stakeholders (‘economically viable’) and compatible with local needs and customs (‘socially acceptable’).

Five principles have been identified to support a common vision for sustainable agriculture and food. 3 These are: (1) resource efficiency; (2) action to conserve, protect and enhance natural resources; (3) rural livelihood protection and social well-being; (4) enhanced resilience of people, communities and ecosystems; and (5) responsible governance. The aim of this paper is to outline the case for why food systems are not sustainable and to define the case for using technology, specifically internet technologies (hardware and software combined to make the ‘Internet of Food’) to enable the transition of the food system from fossil to sustainable. Increasing population, increasing consumption, a billion malnourished people and agriculture that is concurrently degrading land, water, biodiversity and climate on a global scale 4 combine to indicate that the fossil food systems we currently rely on are not fit-for-purpose. It is suggested that halting agricultural expansion, closing yield gaps, increasing efficiency, changing diets and reducing waste could lead to a doubling of food production with reduced environmental impacts of agriculture. 4 To achieve these changes, it is going to be necessary to harness internet technology, in the form of an ‘Internet of Food’, which offers the chance to use global resources more efficiently, to stimulate rural livelihoods, to develop systems for resilience and to facilitate responsible governance by means of computation, communication, education and trade without limits of knowledge and access.

The concept of ‘Internet of Food’ first appeared in peer-reviewed literature in 2011 (based on a search of scopus.com using ‘Internet of Food’ as the search term). It was described by the idea of food items having an ‘IP identify’, which raised the question of how this might influence our eating habits. 5 Their focus was very much on how the technology could influence food choices and predicted that by 2020 it would be possible to monitor and control food objects remotely through the Internet. It is this technological control of the food system that has real potential to help societal stakeholders (consumers, retailers, processors, producers, shareholders, landowners, indigenous peoples and so on) to engage in the transition of our food system from being fossil to sustainable. The ubiquitous physical tagging and sensing of mass and energy flow in the food system linked to a formal semantic web will allow computation over the whole system to answer questions such as: What was the resource depletion of this product? What is the social impact of eating this product? What food safety procedures have been employed for this product? What and where has wealth been created by the value chain of this product? When these questions can be answered for specific instances of food product types and predicted for new products, then it will be possible to determine whether a specific food system is sustainable or not. The stakeholders demanding answers to these questions are likely to be governance and policy makers and consumers. When these questions can be answered, it will be possible to plan how to manage the evolution of the fundamental life support system (food) from fossil to sustainable in order to support a growing global population.

Current food systems

To understand the need for a systematic transformation of the food system, it is necessary to detail exactly why it is unsustainable. An overwhelming case can be made for the environmental dimension of the system, but there are also social and economic issues as well. This paper will focus the environmental case (resource depletion and adverse environmental impact that relate to the ‘continued satisfaction’ and ‘environmentally non-degrading’ criteria for sustainable food systems), but similar cases can be made for important social and economic issues as well.

Resource depletion

The resource depletion case can be made with respect to energy, nutrients, water, soil and land. Each will be summarised in turn. To date, the agri-food system has converted non-renewable fossil fuel energy into food by enabling mechanisation, amplified fertiliser production, improved food processing and safe global transportation. 6 According to FAO, 7 the agri-food sector accounts for around 30% of the world’s total energy consumption, with Europe alone accounting for 17% of gross energy consumption in 2013. 8 Agriculture, including crop cultivation and animal rearing, is the most energy-intense phase of the food system, accounting for nearly one third of the total energy consumed in the food production chain. 9 To date, renewable energy has had limited penetration of the agri-food sector with fossil fuels accounting for almost 79% of the energy consumed by the food sector. 8 From an energy perspective, the food system can be regarded as unsustainable (cannot meet the ‘continued satisfaction’ requirement) due to its reliance on fossil energy sources.

By the end of the 20th Century, it was estimated that US-produced ammonia represented 32% of fertiliser nitrogen (N) demand, which was produced by extracting N from the atmosphere as ammonia by a process using hydrogen from natural gas (fossil fuel). 9 The vast majority of N fertilisers consumed today are still created using fossil fuels and cannot be regarded as sustainable until such times as new technological approaches emerge, which are currently in their infancy. 10 , 11 A review of mineral fertiliser reserves concluded that potash reserves (the source of most potassium (K) fertilisers) are of great concern and that it is time to start evaluating other sources of K for agriculture 12 but others concluded that ‘modern agriculture is currently relying on a non-renewable resource and future phosphate rock is likely to yield lower quality P at a higher price’. 13 If significant physical and institutional changes are not made to the way we currently use and source P, agricultural yields will be severely compromised in the future. Estimates for when world peak P will be reached range from 2027 14 to 2033. 13 Variations in estimations of when peak P will occur are due the constant changing of reserve levels. 12 The ‘power imbalance’ where just three countries controlling >85% of the known global phosphorus reserves, 15 a concentration of power far greater than that of crude oil, is also of concern, and it has been concluded that the combined impact increasing demand, dwindling reserves and geopolitical constraints could result in reduced production and supply of chemical P fertilisers and increased global P price. 16 It is clear that over time horizons of around 50 years the agri-food system is going to face a major nutrient crisis unless reliance of fossil mineral resources is significantly reduced and ultimately eliminated. From a nutrient management point-of-view, the food system can be regarded as unsustainable (cannot meet the ‘continued satisfaction’ requirement) due to its reliance on fossil mineral resources.

Modern food production is reliant on irrigation to a great extent, which according to the UN water programme, accounts for 70% of freshwater withdrawals worldwide. 17 Excessive removal of groundwater for irrigation is leading to rapid depletion of aquifers in key food-producing regions, such as North-Western India, the North China Plain, Central USA and California. 18 Aquifers replenish so slowly that they are effectively a non-renewable resource. The depletion of these large freshwater stocks threatens food production and security locally and globally via international food trade. Non-sustainable groundwater abstraction contributed to 20% of global gross irrigation water demand in the year 2000 with this demand having tripled over the period 1960–2000. 19 For many countries, irrigation is sustained by non-renewable groundwater, and it has been highlighted that ‘a vast majority of the world’s population lives in countries sourcing nearly all their staple crop imports from partners who deplete groundwater to produce these crops’. 18 Countries who both produce and import food irrigated from rapidly depleting aquifers are particularly at risk, such as USA, Mexico, Iran and China. It has been estimated that India, soon to be the most populous country in the world, will be unable to meet water requirements within 300 years and emerging pressures may reduce this time horizon considerably. 20 Given the interaction of water supply with energy, this situation may become even worse. For example, in California, 20% of electricity production is used for moving and pumping water for agriculture, 21 and as water becomes more difficult to access, the energy demand will increase. From a water management point-of-view, the food system can be regarded as unsustainable (cannot meet the ‘continued satisfaction’ requirement) due to its reliance on non-renewable water resources.

Over 20 years ago, it was estimated that around one third of the world’s agricultural land had been lost to erosion and the rate of loss was about 10 Mha/year 22 Calculations suggest that soil erosion rates under ploughed cultivation are one to two orders of magnitude greater than soil production rates. 23 This rate of soil loss is not compatible with the ‘continued satisfaction’ requirement for a sustainable food system. It is also linked with other environmental impacts, such as loss of carbon, gaseous emissions, non-point source pollution and sedimentation of waterways, 24 therefore it is not compatible with the ‘environmentally non-degrading’ criteria as well. Given projections for expansion of dryland areas to around 50% of total land surface, with 78% of dryland expansion in areas supporting 50% of population growth in the coming decades, 25 the control of soil erosion and its related impacts is going to be a major requirement for sustainable food systems. From a soil management perspective, the food system can be regarded as unsustainable (cannot meet the ‘continued satisfaction’ requirement).

Having considered the energy, nutrient, water, soil and land requirements for food production, it must be concluded that the food system is unsustainable and needs to change because the natural resource base, future satisfaction and environmentally non-degrading requirements cannot be met. It is reasonable to describe food as ‘fossil food’ because of the reliance of non-renewable (and rapidly depleting) resources to supply much of the world’s population. A complete transformation of the food system is required, one that can perhaps be best driven by harnessing appropriate technology to monitor, control and regulate the different types of food system by unleashing the potential benefits of being able to compute over the vast amounts of data that can be obtained from the activities along the food value chain.

Modern industrial agriculture was made possible through land clearing and habitat disruption. Some recognised consequences of this were fragmentation and loss of biodiversity, significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land clearing and adverse impact on marine and freshwater ecosystems. 26 An estimate suggests that the global food system, from fertiliser manufacture to food storage and packaging, is responsible for up to one third of all human-caused GHG emissions. 27 Using data from 2005, 2007 and 2008, agricultural production is also estimated to be responsible for a significant share of GHG emissions from the food system, releasing ~12,000 Mt CO 2 e/year representing about 86% of all food-related anthropogenic GHG emissions, followed by fertiliser manufacture at ~575 Mt CO 2 e/year and refrigeration at ~490 Mt CO 2 e/year. 28 The impacts of such emissions are already being felt 29 including negative feedbacks on crop yield and health. Reducing this impact will be critical to transitioning from unsustainable fossil food to a sustainable future-proof food system. 28 , 30

The eutrophication of surface waters has become an endemic global problem. 31 From the 1950s to the 1990s, agriculture was associated with a 6.87-fold increase in nitrogen fertilisation, a 3.48-fold increase in phosphorus fertilisation, a 1.68-fold increase in the amount of irrigated cropland and a 1.1-fold increase in land in cultivation. 26 Agricultural production has been identified as a major underlying and persistent cause of eutrophication in many catchments around the world 32 , 33 Nutrient loadings from agriculture are a major driver of water quality deterioration, but it is unclear what level of on-farm control is necessary to achieve water quality improvements. 31 Smart agriculture and precision farming will drive improvement by increasing resource use efficiency and by harnessing technology to determine current conditions, future weather conditions and the correct intervention. 34 , 35

Similar cases can be made for acidification, 36 biodiversity, 37 ecosystem toxicity 38 and other environmental impacts. 39 Taking just the limited number of examples presented above, it is clear that the ‘environmentally non-degrading’ requirement for a sustainable food system is not being met by current food supply systems and a radical change is needed. From an environmental perspective (resource depletion and adverse impact), it can be concluded that food systems are not sustainable (in general), and if we work from a strong sustainability perspective of working within planetary boundaries, 40 they cannot become sustainable until this adverse situation is rectified.

Life cycle thinking methods and the need for an Internet of Food

Life cycle thinking is increasingly being used to assess food system sustainability. 41 It is an approach used to assess products, processes or services in terms of their place in the world, the full life cycle that is required for them to serve human society and environmental, social and economic consequences of that service. The method has been recognised as the leading approach for including sustainability in decision-making in the United States of America, 42 Europe 43 and elsewhere in the world. The quantitative tool used to implement life cycle thinking is life cycle assessment (LCA), which is formalised by international standard (ISO 14040/14044) 44 and has been widely used to assess food production systems. 45 LCA is one of the most important methodologies used to assess the impact (pollution and resource depletion) of the food system by using mass and energy flow accounting to model the system and agreed scientific models to calculate resource depletion and specific types of environmental impacts.

It has been suggested that LCA can lead to practitioners focus on the ‘eco-efficiency’ of inherently unsustainable products, and this can lead to increased consumption, because of the LCA paradigm of reducing negatives rather than increasing positives 46 The cradle-to-cradle (C2C) concept tends to focus more on linking resource consumption and waste creation with sustainability status rather than minimisation of specific impacts. One conclusion is that the best attributes of both approaches should be harnessed. 46 All such methods (e.g. LCA, C2C) depend on being able to collect sufficient data to characterise a system of interest or the use of publicly funded or commercial databases when site-specific data are not available. It was noted that ‘the practicality of adopting LCA to support decision-making can be limited by the generic nature of the assessment and the resource-intensive nature of data collection and life cycle inventory modelling’, 47 which is the key limitation for developing tools to facilitate the transition from fossil to sustainable food. The need to share data between stakeholders in increasingly important for the creation of useful information about the food system.

A number of issues associated with using LCA to better understand and manage food systems have been noted, 41 including (i) the variability of food production, supply chain and consumption globally; (ii) uncertainty related to the specification of data 48 and the system; 49 (iii) identifying the boundary between technosphere and ecosphere because agriculture relies on exploiting the ecosphere; 50 (iv) correctly identifying the real function 51 of the food system in order to select the most useful functional unit; (v) the multi-functionality of the system; (vi) capturing or modelling inventory data (which requires cooperation between stakeholders for food system applications); (vii) the geo-temporal specificity of background data from LCA databases; (viii) capturing the role of different stakeholders (e.g. consumers, government, industry); (ix) the role of diet choices and (x) handling ‘waste’. These issues are seen in the lack of comparability of LCA studies of the same type of product. 52 Furthermore, the scope of LCA as a global tool to quantify environmental impacts over the whole life cycle creates limitations. 53 LCA by its nature, focusses on the global scale and on steady-state, linear homogenous modelling, making it ‘very difficult to include varying spatial and temporal characteristics and nonlinear characteristics of large numbers of processes that occur all over the world’. 53 There are inherent limitations of inventory because of loss of spatial, temporal, dose–response and threshold information, which reduced the accuracy of impact assessments. 54 The ‘Internet of Food’ would transform our understanding of the food system and how they are modelled using LCA, provided data sharing is possible. Of the issues affecting food LCA, 41 most could be directly addressed by the ability to collect data and compute across the whole food chain: variability, uncertainty, multi-functionality, inventory data, databases, stakeholder influence, diet and waste, and the other two, boundary and function, could probably be better understood based on discernible activity. The examples of data mining of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data sets, 47 potential for avoiding excessive simplification 55 and use of big data in industrial ecology 56 indicate that this is the way forward.

Internet of Food: an enabling technology for the transition from fossil to sustainable

The deployment of sensor networks in the food system have historically been stage-specific and typically designed for monitoring and decision-making at a specific site and time, despite the potential for system integration having been recognised more than a decade ago. 57 Many sensors have been developed that could be used for the food chain, for example, for soil monitoring, for precision agriculture purposes, 58 for post-harvest storage monitoring, 59 for process control, 60 for retail logistics monitoring 61 and in some cases for domestic use. 62 A key requirement to create an ‘Internet of Food’ will be to make the data from these sensors interoperable and to be able to compute across the data set they create. A notable limitation is lack of integration caused by the current mix of open and closed data, communications, hardware standards and a lack of willingness to share data between stakeholders. It has been noted that an ‘…ontology-driven architecture for developing hybrid systems [that] consists of various entities including software components, hardware components (sensors, actuators and controllers), datastores (knowledge base, raw data, metadata), biological elements (plants[or animals]) and environmental context…’ 63 would permit the development of precision agriculture applications, and by logical extension this is required to utilise information across the whole food system (i.e. the Internet of Food). The proposal here is that the ‘hybrid-system’ needs to be extended to cover the whole food system, thus permitting production, process, logistics, retail, purchasing, consumption, nutrition and health outcomes to be integrated through information and computation. Where it is not possible to integrate data of the whole system that delivers a product, it will be very difficult to use Internet of Food for best advantage because its strength is determined by the data available.

A critical requirement will be the development of related ontologies. An ontology is the formal naming of concepts (e.g. types, properties, inter-relationships) within a domain and it is used to describe or infer properties of that domain. In order to be able to draw upon a range of data sources (sensors) and databases (knowledge silos), it is necessary to label data with unique identifiers that permit computers to reason with or compute over those data sets. This is where the real value of Internet of Things, and more specifically Internet of Food lies. To achieve the paradigm shift from fossil food to sustainable food systems, such a shift is needed, facilitated by the ability to reason with such data. As noted, 63 an ontology-driven architecture is needed to enable the ‘Internet of Food’. Ecologists have recognised the importance of big data in ecological research 64 in order to address major scientific and societal issues, and to answer the major question facing food (how to achieve a sustainable food system?), an agreed vocabulary and language structure (ontology) is needed. To take simple examples, the word ‘buttermilk’ originally referred to liquid left after churning butter is now also used to describe a fermented or cultured milk drink, so until the language describing these two concepts is standardised it is not possible to compute from diverse data sets within the domain of dairy processing, never mind across domains, where words such as slurry, matrix and texture all mean very different things depending on context. A noted rapid growth of Internet of Things requires standardisation to lower the entry barriers for the new services, to improve interoperability of systems and to allow better services performance. 65 They noted that this is particularly important for security, communication and identification where interoperability, and particularly semantic interoperability, will be critical. It has been recognised that a proliferation of ad hoc coded data systems will be an impediment to developing data-centric systems that can transform farming, 66 so sharing of data, agreement of standards and stakeholder cooperation will be required to achieve food systems transformation.

Food ontologies can be used with the specific aim of identifying gaps and for purposes beyond the initial, relatively simple applications, such as recognising foods, 67 with a contextual focus on diet, food selection, health and wellbeing being possible, 68 which is a critical component of a sustainable food system, and just as important are the social, economic and environmental impacts and benefits. There are untold opportunities to develop specific services targeted in these areas as well as the potential for integration, with tools such as life cycle sustainability assessment to evaluate the true sustainability of specific food products, meal combinations, whole diets and food systems. These ideas have been evaluated in the context of mining U.S. EPA data for assessing chemical manufacturing, 47 which identified that automating data access was a challenge because the data are incompatible with semantic queries. Data need to be described using ontologies to relate those data that need to be linked and to introduce LCA concepts to the descriptions. A framework for integrating ‘big data’ with LCA has been suggested 69 and it was also noted that development of semantic web standards for ecological data have greatly enhanced interoperability in that domain. 70 The same is required for the food system. It has been suggested that when food (and water) domain descriptors have been developed, this will enable ‘IT support [for] improved production, distribution and sales of foodstuffs [and water]’, 71 but the development of the domain models for the food chain is perhaps not a task for commerce or industry, rather for public, international research.

The opportunities that will be created by the Internet of Food are immense. One important shift will be from a descriptive, inferential approach to analysing food systems to a ‘big data’ approach. 68 ‘Big data’ can be characterised in terms of volume (data sets too large for conventional database management), velocity (acquiring, understanding and interpreting data in real time) and variety (the vast array of sources and types of data beyond the conventional rows and columns of numbers describing transactions). 72 Examples have already emerged where ‘big data’ has been used to provide data useful for LCA including agricultural resource survey 73 and resource use and emissions associated with U.S. electric power generation. 74 It is worth pointing out that much of the data relied on for LCA studies is drawn from commonly used databases (e.g. EcoInvent, ELCD, NREL) and are reliant on ‘small data’ and limited observations, which has resulted in reported error (multiple orders of magnitude), 47 while ‘big data’ offers a means to answering questions about environmental impact or food safety that simply cannot be contemplated in the context of controlled experiments. 71

Authors have considered ‘big data’ and ‘internet of things’ in the context of specific parts of the food chain. For example, ‘big data’ in ‘smart farming’ (i.e. the production stage of the food system) is now being used to make predictive insights about farm operations, to support operational decisions, to redesign business processes and to change business models. 75 To leverage this value at the farm level required extension along the food chain beyond the farm, but two scenarios are emerging: closed proprietary systems and open collaborative systems, 74 such as Food Industry Intelligence Network, 76 Food Innovation Network 77 and European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food. 78 Priority should be given to development of data and applications infrastructure and at the same time to organisational issues concerning governance and business models for data sharing. 74 In the context of circular economy (i.e. the end of life, non-consumed part of the food system), it was found that, despite the concept of circular economy being discussed for decades, it has not become an adopted business model. 79 An analysis of literature from 2006 to 2015 found only 70 publications at the intersection of circular economy and ‘big data’/‘internet of things’, but nearly half (34) had been published in 2015. 75 It was suggested that technology encompassed by ‘big data’ and ‘internet of things’ is what is needed to enable such change, 75 which is the same argument being put forward here for the Internet of Food in the context of sustainable food systems. Two implications of relevance for the Internet of Food are: there is a gap between scientific research and corporate initiatives, which needs to be closed, and the search of literature was limited by the keywords available, and more specifically the lack of structured taxonomy to describe the circular economy. It is reasonable to conclude that if these ideas are relevant to one small component of the Internet of Food, then they are probably relevant to the concept as a whole.

These two recent reviews highlight the importance of developing the Internet of Food as a precompetitive platform on which business models can be built, much like the internet as we currently know it, and to achieve this we need to define agreed vocabularies and ontologies to be able to reason and compute across the vast amounts of data that are and will be available in the future. The ability to compute over large amounts of data will change the way the food system is analysed and understood. Biological scientists have noted how important data curation is, because as curated data become available the way science is conducted changes. 80 A key requirement of data curation is the connection of data from different sources in a human- and machine-comprehensible way. Another key change is the processing of multiple sources of complex data (‘big data’) using inference programs. While this might lead to new ways of conducting experimental (hypothesis driven) research, it is also unlocking the door to data-driven research, i.e. extracting new knowledge and understanding from data without experimentation or preconceived ideas, and providing new management approaches based on information and better decision-making capabilities. 71

The Internet of Food offers substantial opportunities for understanding the limits and constraints to sustainable food systems and thus supporting decisions about the transition from fossil to sustainable food. It is essential that all stakeholders engage with the development of Internet of Food to ensure harmonious development of a technology that can be used for both pre-competitive applications and commercial exploitation, if it is to be fully developed over the coming 5–10 years. In addition to the technical issues highlighted here, there are considerations of data ownership, privacy, ethical use of data, market control and other application domains (e.g. food safety, traceability, personal nutrition, security, fraud and policy) that need to be developed with stakeholder contributions alongside the technical advances considered here.

Conclusions

In order to transition to a sustainable food system, we need specific technology infrastructure to allow high-quality data to be collected about the food system that will permit the best possible decision-making. Key requirements are: standard vocabularies and ontologies to allow integration of data sets across the internet; proliferation of low cost sensing to allow orders of magnitude change in the supply of empirical observation data into LCA models; and new analytical methods to collate, curate, analyse and utilise data across the whole food production system. We need an Internet of Food to monitor conditions and analyse data to derive knowledge that can be combined with the means to implement control of the system to enable a step change in how we think about food systems. This technology will give us the chance to transition from fossil food to sustainable food systems.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support and funding from the UCD Institute of Food and Health, UC Davis, Food for Health Institute and the IC3-Foods Conference.

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The ideas and initial draft for this paper were drawn together by N.M.H. and consolidated at the inaugural IC3-Foods Conference in UC Davis, November 2016, following extensive discussion with M.C.L. T.L.O. and E.P.W. contributed to background research and additional draft text. M.C.L. refined the technology discussion.

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Holden, N.M., White, E.P., Lange, M.C. et al. Review of the sustainability of food systems and transition using the Internet of Food. npj Sci Food 2 , 18 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-018-0027-3

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Exploration of Food Security Challenges towards More Sustainable Food Production: A Systematic Literature Review of the Major Drivers and Policies

Sabreen wahbeh.

1 Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong in Dubai, Dubai 20183, United Arab Emirates

Foivos Anastasiadis

2 Department of Agribusiness and Supply Chain Management, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece

Balan Sundarakani

Ioannis manikas, associated data.

Not applicable.

Food security is a central priority for international policy as one of the world’s most significantly urgent targets to achieve. It is considered one of the most pressing issues in many countries, the degree of food security representing the level of self-sufficiency and well-being of citizens. In particular, in the current COVID-19 pandemic era, it has more than ever become a mission-critical goal. In this research, we report on the food security drivers and the current state of recommended policies addressing chronic food insecurity aimed at ensuring the sustainability of future food production. Mapping the determinants of food security contributes to a better understanding of the issue and aids in the development of appropriate food security policies and strategies to enhance the sustainability of food production in all facets; namely environmental, social, and economic. Adopting the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) data screening and selection guidelines and standards, we carried out a comprehensive, reliable, systematic, and rigorous review of research from the last ten years in order to identify the most frequently mentioned drivers and policies of food security in the literature available in two databases: Scopus and Web of Science (WOS). The number of extracted articles was 141 papers in total. An analysis revealed 34 drivers of food security and 17 most recommended policies for the mitigation of food insecurity. The existence of food loss and waste (FLW) policies was the primary driver of food security, followed by food security policies (FSP) in their different forms. However, FSP were the most recommended policies, followed by FLW policies. The identified food security drivers and recommended policies should be used by policy-makers to improve food security, thus contributing to sustainable food production. Our research findings, reflected in the latest version of the Global Food Security Index (GFSI), resulted in more tangible policy implications, suggesting the addition of two dimensions regarding food security. We also identified elements not listed under the GFSI that could be considered in its future revision, including environmental policies/indicators, consumer representation, and traceability throughout the entire supply chain. Overall, it can be concluded that food security is a complicated and multi-faceted issue that cannot be restricted to a single variable, necessitating the deeper integration of various multi-disciplinary interventions.

1. Introduction

Food security (FS) is “a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” [ 1 ] p.3. It is a significant priority for international policy [ 2 ], and has been perceived as being among the key challenges worldwide [ 3 ] as it represents a country’s degree of self-sufficiency and the well-being of its citizens [ 4 ]. Securing a nation’s self-sufficiency has become a top priority in the context of the current COVID-19 global epidemic era, even more so than earlier [ 5 ]. Economic expansion, rising incomes, urbanization, and growing population are driving up the demand for food, as people adopt more diverse and resource-intensive dietary habits [ 2 , 6 ]. The world’s current population is steadily increasing, placing significant pressure on the available natural resources to feed the growing population [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]; however, this dramatic growth in the global population is anticipated mainly in developing countries, which already suffer from devastating hunger and food insecurity [ 7 ]. One of the biggest obstacles to ensuring global food security is the need to roughly double food production within the coming few decades, particularly in the context of the developing world’s rapidly increasing demand [ 10 , 11 ]. The natural resources such as land, water, energy, and other resources used in food production are all subject to increasing competition [ 12 , 13 ]. Climate change poses difficulties for agricultural production [ 14 ], mainly in developing nations, while some existing farming practices harm the environment and contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) [ 15 , 16 ]. There is a real danger that less developed countries may be forced to reverse direction. The FAO’s statistics on world hunger in 2009 showed a dramatic rise to 1.023 billion people, demonstrating precisely such a situation. When commodity prices fell the following year, this number dropped to 925 million, which was still more prominent than in 2007 (i.e., before the price spike) [ 17 ]. According to recent data published by the Global Hunger Index, the number of malnourished people grew from 785 million in 2015 to 822 million in 2018. Moreover, 43 out of 117 countries reported extreme hunger [ 18 ]. Approximately 20% of developing countries lack the resources and physical access necessary to provide their citizens with the most basic food. Children in developing countries face vitamin and nutritional deficiencies and being underweight, which puts them at risk for various sicknesses due to food insecurity [ 12 ]. National and global imbalances brought on by food insecurity are expected to worsen human suffering and make it harder for people to survive [ 12 ]. Despite the efforts of multiple global organizations such as the FAO and the UN, the problem of food insecurity is worsening [ 19 ], which means that more effective and sustainable solutions must be provided to ensure the alleviation of food insecurity and the sustainability of food production. Hence, policy-makers must understand that in a world that is becoming more globalized, food insecurity in one region could have significant political, economic, and environmental impacts elsewhere [ 2 ].

Throughout the twentieth century, policy-makers used the concept of food security as a key notion in formulating food-related policies [ 17 ]. Lang and Barling [ 17 ] have proposed two main schools of thought on food security: the first focused on increased production as the primary solution to under-consumption and hunger, while the second is a newer one that is more socially and environmentally conscious and accepts the need to address a wide range of issues, not just production. The former is primarily concerned with agriculture, while the latter is concerned with food systems. One approach to solve the food security challenge is to intensify agricultural production in ways that impose much less environmental stress and do not jeopardize our long-term ability to continue producing food [ 2 ]. The above sustainable intensification strategy comprises a policy agenda for several governments worldwide, but has also drawn criticism for being overly production-focused or incoherent [ 2 ]. The central mission of the twenty-first century is to establish a sustainable food system, which calls for a more concrete policy framework than that which is currently in place [ 17 ]. This mission has been disrupted by competing solutions for policy focus and policies that have, so far, failed to incorporate the complex array of evidence from social, environmental, and economic components into such an integrated and comprehensive policy response [ 17 ]. Millions of people are being pushed into a cycle of food insecurity and poverty due to climate change; however, we can combat both food insecurity and climate change by implementing climate-friendly agricultural production methods [ 12 ]. Tsolakis and Srai [ 20 ] have stated that any comprehensive food security policy should entail multi-dimensional policies considering aspects such as resilience, trade, self-sufficiency, food waste, and sustainability. As it is traditionally understood, food security concerns individuals, while ecological and environmental concepts operate locally and at supra-national, regional, and international levels [ 1 ]. According to Guiné, Pato [ 21 ], the four pillars of food security—availability, access, utilization, and stability—should be reconsidered to include additional factors such as climate change. Clapp, Moseley [ 22 ] has also stressed that it is time to officially update the existing food security definition to involve two further dimensions—sustainability and agency—containing broader dynamics that have an impact on hunger and malnutrition [ 23 ]. Sustainability relates to the long-term ability of food systems to ensure food and nutrition security in a way that does not jeopardize the economic, social, and environmental foundations that generate food and nutrition security for upcoming generations [ 22 , 23 ]. Agency represents the ability of people or groups to decide what they consume, what they produce, and how they produce, process, and distribute their food within food systems, as well as their capacity to participate in processes that shape the food system’s policies and governance [ 22 , 23 ]. Instead of dismissing food security as being insufficient, Clapp, Moseley [ 22 ] has contended that the inclusion of two extra dimensions—agency and sustainability—into food security policy and assessment frameworks will help to guarantee that every human has access to food, not just now but also in the future. Sustainability can be viewed as a pre-requisite for long-term food security [ 1 ]. Environmental aspects—particularly climate and the availability of natural resources—are pre-requisite for food availability and biodiversity protection [ 24 ]. The availability of food for everybody depends on economic and social sustainability. Food utilization, too, is influenced by social sustainability. The three components of sustainability—social, economic, and environmental—ensure the continuity of the three food security dimensions and the food system stability on which they rely. As confirmation of the vital relationship between food security and sustainability, “The International Food Policy Research Institute” has launched a 2020 Vision of Food Security to achieve food security, stating that “a world where every person has economic and physical access to sufficient food to sustain a healthy and productive life, where malnutrition is absent, and where food originates from efficient, effective, and low-cost food and agricultural systems that are compatible with sustainable use and management of natural resources” [ 12 ] (p357). Many policies, priorities, technologies, and long-term solutions must be developed and implemented worldwide to achieve the 2020 food security vision [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. However, there is a scarcity of systematic studies analyzing the food security drivers and the recommended policies to improve food security.

Following a review of the academic literature, we discovered a scarcity of research that systemically summarizes the major drivers of food security, outlines the recommended policies to improve food security, ensures the sustainability of future food production, and provides policy recommendations to enhance food security based on a country’s context. In response to this gap in the literature, we carried out a comprehensive, reliable, systematic, and rigorous review of previous research from the last ten years in order to identify the most frequently mentioned drivers/policies in the scanned literature. The rationale behind this study is to identify and list food security drivers and the current state of recommended policies that address chronic food insecurity to ensure the sustainability of future food production, utilizing a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology. Moreover, we hope to identify drivers/policies in order to aid policy-makers in selecting the most appropriate policies based on each nation’s context (e.g., agricultural production, natural resource availability, climate, political stability, and so on). Most importantly, policy-makers can use the identified drivers of food security and the recommended policies in the literature to customize appropriate policies that ensure the sustainability of future food production and, hence, ensure food sustainability for future generations. Based on the evidence reported in the literature, the identified food security drivers and recommended policies will aid the policy- and decision-makers of various countries in sustainably improving the food security situation. The need to identify the main drivers of food security arises from the notable increase in households and individuals suffering from food shortages and insecurity globally [ 25 ]. Finally, the findings of this research will be used to inform the GFSI developers in order to include more comprehensive indicators expected to contribute to the sustainability of future food production.

2. Materials and Methods

This research aims to report on food security drivers and the current state of recommended policies that address chronic food insecurity in order to ensure the sustainability of future food production through the use of a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology. We highlight existing food security drivers and outline recommended policies to alleviate food insecurity following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) data screening and selection guidelines [ 26 ]. The extraction process was meticulously documented in order to ensure the transparency and replicability of this systematic literature review [ 27 ]. A panel of researchers was formed, following the systematic review guidelines [ 26 ], to define the research field and questions, select keywords and the intended databases, and develop the sets of inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The research began by formulating the research questions to guide this systematic review based on identified gaps in the literature, guiding us in an attempt to answer the following research questions:

• Q1. What are the main drivers of food security?
• Q2. What are the main recommended policies to alleviate food insecurity?

By answering these questions, this paper provides a reference that policy-makers and practitioners can use to identify the main drivers of food security and the recommended policies in the literature in order to customize and choose appropriate policies that ensure the sustainability of future food production. The identified food security drivers and recommended policies are expected to aid policy- and decision-makers in improving the state of FS. This study also provides a roadmap for future research based on the evidence reported in the literature.

A specific research criterion was used to ensure that the research sources selected were sufficient and comprehensive enough to capture all of the significant and salient points to adequately answer the research questions [ 26 ]. To this end, we provide a critical review of the existing literature that has been published in two databases—Scopus and Web of Science (WOS)—between 2010 and 15 March 2021, to answer the abovementioned research questions. The time limit was set to cover the period following the global financial crisis of 2008/2009 and its effect on rising food prices, increased unemployment rates, and increasing food insecurity worldwide [ 28 , 29 , 30 ]. This period allows for consideration of policies designed to ensure global food security following the food shortage crisis. The use of Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) databases helped us to include most potential published works in a broad scope of journals, thereby limiting the risks of bias and possible exclusions associated with the use of fewer journals.

We employed a set of identified keywords, which are summarized in detail in Table 1 . A critical analysis was conducted regarding the most relevant concepts that are available in the literature and which affect each of the four dimensions of FS: Food availability, food access, food utilization, and food stability. For instance, the research string “Agrifood supply chain” OR “Agri food supply chain” OR “Agri-food supply chain” was added as a secondary search string, because food availability is highly dependent on the food supply chain and how well its activities are managed. The food supply chain is exposed to many factors that can negatively impact the country’s food security level, such as severe weather conditions [ 31 , 32 ]. Therefore, it is critical to consider some characteristics of the food supply chain, such as biophysical and organoleptic features, shelf life, transport conditions, production time, and storage, to efficiently and effectively manage it [ 33 ]. Effective supply chain management is seen as a significant contributor to gaining and enhancing industrial competitive advantage and efficiency at the company level, possibly impacting food security positively [ 34 ]. “MENA Region” OR “Middle East and North Africa” OR “Middle East” OR “North Africa” research string was added due to the severity of food insecurity there and to ensure the inclusion of papers that address the problem in these countries and propose strategies to overcome food insecurity. According to the GFSI data [ 25 ], MENA region countries are experiencing a decline in food security; moreover, the number of households and individuals suffering from food shortages and insecurity is dramatically increasing.

Primary and secondary search strings used in this research.

The research string “Sustainable supply chain” OR “Resilient supply chain” was added due to much research that stressed the impact of designing a proper supply chain structure due to its significant impact on the future improvement of its performance [ 33 ]. The central mission of the twenty-first century is to establish a sustainable food system, which calls for a more concrete policy framework than what is currently in place [ 17 ]. Sustainability can be viewed as a prerequisite for long-term food security [ 1 ]. The environment, particularly climate and the availability of natural resources, is a prerequisite for food availability and biodiversity protection [ 24 ]. The availability of food for everybody depends on economic and social sustainability. Food utilization, too, is influenced by social sustainability. The three components of sustainability—social, economic, and environmental—assure the continuity of the three food security dimensions and the food system stability on which they rely. Moreover, food security is increasingly considered a prerequisite for long-term sustainability [ 1 ]. Adopting a “sustainable production and consumption approach throughout the global food supply chain” is a solution that will help reduce the amount of food waste along the food supply chain [ 35 , 36 ]. Cooper and Ellram [ 37 ] argued that building a resilient supply chain has many advantages such as decreasing inventory time, which will lead to cost and time savings, increasing the availability of goods, reducing the order cycle time, improving customer service and satisfaction, and gaining a competitive advantage. Stone and Rahimifard [ 38 ] stressed the importance of having a resilient agricultural food supply chain to achieve food security due to the incremental increase in volatility across the supply chain.

The research string “Food Safety” OR “Food diversity” OR “Food quality” OR “Food standards” OR “Micronutrient availability” was added due to one of the food security dimensions: utilization, which is concerned with all aspects of food safety, and nutrition quality [ 39 ]. According to FAO (2019), the utilization dimension should assess food diversity, food safety, food standards, and micronutrient availability. It is inadequate to provide enough food to someone unable to benefit from it because they are constantly sick due to a lack of sanitary conditions. It indicates that in the country, individuals are taking advantage of the food they receive or have access to, with extra emphasis on the dietary quality that contains nutritious ingredients such as vitamins (vitamin-A) and minerals (Iron, Zinc, Iodine) [ 40 ]. According to the World Health Organization, people diagnosed with malnutrition usually suffer from micronutrient deficiencies, protein deficiency, obesity, or undernutrition. The lack of micro-ingredients can increase the risk of developing severe chronic and infectious diseases for people in general and children in particular (toddlers 9–24 months). These diseases have an irreversible negative impact on people’s health, which enhances the persistence of poverty and food insecurity. It is critical to invest in the health and nutrition elements on a global scale by ensuring safe drinking water, immunization, enhancing sewage discharge, improving public health services, and reducing poverty levels [ 41 ].

The research string “Agricultural infrastructure” OR “Agricultural production volatility” OR “Vulnerability assessment” was chosen because much research has emphasized the importance of investing in a strong agricultural infrastructure to improve food security levels, especially in light of current challenges such as climate change, increased urbanization, water scarcity, and the shift away from using cropland for non-agricultural activities [ 7 , 8 , 41 ]. Food security is vulnerable to severe weather conditions, whereas harsh weather conditions may adversely impact the food supply chain in weak areas [ 31 , 32 ]. Therefore, it is critical to assess the vulnerability level of each country to protect the food supply chain. The use of the “Food loss” OR “Food waste” OR “Food waste and loss” research string was due to the general agreement among researchers on the importance of reducing food waste to improve food security [ 35 , 42 , 43 ]. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (2013), around one-third of the food produced globally (1.3 billion tons) is wasted or lost. Most wasted food is either fresh and perishable or leftovers from eating and cooking [ 36 , 42 ]. Basher, Raboy [ 43 ] argued that eliminating just one-fourth of the food waste would be enough to feed all the currently undernourished people. One of the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations, “SDG 12.3 Food Waste Index” stresses that decreasing the amount of food loss and waste will help reduce hunger levels, promote sustainable production and consumption, and enhance food security [ 44 ].

The use of “Policy description” OR “Policy assessment” OR “Policy recommendation” OR “Policymaking” OR “Policy-making” OR “Policy making” research string was due to the impact of adequate and proper policy formulation on food security ( Table 1 ). Establishing effective and efficient food policies that ensure that each individual has an optimal level of food security is critical in every country because it directly enhances the country’s competitive advantage and efficiency [ 34 , 45 ]. Timmer [ 46 ] emphasized that designing the proper set of policies to end hunger based on each country’s context is challenging and requires collaborative participation from multiple stakeholders. Murti Mulyo Aji [ 34 ] stressed the role of the government’s policies in developing a collaborative supply chain that creates value throughout the supply chain by improving information, logistics, and relationship management. Effective and efficient supply chain management significantly impacts managing long-term partnerships and corporations among a wide range of firms that vary in size and sectors (public or private). This collaboration will enhance prediction of changes in customer demands in domestic and international markets. If previous policies were insufficient to ensure that country’s true competitive advantage, it could cause market distortion [ 34 , 47 ]. Countries are encouraged to gradually reduce the adoption of inequitable trade policies to focus on enhancing their true competitive advantage, demonstrating fair competition, and increasing economic efficiency, particularly in the spirit of trade liberalization [ 34 ].

The selection of research sources was accomplished in March 2021, and the search for keywords was enabled for titles, abstracts, and full texts in both electronic search engines (i.e., Scopus and WOS). Several keywords were identified to retrieve the available literature, and search strings consisted of primary and secondary keywords. The primary search string used was as follows: “food security” OR “food insecurity” OR “food availability” OR “food affordability” OR “food access” OR “food utilization” OR “food stability”. The reason behind including these multiple strings was to cover the maximum number of articles that handle the topic of food security or any of its four dimensions.

Specific exclusion and inclusion criteria were applied in order to develop high-quality evidence [ 26 ]. A reasonable number of articles were limited for deep analysis by following the specific exclusion and inclusion criteria to control the quality of the review in the food security field, as detailed in Table 2 above. Only peer-reviewed journal articles were included within the time frame (2010–15 March 2021) and only those written in English. Furthermore, due to this study’s nature and to ensure consistency with the topic area, the most common and effective approach for examining drivers and recommended policies were limited to the business, management, accounting, and agricultural fields [ 48 ]. We have used the “business, management and accounting” research field in the Scopus database to ensure that all the included articles were business-related. Then, we restricted the research field to” Economics, business, and agriculture Economics” in the WoS database to ensure the inclusion of agriculture-related papers and maximize the inclusion of a diverse range of articles. Another round of retrieval was applied using a set of secondary keywords in order to narrow down the search to specific areas of food security. For this purpose, the primary keywords were escorted each time with “AND” and other secondary keywords, as listed in Table 2 .

Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The initial search using the primary keywords (“food security” OR “food insecurity” OR “food availability” OR “food affordability” OR “food access” OR “food utilization” OR “food stability”) revealed a total of 113,709 documents (Scopus, n = 63,860; WOS, n = 49,849). Strict selection criteria were applied to the first search pool in order to maintain transparency and guarantee the selection of relevant material that answers the research questions. To ensure academic rigor, the search was restricted to including only peer-reviewed publications [ 49 ] (Scopus, n = 47,673; WOS, n = 40,305). The research was then restricted by publication date to between 2010 and 15 March 2021 (Scopus, n = 34,789; WOS, n = 31,278). Only journal articles published in English were selected (Scopus, n = 33,292; WOS, n = 30,313). Then, advanced research was conducted by combining the primary keywords with one of the secondary keywords. The results and the number of articles identified in each search step are detailed in Figure 1 . After removing duplicate articles from each database, a total of 281 journal articles (Scopus, n = 140; WOS, n = 141) were revealed. After combining both databases, 248 journal articles were obtained. These collected 248 journal articles were scanned by reading their abstracts in order to check their applicability to answering the research questions. At this point, 107 articles were excluded as they were considered irrelevant and outside the scope of the research. Finally, the total number of extracted articles was 141, as can be seen in Figure 1 . Data extraction and analysis were performed by a single reviewer (SW), and all extracted data and revealed results were double-checked by three researchers (FA, IM, and BS) to enhance the research and reduce bias in study selection. A complete description of the validity threats (Construct, Internal, External, and Conclusion Validity) following the validation process of Zhou, Jin [ 50 ] is provided in detail in Table 3 .

Research protocol following the PRISMA guidelines.

A reporting of validity threats in this systematic literature review.

Among the selected 141 articles, 28 (19.86%) were published in the Journal of Cleaner Production , 20 (14.18%) were published in Food Policy , and 5 (3.55%) were published in Quality-Access to Success . The rest of the journal names are visualized in Figure 2 .

The most popular journals publishing the 141 included articles. Others denotes journals that were cited once or twice.

After the 141 articles have been extracted, they were analyzed and summarized individually by listing all the discussed food security drivers, as well as the recommended policies for the improvement of food security and sustainable food production. Then, we synthesized the extracted information from all sources in order to identify the gaps, list the similarities between all the resources, and extract significant insights regarding the main drivers of food security and the recommended policies [ 26 ].

3.1. The Major Drivers of Food Security

Analysis of the retrieved literature revealed 34 different drivers of food security, as visualized in Figure 3 . Detailed information, along with a full citation list for all the drivers, is provided in Appendix A .

Summary of the major drivers of food security.

Most papers discussed food loss and waste (FLW) and emphasized its impact on food security [ 6 , 19 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 ]. Around one-third of the food produced globally (1.3 million tons) is wasted or lost [ 96 ]. Basher, Raboy [ 43 ] has argued that, if we could save just one-fourth of the wasted food, it would be enough to feed all the world’s undernourished people, contributing positively to FS. The previous finding supports our research findings that FLW is the primary driver of FS. To reduce FLW, Halloran, Clement [ 6 ] has argued that effective communication, more efficient food packaging, and a better consumer understanding of food packaging could lead to solutions. To decrease food loss, Garcia-Herrero, Hoehn [ 62 ] has suggested improving food labelling, enhancing consumer planning, and developing technological advances in packaging and shelf life for perishable products. Morone, Falcone [ 83 ] has suggested the repetition of large-scale research to help define a set of policies encouraging the transition to a new model for consumption that promotes sustainably procured food and dramatically reduces the amount of waste (more details are provided in Section 3.2 ).

Additionally, several authors have considered food security policy (FSP) as a driver of food security in its different forms [ 56 , 63 , 65 , 69 , 70 , 74 , 79 , 85 , 94 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 ]. The primary goal of establishing food security policies that consider the factors influencing individuals and groups is to reduce poverty and eliminate hunger. One example is safety-net programs or public food assistance programs (FAPs). The main goal of providing safety-net programs is to increase food consumption among poor people and improve food security [ 102 ].

Many papers have discussed the importance of technological advancement as an enabler of food security [ 56 , 57 , 58 , 63 , 69 , 71 , 74 , 77 , 85 , 90 , 94 , 95 , 109 , 116 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 123 , 124 , 125 , 126 , 127 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 ]. The use of technology to promote behavioral changes has increasingly become a vital instrument to reduce food waste and indirectly improve food security [ 130 ]. Mobile applications offer households helpful guidance on increasing shelf life and experimenting with dishes using leftovers [ 58 ]. Shukla, Singh [ 130 ] has elaborated that, at present, farmers have access to mobile applications that provide them with reasonably and timely priced information.

Some authors have discussed sustainable agricultural development and practices as enablers of food security [ 56 , 57 , 59 , 64 , 71 , 73 , 94 , 97 , 105 , 109 , 111 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 124 , 130 , 132 , 134 , 136 , 137 , 139 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 146 , 147 ]. Some authors have discussed local production enhancement as a driver of food security to enhance the self-reliance of countries [ 57 , 69 , 85 , 87 , 89 , 94 , 98 , 103 , 105 , 109 , 112 , 117 , 120 , 134 , 137 , 144 , 148 , 149 ]. For example, Ahmed, Begum [ 98 ] has emphasized how, following the GCC ban, Qatar took several successful steps to foster local production, support domestic businesses, and promote the consumption of locally produced food by its citizens. Some authors have argued that building the capacities of small farmers is essential to achieving FS. Education policies are critical for educating farmers, building their capacities, and increasing their human capital; moreover, educational programs should also include food preparation and health education programs in order to ensure the safety of consumed food [ 101 ].

The government’s role in managing a country’s agriculture can also be seen as a driver of food security [ 67 , 75 , 84 , 86 , 100 , 109 , 116 , 117 , 119 , 121 , 137 , 138 , 147 , 150 , 151 , 152 ], as it is responsible for various aspects such as designing, testing, and implementing the right policies to ensure the welfare of its citizens, while providing the necessary assistance to small-scale farmers and ensuring their safety and security in all aspects of life. Governments in developing nations must focus on R&D, agriculture infrastructure (e.g., technologies for irrigation and soil preservation), expansion services, early warning systems, or subsidized farm income in order to alter the production function of the population [ 101 ].

Many authors have discussed the importance of food safety policies as an enabler of food security [ 61 , 64 , 69 , 103 , 105 , 111 , 112 , 129 , 149 , 153 , 154 , 155 , 156 , 157 , 158 , 159 ]. Food safety policies include food and water safety at several points throughout the supply chain where food-borne diseases might develop [ 69 ]. Environmental policies are also seen as a fundamental enabler of food security [ 59 , 73 , 121 , 124 , 130 , 135 , 139 , 147 , 159 , 160 , 161 , 162 , 163 ]. Regardless of the various approaches discussed by the authors, they all agreed that environmental protection would help to ensure food availability for current and future generations. According to some authors, trade policies [ 69 , 94 , 95 , 103 , 111 , 112 , 114 , 123 , 129 , 141 , 146 , 161 , 164 ] and import policies [ 69 , 95 , 100 , 103 , 120 , 124 , 126 , 129 , 146 ] are enablers of food security. Regulating international trade can help to ensure food security. Lowering trade barriers, for example, has been proposed as a way to mitigate the adverse effects of market regulation caused by climate change [ 141 ].

Many authors have recognized policies that promote consumer education on sustainable consumption and increase consumer awareness and knowledge of the environmental impact of their purchases as a driver of food security [ 52 , 60 , 67 , 69 , 86 , 133 , 144 , 151 , 163 , 165 , 166 , 167 ]. Others have stressed proper communication among all stakeholders as a driver of food security [ 6 , 56 , 68 , 69 , 84 , 92 , 129 , 130 , 156 , 157 , 168 ]. Some authors have considered risk management as an enabler of food security [ 94 , 117 , 118 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 145 , 154 , 155 , 157 ]. For example, the aims of building a disaster risk reduction framework in the Pacific include boosting resilience, protecting investments (e.g., in infrastructure, operations, and FS), and decreasing poverty and hunger [ 169 ].

Some authors have proposed the effective gleaning process as a driver of food security [ 70 , 72 , 74 , 80 , 84 , 92 , 142 , 170 ]. Gleaning is the collection of the remaining crops in agricultural fields after their commercial harvest, or just in crop fields where their harvest is not cost-effective. Some old cultures have fostered gleaning as an early form of social assistance [ 80 ]. Some authors have considered the management of government food reserves to be a food security driver [ 64 , 104 , 112 , 117 , 118 , 124 , 136 ]. Despite the high cost of storing food, any country must maintain adequate food reserves to serve the country in case of a crisis scenario [ 171 ]. Some authors have considered integrative policies (i.e., food–water–energy, food–energy, or water–food) as a driver of food security due to their impact on environmental improvement through natural resource handling efficiency [ 56 , 73 , 133 , 139 , 172 , 173 ]. Some authors have considered establishing dietary standard policies as an enabler of food security [ 69 , 151 , 163 , 174 ]. The government should impose policies on healthy food consumption to prevent obesity, such as prohibiting trans-fats. Moreover, they should restrict trans-fat usage in food outlets, establish institutional food standards, implement menu labelling regulations for chain restaurants, and ensure that disadvantaged people have better access to healthy meals [ 151 ].

Authors have highlighted various additional arguments or policies that are considered drivers for FS such as establishing public programs to influence diets in a healthy manner, reducing yield volatility [ 85 , 94 , 105 , 119 , 124 , 126 , 175 ], the country’s natural resources [ 85 , 105 , 119 , 124 , 137 , 145 , 162 , 163 , 176 ], geopolitical and political stability [ 69 , 98 , 104 , 117 , 123 , 124 , 142 ], agricultural infrastructure [ 64 , 114 , 116 , 118 , 142 , 146 , 175 ], food distribution infrastructure [ 71 , 75 , 76 , 112 , 177 , 178 ], economic integration [ 109 , 112 , 123 , 179 , 180 ], collaboration among all supply chain stakeholders [ 75 , 130 , 134 , 157 ], proper measurement of food security dimensions [ 123 , 181 , 182 , 183 ], urban agriculture policies [ 56 , 147 , 148 ], adjustments in dietary structure [ 59 , 86 , 163 ], establishing employment programs for poor household representatives [ 110 , 152 ], customer engagement in designing public policies [ 158 ], and trust in public institutions [ 166 ].

3.2. The Recommended Policies to Alleviate the Food Insecurity

Analysis of the 141 retrieved papers revealed 17 major recommended policies, as visualized in Figure 4 . We also determined sub-policies under each category which were grouped based on common characteristics, relevance, and how they were categorized in the papers. The complete list of sub-policy categories and related references is provided in Appendix B .

The main 17 recommended policies and statistics.

Most authors recommended establishing FSP, in general, as a primary solution for food insecurity in developing and developed countries [ 56 , 57 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 69 , 81 , 85 , 87 , 89 , 91 , 94 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 126 , 127 , 130 , 131 , 133 , 134 , 137 , 142 , 144 , 145 , 148 , 149 , 151 , 152 , 175 , 177 , 180 , 182 , 184 , 185 ]. Many authors have suggested food consumption policies that offer safety-net programs or public food assistance programs (FAPs) such as food price subsidies, cash-based programs, structural pricing adjustments, or micro-credits as enablers of FS. The main goal of providing safety-net programs is to increase food consumption among poor people and improve food security [ 102 ]. Given the solid bidirectional causal link between poverty and malnutrition, FAPs have been recognized as critical components of the overall poverty reduction strategy. Food aid policies and initiatives can fill the gaps left by the for-profit food system and the informal (non-profit) social safety nets, ensuring food security for disadvantaged individuals, families, and communities [ 108 ]. Several authors have recommended establishing policies to enhance the performance and asset bases of small-scale farmers, such as loans, subsidies, access to information, and knowledge-sharing, to address food insecurity. Governments should adopt direct interventions such as structural price adjustments and targeted food subsidies to enhance the food access of farmers by lowering market prices and stabilizing consumption during high food price inflation [ 116 ]. Others have recommended establishing government input subsidy programs (input subsidy policies) that provide farmers with subsidies for investment into high-yielding technology (e.g., automation, fertilizers, high-yield seed). They all claimed this as an effective policy instrument for agricultural development, but each focused on a different mechanism. Shukla, Singh [ 130 ], for example, has discussed public distribution programs; Sinyolo [ 131 ] has emphasized policies aimed at increasing the amount of land planted with enhanced maize varieties among smallholder farmers; Wiebelt, Breisinger [ 124 ] has suggested investments in water-saving technologies, while Tokhayeva, Almukhambetova [ 137 ] have proposed the development of an agricultural innovation system. Others have recommended rural development policies to reduce yield volatility and improve the agricultural infrastructure (e.g., irrigation and water-saving technologies). Governments in developing nations must focus on R&D, agricultural infrastructure (technologies for irrigation and soil preservation), expansion services, and early warning systems [ 101 ]. Technological advancement, in general, is seen as a vital element in reducing yield volatility [ 85 ]. Capacity-building policies (e.g., educational, training, and technical support) have received considerable attention in the literature as a fundamental component of urban farming initiatives, and as attempts to promote self-reliance and networking. Capacity building in many areas connected to urban agriculture is essential for equipping residents with knowledge and expertise [ 148 ]. To enhance FS, some researchers have suggested policies supporting locally produced food, diversified agricultural production policies, policies that impact farm-level commodity pricing, food stock policies, establishing policies to increase the income of farmers, buffer stock policies, and resource allocation policies (for a complete list of references, see Appendix B ).

Many authors have proposed different policy recommendations to reduce food waste and, thus, food insecurity [ 6 , 19 , 51 , 52 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 103 , 130 , 138 , 144 , 150 , 160 , 167 , 168 , 170 , 177 ]. Many have agreed on the importance of policies that promote information and education campaigns that spread awareness at household and public levels by improving meal planning and management in consumers. However, each author suggested a different approach. For example, Schanes, Dobernig [ 58 ] have discussed face-to-face door-stepping campaigns (online and in traditional newspaper leaflets), word-of-mouth, and television shows or movies. However, Septianto, Kemper [ 66 ] have highlighted the importance of social marketing campaign design and framing (having vs. not having) in conveying the intended message to consumers. Tucho and Okoth [ 73 ] have asserted the advantages of producing bio-wastes and bio-fertilizers from food waste and human excreta (in a food–energy–sanitation nexus approach), and also advocated for educating families on how to do so at the household level. Xu, Zhang [ 86 ] has argued that governments should help society to develop a logical perspective on food consumption and aggressively promote the habit of eating simple meals, particularly in social catering. Von Kameke and Fischer [ 52 ] and Zorpas, Lasaridi [ 60 ] have emphasized the importance of teaching customers about efficient meal planning to reduce food waste. Von Kameke and Fischer [ 52 ] have proposed using the Nudging tool rather than campaigning. Xu, Zhang [ 86 ] have suggested initiating suitable policy instruments to nudge individuals to adopt sustainable consumption habits, with important implications for decreasing food waste and increasing food security in China. Smart (innovative) food packaging and labelling policies have received significant attention in the literature, as they are critical in reducing food waste and, thus, improving FS. The nature, size, and labelling of the packaging impact the lifetime of the food. Smart packaging innovations and new technologies are steadily penetrating markets, thus increasing the shelf-life of foods through enhanced protection, communication, convenience, and control [ 58 ].

Food banks, food sharing, and food rescue policies have also received significant attention in the global literature, as they help reduce food waste and improve FS. Food banking is a critical long-term rescue policy for re-distributing surplus food to those in need and reducing poverty and food insecurity [ 80 , 92 ]. Several authors have recommended positive sanctions such as financial rewards, tax credits, federal and state funding, vouchers, or reduced taxes to decrease food waste and improve FS. Positive sanctions consist mainly of financial incentives to encourage restaurants and grocery retailers to donate their leftover food [ 60 ]. Addressing liability concerns might be one incentive, as the research participants have highlighted this as a universal barrier and that this issue, in particular, must be handled [ 51 ]. Negative sanction policies have received considerable attention in the literature as a tool for reducing food waste and improving FS. These include fines and fees imposed on companies and individuals accountable for food waste [ 58 ]. Taxes and fines are a potential way to manage and motivate restaurants and retailers to donate their leftover food to charities and community centers [ 65 ].

The establishment of policies that regulate the sharing of information and knowledge among supply chain stakeholders has received some attention in the literature in terms of reducing food waste and improving food security. Comprehensive food waste legislation has been discussed as a potential enabler of food security. A possible regulatory tool would be to revise and remove unnecessary food safety requirements that result in excessive food waste levels [ 58 ]. According to Halloran, Clement [ 6 ], food waste increased due to European food safety regulations and standardization. Food waste recycling policies have been used as a method to reduce food waste. Food waste can be utilized for value generation at any point of the food supply chain process through efficient techniques, then reincorporated into the cycle [ 77 ]. Food waste has a long history as a source of ecologically friendly animal feed [ 61 ].

A few authors have highlighted the impact of technological advancement (e.g., mobile applications) as a strategy to reduce food waste. Some authors have proposed implementing gleaning operation policies that provide tax incentives and government assistance to gleaners in order to decrease food waste. Some authors have proposed implementing peak storage reduction policies, such as stock-holding incentives. Nudging tools (which nudge people toward forming sustainable consumption behaviors) have been mentioned by a few authors.

Food safety policies received significant attention in the retrieved literature [ 61 , 64 , 69 , 70 , 103 , 105 , 111 , 112 , 120 , 125 , 129 , 130 , 137 , 138 , 149 , 153 , 154 , 155 , 156 , 157 , 158 , 159 ]; however, they have been discussed in various different forms. Few authors have discussed food quality and food hygiene compliance certifications. Compliance with sanitary standards is required to maintain the best practices for preventing food-borne diseases and food security threats [ 155 ]. Other authors have discussed the importance of food safety standards. Meanwhile, few authors have emphasized the importance of food safety throughout the supply chain, but each proposed a different strategy to achieve it. For example, some authors have suggested using an effective IT system [ 130 ], RFID [ 138 ], or developing food safety training policies [ 155 ].

Many authors have advocated for the implementation of trade policies to address food insecurity in developing and developed countries [ 94 , 95 , 101 , 103 , 111 , 112 , 119 , 123 , 129 , 136 , 141 , 146 , 148 , 149 , 152 , 157 , 161 , 164 , 178 , 180 ], but in different contexts. For example, some have suggested establishing infrastructure development policies that target agricultural logistic infrastructure, or improving the speed and quality of shipping logistics. In contrast, some authors have agreed on the importance of state trading and private trade-supporting policies. Others have suggested the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, while a few authors recommended reliable marine connection and transportation logistics policies.

Environmental policies are a fundamental enabler of food security [ 59 , 73 , 94 , 120 , 121 , 124 , 130 , 135 , 139 , 141 , 145 , 147 , 159 , 160 , 161 , 162 , 163 , 166 ]. However, authors have focused on many different aspects of these policies. Some authors, for example, have emphasized the importance of establishing policies to mitigate the effects of climate change. Others were too specific, suggesting greenhouse gas reduction policies, and proposed penalizing non-compliance. Due to the strong links between climate change, poverty, and food insecurity, some authors have proposed establishing coordinating policies among the three. Other authors have stressed the consideration of policies that encourage the optimization of fertilizer use.

Many authors have considered food import policies as a solution to food insecurity [ 94 , 95 , 100 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 109 , 112 , 116 , 117 , 119 , 120 , 124 , 126 , 134 , 146 ]; however, most authors provided different opinions regarding the most effective policy to implement. For example, some authors have stressed the importance of policies that provide direct government financial assistance to local agriculture, or the importance of policies that sustain local agricultural product prices compared to imported products. Some have recommended providing temporary tax benefits for agricultural investment, while others recommended import ban (substitution) policies. A few authors have recommended direct budget subsidies, subsidized loan interest rates, and strategies for the diversification of imported food origin.

Many authors have discussed the importance of establishing a common agricultural policy (CAP) to address sustainable agriculture [ 56 , 57 , 64 , 89 , 109 , 111 , 118 , 119 , 132 , 142 , 143 , 149 , 161 , 172 , 184 , 186 ]. Others have stressed the importance of food surplus policies in enhancing a country’s food security status [ 51 , 58 , 70 , 72 , 75 , 76 , 79 , 82 , 84 , 90 , 91 ]. Some authors have suggested strategies to regulate a company’s liability regarding the donation of surplus food. A few authors have proposed food policies that subsidize the purchase of surplus food—also known as “ugly food”—by controlling for prices and surplus item characteristics. Some authors have suggested establishing food loss policies. However, few authors have specified the need for policies promoting food loss quantification.

Many authors have discussed the policies that promote traceability across the whole supply chain as an enabler for food security [ 56 , 69 , 103 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 137 , 138 , 168 , 178 ]. However, the different authors discussed different technologies such as investment into information technology such as RFID, effective IT systems, ICT systems, and blockchain technology. Government policies should promote investments into traceability systems that focus on rapid withdrawal in unsafe food scenarios such as product recall regulations, fines imposed on hazardous product distributors, and food-borne food risk monitoring [ 129 ]. Many authors have discussed various risk management strategies to improve a country’s food security [ 94 , 117 , 118 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 145 , 154 , 155 , 157 ]. However, each considered a different approach to overcome the risk. Specifically, they have discussed food scandal policies, the COVID-19 pandemic, programmed risk identification, proactive policy measures to handle flood crises, early warning systems for natural disasters, or risk management throughout the food supply chain. Some authors have highlighted water quality policies such as efficient water-use policies, improving water resources policies, using water-efficient crops, investments into water-saving technologies, and food and water safety throughout the supply chain.

Some authors have discussed the management of government food reserves as an enabler of food security [ 64 , 104 , 112 , 117 , 118 , 124 , 136 ], and others have discussed integrative and coherent policies between food, water, and energy (as a nexus) [ 56 , 73 , 133 , 139 , 172 , 173 ]. Meanwhile, other authors have discussed policies that promote consumer education on sustainable consumption, improving consumer status awareness and knowledge regarding the ecological impact of their purchases [ 60 , 69 , 133 , 144 , 163 , 165 ]. Few authors have addressed the importance of dietary standard policies [ 69 , 151 , 163 , 174 ], urban agriculture policies [ 56 , 147 , 148 ], and food-aid policies [ 118 , 150 ].

Some policies were suggested in one paper only such as devising the right population policy in China [ 85 ], flexible retail modernization policies [ 158 ], policies that facilitate short-term migration [ 187 ], policies to stimulate equitable economic growth through manufacturing and services [ 95 ], and sound research governance policies [ 140 ].

4. Discussion

In this section, we discuss the polices and drivers in the greater areas, then compare them based on specific contexts. This approach serves to provide better understanding, thus informing decision-makers about the importance of choosing the right policies through considering many food security dimensions. By looking deeply at the extracted food security drivers and policies and the way in which they can be applied to each country’s context, we take an example from the MENA region. The MENA region includes a diverse range of nations, including low-income and less-developed (e.g., Sudan, Syria, and Yemen), low–middle-income (e.g., Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, and Tunisia), upper middle-income (e.g., Jordan, Lebanon, and Libya), and high-income (e.g., the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) countries [ 126 ]. As food availability is a serious problem in the MENA region low-income countries (Syria and Yemen), due to war and violent conflicts [ 188 ], policies aimed at increasing food availability continue to pique the interest of policy-makers. In these countries, where citizens are incapable of fulfilling their basic food needs [ 189 ], the existence of food security policies in different forms is crucial for achieving food security [ 53 , 97 , 98 , 124 , 184 ], more than FLW policies. Policy-makers should focus on ensuring the availability of either locally produced or imported food, which requires appropriate trade policies to deal with food shortages and improve the availability dimension in these countries. Trade policies should focus on creating infrastructure development policies that target agricultural logistic infrastructure, improve the speed and quality of shipping logistics, and establish reliable marine connections and transportation logistics policies that remove tariff and non-tariff barriers.

Policy-makers should establish import policies that sustain local agricultural product prices compared to imported products, provide direct government financial assistance to local agriculture, and provide temporary tax benefits for agricultural investment.

Additionally, the governments should improve food access in the MENA region low-income countries by reducing or stabilizing consumer and producer food prices. To enhance food access, FSPs (e.g., education policies in general and capacity-building policies) may help to improve individual human capital. Governments also must provide supplemental feeding programs, typically targeting vulnerable groups in need of special diets, such as pregnant women and children [ 101 ].

Moreover, the government should improve credit access through the following means: policies that enhance the performance and asset base of small-scale farmers; the existence of policies that impact farm-level commodity pricing, thus retaining farmers and increasing local production; the existence of government input subsidy programs for individuals, and the existence of policies supporting locally produced food. These are all possible policies to improve the MENA region FS. Governments and global health organizations should promote food utilization in MENA low-income countries through the development of policies that monitor overall food quality, such as access to clean water and micronutrient fortification, or through individual educational programs on safe food preparation [ 155 ]. Finally, enhancing food quality can optimize the individual nutrient absorption [ 101 ].

In contrast, discussions of food security in the MENA region high-income countries have indicated that food availability, access, and utilization are generally higher and not a problem. However, food stability is low, which requires the attention of policy-makers to improve FS. Food stability impacts the other food security pillars (access, availability, and utilization). Moreover, it requires the economic, political, and social sustainability of food systems, which are vulnerable to environmental conditions, land distribution, available resources, conflicts, and political situations [ 190 ]. Food stability necessitates increased efforts and expenditures to achieve food security in the sustainable development goals, especially in light of increased academic and governmental interest in incorporating sustainability values into policies.

As food waste is prevalent in these countries, FLW policies are more critical than FSP, which is in alignment with our findings regarding food security drivers. FLW makes it difficult for the poor in developing countries to access food by significantly depleting natural resources such as land, water, and fossil fuels while raising the greenhouse gas emissions related to food production [ 115 ]. Addressing food loss and waste in these countries can hugely influence the reduction of wasted food and indirectly enhance food security. The number of food-insecure individuals may be reduced in developing regions by up to 63 million by reducing food loss, which will directly reduce the over-consumption of cultivated areas, water, and greenhouse gas emissions related to food production [ 115 ]. According to Abiad and Meho [ 189 ], food waste produced at the household level differs across MENA-region countries. For example, it ranges from 68 to 150 kg/individual/year in Oman, 62–76 kg/individual/year in Iraq, 194–230 kg/individual/year in Palestine, and 177–400 kg/individual/year in the UAE. It is critical to take more aggressive but scientifically sound initiatives to minimize FLW, which will require the participation of everyone involved in the food supply chain such as policy-makers, food producers and suppliers, and the final consumers [ 191 , 192 ]. Food waste reflects an inefficient usage of valuable agricultural input resources and contributes to unnecessary environmental depletion [ 191 , 193 ]. Furthermore, food loss is widely recognized as a major obstacle to environmental sustainability and food security in developing nations [ 194 ]. Preventing FLW can result in a much more environmentally sustainable agricultural production and consumption process by increasing the efficiency and productivity of resources, especially water, cropland, and nutrients [ 115 , 191 , 192 , 195 ]. Preventing FLW is crucial in areas where water scarcity is a prevalent concern, as irrigated agriculture makes up a sizeable portion of total food production, and yield potential may not be fully achieved under nutrient or water shortages [ 191 , 196 , 197 ]. According to the study of Chen, Chaudhary [ 197 ], food waste per capita in high-income countries is enough to feed one individual a healthy balanced diet for 18 days. Chen, Chaudhary [ 197 ] also found that high-income countries have embedded environmental effects that are ten times greater than those of low-income countries, and they tend to waste six times more food by weight than low-income countries. Consequently, implementing proper FLW policies in high-income countries can help to alleviate the food insecurity problem while maintaining the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of future food production.

Implementing effective food storage techniques and capacities is considered a key component of a comprehensive national food security plan to promote both food utilization and food stability; furthermore, proper food storage at the household level maintains food products for a more prolonged period [ 198 ]. Encouragement of economic integration between MENA region countries is very applicable considering the heterogeneity of these countries. For example, countries with limited arable land and high income, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, can invest in countries with a lower middle income, such as Egypt, and use its land to benefit both countries. On the other hand, Boratynska and Huseynov [ 101 ] have proposed food technology innovation as a sustainable driver of food security and a promising solution to the problem of food insecurity in developing countries. Due to the higher food production demand to support the expanding urban population while having limited water and land availability, higher investments in technology and innovation are needed to ensure that food systems are more resilient [ 190 ]. Boratynska and Huseynov [ 101 ] have argued that, in general, using innovative technologies to produce healthy food products is frequently a concern. However, improving the probability that innovative food technology will enable the production of a diverse range of food products with enhanced texture and flavor while also providing a variety of health advantages to the final consumer is essential. Jalava, Guillaume [ 193 ] have argued that, along with reducing FLW, shifting people’s diets from animal- to plant-based foods can help to slow environmental degradation.

The MENA region example described above can be adapted to different regions based on their food security situation, and relevant policies can be devised to improve food security more sustainably.

5. Conclusions

Food security is a complicated and multi-faceted issue that cannot be restricted to a single variable, necessitating the deeper integration of many disciplinary viewpoints. It is essential to admit the complexity of designing the right policy to improve food security that matches each country’s context [ 46 ] while considering the three pillars of sustainability. Furthermore, it is of utmost importance to implement climate-friendly agricultural production methods to combat food insecurity and climate change [ 12 ]. Mapping the determinants of food security contributes to better understanding of the issue and aids in developing appropriate food security policies to enhance environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge by summarizing the main recommended policies and drivers of food security detailed in 141 research articles, following a systematic literature review methodology. We identified 34 food security drivers and outlined 17 recommended policies to improve food security and contribute to sustainable food production. Regarding the drivers, one of the foremost priorities to drive food security is reducing FLW globally, followed by food security policies, technological advancement, sustainable agricultural development, and so on (see Appendix A ). Regarding the recommended policies, most studies have detailed the contents and impacts of food security policies, food waste policies, food safety policies, trade policies, environmental policies, import policies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), food surplus policies, and so on (see Appendix B ).

5.1. Policy Implications

We assessed the obtained results in comparison to the latest version of the GFSI. Using the GFSI (2021) indicators as a proxy resulted in the identification of gaps and specific policy implications of the results. The idea was to identify which of the policies and drivers have been already implemented and which have not (or, at least, have not been very successfully implemented). We used the GFSI as it is a very well-established benchmarking tool used globally by 113 countries to measure the food security level. We examined the indicators mentioned under each of the four dimensions of food security, and listed associations with the identified policies and drivers found in the literature. Accordingly, we suggest the addition of two dimensions to the current index:

• Sustainability

The first dimension relates to measuring the sustainability dimensions that each participating country adopts in its food production process. We noticed that many authors stressed the importance of the existence of clear environmental policies that drive long-term food security. However, the current GFSI lacks indicators measuring this dimension. The reviewed literature suggested environmental indicators considering optimized fertilizer use, carbon taxes, aquaculture environment, bio-energy, green and blue infrastructure, gas emissions reduction policies, policies to reduce the impacts of climate change, and heavy metal soil contamination monitoring.

• Consumer representation

The second dimension is related to consumer voice representation within the GFSI. The reviewed literature suggested implementing policy measures that promote consumer education on sustainable consumption and improve the consumer status, consciousness, and knowledge regarding the ecological impact of their purchases. Any sustainability initiative should be supported and implemented by the final consumer.

Additional gaps in the policies and drivers of food security were identified and allocated under the relevant indicators in the GFSI based on the four dimensions of food security. Under the affordability dimension, we found a lack of policies in the reviewed literature addressing the Inequality-adjusted income index. Regarding the Change in average food costs indicator, we observed that the policies that exist in the literature concern the farmer level only (e.g., policies that impact farm-level commodity pricing and policies supporting locally produced food), and not all of the citizens at the national level. Additionally, policies that promote traceability across the whole supply chain were missing. There were no policies in the reviewed literature under the food quality and safety dimension representing the following: the dietary diversity indicator; micronutrient availability (e.g., dietary availability of vitamin A, iron, and zinc); regulation of the protein quality indicator; the food safety indicator (specifically the two sub-indicators of food safety mechanisms and access to drinking water), and illustration of the national nutrition plan or strategy indicator. Therefore, future research should pay more attention to and emphasize the importance of such policies, particularly in developed countries seeking to improve their food security status and score high on the GFSI.

Moreover, the reviewed literature suggested “developing food safety training policies” to improve food safety and FS; however, no indicators or sub-indicators within the GFSI represent such training policies. The GFSI developers should pay more attention to safety training practices and include them in the index’s future development. Under the availability dimension, the reviewed literature suggested establishing a food loss policy that promotes the quantification of food loss under the food loss indicator. This indicator should be enhanced through well-articulated policies that address the problem of food loss and attempt to mitigate its impact. However, while there were various policies concerning food waste or surplus, there were no indicators within the GFSI that represented food loss. As food loss and waste was identified as the primary driver of food security in this study, we recommend expanding the GFSI to include food loss quantification and reduction policies under the availability dimension. Finally, under the political commitment to adaptation dimension, some policies were identified in the reviewed literature in two sub-indicators: early warning measures/climate-smart agriculture (e.g., proactive policy measures to handle flood crises, programmed risk identification, and early warning systems for natural disasters) and disaster risk management (e.g., food scandals, COVID-19, and risk management throughout the food supply chain). However, under the other two relevant sub-indicators—commitment to managing exposure and national agricultural adaptation policy—there were no identified policies.

5.2. Contributions of the Study

The key contributions of this study to the existing literature are threefold. First, we identified the (34) main food security drivers and the (17) most-recommended policies to improve food security and enhance the future food production sustainability. Several studies have partially covered this area, but none have employed a systematic literature review of 141 papers covering such an scope in this topic. The gravity of food security worldwide is well established; hence the contribution of this work. Second, we provide a reflection of policies/drivers on the latest version of the GFSI, resulting in more tangible policy implications (see Section 5.1 ). Third, through a systematic literature review, we identified elements not listed under the GFSI that could be considered in its future revision. Examples include environmental policies/indicators such as optimized fertilizer use, carbon taxes, aquaculture environment, bio-energy, green and blue infrastructure, gas emission reduction, policies to reduce the impact of climate change, and heavy metal soil contamination monitoring; consumer representation, as the reviewed literature suggested policy measures that promote consumer education on sustainable consumption, as well as improving consumer status, consciousness, and knowledge regarding the ecological impact of their purchases; and traceability throughout the entire supply chain.

5.3. Study Limitations and Future Research

In this study, we identified the major drivers and the recommended policies to improve food security and enhance the future food production sustainability based on the reviewed literature. However, we recommend conducting a Delphi research study in consultation with policy-makers and industry experts. A Delphi study can be used to validate the findings of this systematic literature review based on a specific country’s context. This research was conducted using only 141 articles from two databases; therefore, we suggest replicating this research using different databases, which will allow for the inclusion of more related papers. Moreover, this research included only peer-reviewed articles, which may be considered, based on the guidelines of Keele [ 185 ], as a source of publication bias. Future research may consider including gray literature and conference proceedings. This research did not include the three sustainability pillars within its research string; therefore, we recommend considering the inclusion of the three pillars in future research. Future research should also investigate the use of alternative protein food technology innovation, such as plant-based protein, cultured meat, and insect-based protein, as a sustainable solution to the food security problem. Additionally, understanding the factors influencing acceptance of various technologies by the final consumer is particularly important given some regional characteristics such as harsh arid environments and the scarcity of arable land, freshwater, and natural resources.

Appendix A. Summary Table of Major Drivers of Food Security

Appendix b. summary table of most-recommended policies, funding statement.

This research was funded by the UAE Ministry of Education, Resilient Agrifood Dynamism through evidence-based policies-READY project, grant number 1733833.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, S.W., F.A., B.S. and I.M.; methodology, S.W., F.A., B.S. and I.M.; validation, S.W., F.A., B.S. and I.M.; formal analysis, S.W.; investigation, S.W., F.A., B.S. and I.M.; resources, I.M. and B.S.; data curation, S.W.; writing—original draft preparation, S.W.; writing—review and editing, F.A.; visualization, S.W.; supervision, F.A., B.S. and I.M.; project administration, B.S. and I.M.; funding acquisition, B.S. and I.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Review article, the impact of climate change on food systems, diet quality, nutrition, and health outcomes: a narrative review.

• 1 International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria
• 2 Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia
• 3 Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT (Kenya), Nairobi, Kenya
• 4 PATH, Seattle, WA, United States
• 5 Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
• 6 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Thailand), Bangkok, Thailand
• 7 PNCA, AgroParisTech Institut des Sciences et Industries du Vivant et de L'environnement, Paris, France

Many consequences of climate change undermine the stability of global food systems, decreasing food security and diet quality, and exposing vulnerable populations to multiple forms of malnutrition. The emergence of pandemics such as Covid-19 exacerbate the situation and make interactions even more complex. Climate change impacts food systems at different levels, including changes in soil fertility and crop yield, composition, and bioavailability of nutrients in foods, pest resistance, and risk of malnutrition. Sustainable and resilient food systems, coupled with climate-smart agriculture, are needed to ensure sustainable diets that are adequately diverse, nutritious, and better aligned with contextual ecosystem functions and environmental conservation. Robust tools and indicators are urgently needed to measure the reciprocal food systems-climate change interaction, that is further complicated by pandemics, and how it impacts human health.

Introduction

Many consequences of climate change threaten food security and diet quality, thereby exposing vulnerable populations across continents to multiple forms of malnutrition. Poor diet is a major cause of mortality and morbidity ( Afshin et al., 2019 ; Micha et al., 2020 ). Currently, about 690 million people are hungry and the number is expected to surpass 840 million by 2030 ( FAO, 2020 ). As of 2020, 149.2 million children under 5 years of age were stunted and 45.4 million were wasted, partially due to poor diets. Simultaneously, 38.9 million children below 5 years of age were overweight in 2020 ( WHO, 2021 ). These trends are partly driven by inequality and unsustainable foods systems which cannot satisfy food security and nutritional requirements for all. Apart from climate change, other external shocks that adversely impact foods system include pandemics, such as the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, that was projected to add an additional 83–132 million people into the undernourished bracket by 2020 ( WHO, 2020 ).

Climate change worsens unsustainable food systems by directly impacting soil fertility, rain patterns, crop yields and food production, food-nutrient and anti-nutrient composition, and nutrient bioavailability. These changes decrease macro- and micronutrients available in the global food supply. Further problems arise from indirect impacts such as pests that result in increased occurrence of spoilage and food safety hazards at various stages of the food chain from primary production to post-harvest protection through to consumption. Each of these factors may have deleterious impacts on human nutrition ( Parfitt et al., 2010 ; Tirado et al., 2010 ; Hodges et al., 2011 ). Measuring this complex and reciprocal food systems-climate change interaction, that is further complicated by pandemics, remains a major challenge especially in how it impacts human health.

This narrative review is based on the outcomes of a Technical Meeting organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 19 to 21 October 2020 with the aim of understanding the effectiveness of food-based approaches to improve diet quality under our rapidly changing food systems. This paper covers how food systems and dietary patterns have changed at the community level over time. The vicious and reciprocal cycle between food systems and climate change, in relation to food systems vulnerability and resilience, is discussed. The impact of these interactions on diet quality in terms of food-nutrient, nutrient deficiencies and ultimately the risk of malnutrition is also analyzed. Lastly, this paper highlights the need to develop appropriate measurement tools that can be used to monitor and evaluate the different components and levels (micro- and macro-) of the entire food system.

Climate change, food systems and biodiversity

Food systems comprise all activities from production, post-harvest storage, transportation, processing, distribution, trade and marketing, regulation, consumption of food, and the outcomes of nutrition and health, socio-economy, and the environment. Food systems constitute the first action track of the Decade of Action on Nutrition ( WHO, 2017 ; Demaio and Branca, 2018 ; Turner et al., 2020 ). The food environment is an integral part of food systems and consists of an external domain (food availability, product properties, prices, marketing, and regulation) and a personal domain (accessibility, affordability, convenience, and desirability), both of which influence food acquisition, consumption and ultimately nutrition and health outcomes ( Turner et al., 2018 , 2020 ; UNSCN, 2019 ).

Evolution of food systems

The advent of agriculture in the Neolithic revolution marked a shift to predominantly plant-based diets ( Leitzmann, 2014 ). Food systems further evolved with the development of city-states and governance, food storage and means of transportation, trading routes, and consumer demands. Science and technology revolutionized food production, processing, preservation, and transportation ( Hueston and McLeod, 2012 ) with a shift to the consumption of processed energy and macronutrient-dense foods ( Vermeulen et al., 2020 ).

Furthermore, the global meat demand is on the rise, especially within LMICs due to increasing urbanization, education, and affluence ( Bruinsma, 2003 ; Zhang et al., 2017 ; Headey et al., 2018 ; Adesogan et al., 2020 ). For example, per capita meat consumption increased by 20 kg from 1961 to 2014, mainly in Asia and Africa ( Vermeulen et al., 2020 ), while it decreased in many Western countries. High-income countries consume almost six times more milk products and nine times more eggs per capita than low-income countries ( Herforth et al., 2019 ). The global demand for livestock and dairy is projected to increase by 70 and 60%, respectively, between 2010 and 2050.

There is a reciprocal and cyclical interaction between foods systems and climate change. Within the past 40 years, agricultural production has doubled and food supply chains have been globalized ( Niles et al., 2017 ; Von Braun, 2018 ). Mass food production practices (e.g., fertilizer use, expanded crop and livestock production) and deforestation lead to increased amounts of greenhouse gases and attendant climate change, which in turn result in reduced food production ( Niles et al., 2017 ). Climate change has impacted food systems through weather events such as drought, flooding, and heat waves with attendant loss of life, livelihood, and reduced productivity related to lower soil fertility, disrupted rain patterns, and acid rain from heavy fertilizer use ( Niles et al., 2017 ; Von Braun, 2018 ). This vicious cycle leads to food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms, environmental damage, water scarcity, and the emergence of new human, plant, and animal diseases ( Tirado et al., 2009 ; Niles et al., 2017 ; Von Braun, 2018 ; Popkin et al., 2020 ).

The popularization of dietary practices, such as vegetarianism and veganism, in recent decades has resulted in dietary pattern changes that reflect an increased awareness of the environmental footprint associated with the consumption of animal source foods ( Leitzmann, 2014 ). Increased interest in these diets extends beyond a focus on environmental health alone. Unprocessed, vegetarian diets have been associated with several health benefits including longevity and lower rates of diet-related, non-communicable diseases ( Burkitt and Trowell, 1977 ; Keys, 1980 ; Trowell and Burkitt, 1981 ; Leitzmann, 2014 ).

Nevertheless, recent attempts to assess shifts in dietary patterns focus more on the link to socioeconomic status without including how these dietary patterns link to nutrition and health outcomes. Da Costa and colleagues reported that animal source foods were consumed more in western contexts and with increasing income and urbanization ( da Costa et al., 2022 ). At the same time, the definition of a healthy diet has been confusing. O'Hearn et al., assessed dietary patterns in 185 countries and concluded that Western and Latin American regions had healthier dietary patterns compared to Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but they failed to explain the global rise in the double burden of malnutrition ( O'Hearn et al., 2019 ). This shows that better and more sensitive metrics and tools are needed to better understand the complex dimensions of food systems. Further discussion of the nutritional impacts of dietary patterns occurs in section Climate change, nutrient adequacy, and nutrition and health outcomes.

Climate change and biodiversity loss

Sustainable agriculture, nutrition and the livelihoods of millions of people depend on the diversity of crops and livestock species, and intra-species genetic diversity ( Sunderland, 2011 ). The biodiversity of plants and animal species consumed is directly correlated with food security ( Sunderland, 2011 ). Genetic diversity is a critical factor for the continued improvement of crop varieties and livestock breeds, and determines the extent to which genetic resources are passed down to future generations ( Rosendal, 2013 ).

Unfortunately, there has been a dramatic loss of biodiversity, including the diversity of genes, species, and ecosystems due to habitat destruction (i.e., settlement, changing agricultural practices, deforestation, industrialization), global warming, and the uncontrolled spread of invasive species. Pollution, nitrogen deposition, and shifts in precipitation further exacerbate biodiversity loss ( Cramer et al., 2017 ). Over the past 50 years, agriculture has focused too heavily on conventional cereal and horticultural crops leading to the loss of indigenous and traditional food crops ( Akinola et al., 2020 ). While more than 6,000 plant species have been cultivated for food, just 9 account for 66% of total crop production, indicating widespread monoculture agriculture ( FAO, 2019 ). Today, 80–90% of the human diet relies on 12 to 20 species ( Chivenge et al., 2015 ), and only three, rice, maize and wheat contribute nearly 60% of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants.

Only few terrestrial animal species, namely, cattle, sheep, pig and chicken are domesticated for food production ( Robinson and Pozzi, 2011 ). Almost 26% of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction. About 24% of wild food species are decreasing in abundance, while the status of another 61% is not reported or known ( FAO, 2019 ).

A general reliance on fewer species to feed the world, the resulting loss of biodiversity due to non-utilization and lack of conservation puts food security and human nutrition at great risk ( FAO, 2019 ). Agricultural production therefore must embrace strategies beyond exploiting the same “Green Revolution” technologies from the last half century, which were based on genetic improvement and higher inputs ( Kahane et al., 2013 ). Although such strategies were beneficial in preventing widespread famine, the inappropriate and excessive use of agrochemicals, wasteful water usage via inefficient irrigation systems, loss of beneficial biodiversity (pollinators, soil fauna, etc.) and significantly reduced crop and varietal diversity have had significant deleterious effects on our resulting food systems ( Kahane et al., 2013 ).

Mainstreaming biodiversity conservation is a key strategy to broaden food production to include locally adaptable, often underutilized, nutrient-rich species and ensure diversified, healthy diets and livelihoods among more resilient populations ( Bélanger and Pilling, 2019 ).

Climate change, nutrient adequacy, and nutrition and health outcomes

Climate change impacts food systems and thereby global food production via changes in yield, biomass food composition and nutritional quality which in turn directly influence human nutrition and health ( Glopan, 2020 ). Climate change can also disrupt food supply chains and transportation, hence food price volatility, and compromised food security, nutrition and human health ( FAO, 2020 ). It exacerbates inequities, and poorer, vulnerable groups tend to suffer more as they are less resilient to shocks ( Tirado et al., 2013 ; Niles et al., 2017 ; FAO, 2020 ). Efforts should be put in place to make food systems more climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive, from production to consumption ( Bryan et al., 2019 ; UNSCN, 2020b ). Food-based dietary guidelines that include sustainability criteria can help to promote those diets that are good for human and planetary health ( UNSCN, 2020a ; UN, 2021 ).

Impact of climate change on food nutrient content

There is a lack of evidence regarding the impact of climate change on human nutrition and health indicators. Climate change may affect human health by altering the food nutrient content via increasing concentrations of CO 2 in the atmosphere ( Dietterich et al., 2015 ). Elevated CO 2 results in more rapid growth rates but also reduces plant protein content and micronutrients such as calcium, iron, and zinc ( Taub et al., 2008 ; Taub, 2010 ; Fernando et al., 2012 ; Loladze, 2014 ; Myers et al., 2014 ; Ziska and McConnell, 2016 ; Medek et al., 2017 ; Myers, 2017 ; Smith et al., 2017 ; Uddling et al., 2018 ). Most crops grown under elevated CO 2 –except for legumes and C4 crops—systematically exhibit decreased concentrations of nitrogen and protein in the edible portion ( Cotrufo et al., 1998 ; Pleijel et al., 1999 ; Idso and Idso, 2001 ; Jablonski et al., 2002 ). C3 grains and tubers including rice, wheat, barley, and potatoes experience 7–15% reductions in protein content, whereas C3 legumes and C4 crops show either exceedingly small or insignificant reductions ( Myers et al., 2014 ). Elevated CO 2 concentrations of 550 ppm can lead to 3–11% declines in the zinc and iron concentrations of cereal grains and legumes ( Myers et al., 2014 ). Under more extreme conditions, CO2 concentrations of 690 ppm, lead to 5–10% reductions in the concentration of phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, and manganese across a wide range of crops ( Loladze, 2014 ). The carbon nutrient penalty results in decreases in the global availability of dietary protein of 2.9 to 4.1%, iron 2.8 to 3.6%, and zinc 2.5 to 3.4% ( Beach et al., 2019 ). Overall, the combined effects of projected atmospheric CO 2 increases (i.e., carbon nutrient penalty, CO 2 fertilization, and climate effects on productivity) will decrease growth in the global availability of nutrients by 19.5% for protein, 13.6% for iron, and 14.6% for zinc relative to expected technology and market gains by 2050.

Climate change vs. animal source foods

As discussed in section Evolution of food systems, animal product consumption is on the rise, however an inverse relationship has been observed between animal product consumption and environmental health. This poses a challenge for improving global nutritional status, as the consumption of animal source foods has been linked to improved growth and development in young children, particularly in LMICs. Ecological studies indicate an inverse association between increasing meat consumption per capita and decreasing child stunting rates ( UNICEF and The World Bank Group, 2017 ; Headey et al., 2018 ). This is attributed to the greater bioavailability of nutrients such as protein and iron from this category of foods. Data from Demographic Health surveys in 49 countries indicates that across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, dairy, egg, and meat consumption are low while fish consumption is relatively higher ( Headey et al., 2018 ). The urbanization of LMICs seems to be positively associated with egg and fish consumption, and negatively associated with meat consumption ( Headey et al., 2018 ).

Alternative dietary protein sources such as plant proteins, edible insects, seaweed, microalgae and cell-culture based proteins (e.g., cultured milk and eggs; lab-grown meats) ( Thavamani et al., 2020 ; Tso et al., 2020 ) may offer a suitable alternative to animal source foods with a lower environmental footprint. Edible insects have garnered renewed interest recently as a sustainable protein source. While more than 2,000 species of edible insects collected from wild sources have been identified in traditional diets around the world, a select few have emerged over the past decade as suitable for farming and mass production ( Halloran et al., 2018 ). These insect species convert organic feed substrates very efficiently into animal tissue (protein, fat, and other compounds). Edible insects can be produced on less space, using less water and feed, and they produce less greenhouse gas emission than traditional livestock making them attractive from an environmental sustainability standpoint ( Halloran et al., 2016 , 2017 ).

Further research is warranted to evaluate the nutritional quality of these alternative dietary protein sources, with specific focus on the composition and bioavailability of protein, amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamin B12, zinc and iron and the concentration of anti-nutrient compounds that decrease bioavailability.

Emergence of diseases and impact on health

Access to safe water remains an extremely important global health issue. More than two billion people live in the dry regions of the world and suffer disproportionately from malnutrition and other health risks related to contaminated or insufficient safe water. The absence of safe water with poor sanitation systems, extreme precipitations with either excessive rainfall, or prolonged drought, all increase exposure to pathogenic microbes resulting in enteric infections and diarrheal diseases. These exacerbate infant and young child malnutrition, leading to retarded growth and development resulting in wasting and stunting ( Fink et al., 2011 ; Guerrant et al., 2013 ; Ngure et al., 2014 ). Increased flooding, precipitation, rising temperatures, and other extremes of climate change, are projected to increase the burden of diarrhoeal diseases in low-income regions. Climate change has also been shown to play a role in the spatial and temporal distribution of malaria and is expected to increase the risk of emerging zoonotic diseases. Changes in the survival of pathogens in the environment, changes in migration pathways, carriers and vectors, and changes in the natural ecosystems are all predicted to increase health risks to mankind. Human encroachment into wildlife habitat, including bushmeat hunting and agricultural expansion, has increased the risks of exposure to zoonotic diseases such as HIV, Ebola or SARS-CoV-2 ( Goldberg et al., 2012 ; McGrath, 2020 ). Furthermore, consumption of poorer quality diets as climate change alters to food system can not only increase the risk of non-communicable diseases as discussed in a prior section, but also increase an individual's susceptibility to infectious diseases ( Humphries et al., 2021 ).

Climate change and food systems: strengths and weaknesses, interventions, and metrics

Strengths, resilience, and vulnerability of food systems.

Food systems are faced with various dynamic shocks ( Meyer, 2020 ), which are mostly anthropogenic, including economic, trade, and public health issues such as disease outbreaks ( Hamilton et al., 2020 ). Although climate change is primarily considered an environmental factor, the predicted impacts of climate change, such as increased disease transmission, have wide-sweeping impacts. Food systems depend on the availability of human labor and are easily disrupted by both temporary and chronic shocks. Ebola outbreaks in West Africa ( Figuié, 2016 ) disrupted workers movement, thereby inhibiting food production and food supply chains in the region, while the on-going COVID-19 pandemic has had a similar impact globally ( Aday and Aday, 2020 ; Matthews, 2020 ; Belton et al., 2021 ; Weersink et al., 2021 ).

Many food systems rely on international trade ( Gephart et al., 2017 ; Kummu et al., 2020 ) and are prone to disruption when countries impose trade restrictions such as export bans on foods to safeguard domestic consumption ( Seekell et al., 2017 ; Aday and Aday, 2020 ). Food systems that significantly rely on local institutions, knowledge, and farmers are most resilient ( Pingali et al., 2005 ; Hamilton et al., 2020 ; Kummu et al., 2020 ; Love et al., 2021 ). Resilient food systems are based on diversification in production and distribution channels and reduced waste, which cumulatively increase food and nutrition security ( Schipanski et al., 2016 ; Seekell et al., 2017 ). Similarly, food systems that foster biodiversity have been shown to contribute toward more sustainable food production systems ( Snapp et al., 2010 ). Social factors are another crucial element in food system resiliency. Women are the major food systems stakeholders ( Nkengla-Asi et al., 2017 ), yet there are still large gender-based disparities in access to opportunities to guarantee sustainable and healthy diets for women ( Kusakabe, 2004 ). Food systems fostering gender equity have been shown to be more resilient to shocks, and examples from India and Malawi ( Schipanski et al., 2016 ) have demonstrated that efforts aimed at reducing social injustice, including gender inequity, can foster sustainable and resilient food systems.

Interventions to adapt to changes in food systems

As discussed in section Impact of climate change on food nutrient content, climate change is expected to lower the nutrient content of foods. This poses a significant threat because prior attempts to remedy malnutrition via agricultural improvements have focused on achieving caloric sufficiency, leaving hundreds of millions of people to still suffer from micronutrients and protein deficiencies ( Nelson et al., 2009 ; Kahane et al., 2013 ; Myers et al., 2013 , 2017 ; Springmann et al., 2016 ; Smith and Myers, 2018 ; Soares et al., 2019 ). Interventions such as biofortification (i.e., increase of the micronutrient content of crops by genetic selection), fortification (addition of micronutrients to common edible products that are manufactured in formal and centralized factories), and as a last resource supplementation (provision of pharmaceutical and concentrated forms of micronutrients), have led to significant improvements in population health ( Clune et al., 2017 ; Olson et al., 2021 ).

Biofortification is a process used to enhance the micronutrient content of staple crops via agronomic practices (i.e., micronutrient fertilizer), conventional plant breeding, and/or genetic modification, making it a food-based strategy with heightened nutritional status at harvest ( Khush et al., 2012 ). Since biofortification is a localized nutrition solution, it is less vulnerable to value-chain disruptions. Furthermore, it allows smallholder farmers across Africa and South Asia to own the solution, as these crops are grown in their fields and the seeds only have to be purchased once as a single investment ( Khush et al., 2012 ). The effects of biofortification on improving nutrition are likewise encouraging, and clinical studies have shown significant improvements in child iron deficiency ( Afolami et al., 2021 ), serum retinol ( Afolami et al., 2021 ), β-carotene concentration ( Talsma et al., 2016 ; Olson et al., 2021 ). Challenges do remain, however, since sustainability and population coverage are not guaranteed ( Bhutta et al., 2013 ). Biofortification is more sustainable among rural communities as they depend on agriculture for both food and income. Going forward, nutrient bioavailability and anti-nutrient composition of biofortified crops require further attention.

Food fortification, under a public health perspective, is a strategy that takes advantage of using existing food products as micronutrient carriers, manufactured by large, centralized food industries. Maize flour, oil, rice, salt, and wheat flour are the primary food fortification vehicles used to deliver micronutrients. The main advantage of food fortification is that it does not require behavior change modifications since common staples and condiments are used as the fortification vehicles; and social marketing is not needed in fortification programmes.

Iodine deficiency disorders have almost disappeared in most countries with the addition of iodine to salt. Cereal flours containing folic acid have decreased the prevalence of neural tube Defects in both industrialized and LMICs where their consumption is high and the dietary intake of folate is low. Vitamin A deficiency is currently being addressed with fortified sugars and oils in Central America and Eastern and Southern Africa, and iron deficiency can be best prevented via fortified rice, wheat and maize flours at the population level. Additional micronutrient deficiencies (e.g., zinc, vitamins B1, B2, B 12 , and D) may also be effectively targeted in the future via mainstream fortification vehicles ( Dary and Hurrell, 2006 ; Keats et al., 2019 ).

Populations most in need often do not receive the fortified commodities targeted for consumption. This is in part due to the fact most food fortification programs are private sector driven, and without adequate private-public sector partnerships, as is the current case ( Olson et al., 2021 ), populations with low purchasing power cannot afford commercialized fortified commodities ( Dary, 2007 ). Supplementation has the restrictions of high cost and exceptionally low coverage. Multiple interventions may be used to effectively target the same population group simultaneously, and this could potentially lead to unintended excess intakes ( Olson et al., 2021 ).

Metrics to measure the impact of food systems

Measuring the impact of changing food systems on diet quality and human health outcomes remains a challenge due to the multi-faceted nature of foods systems and the fact that the existing criterion for a healthy diet is universal instead of being country or context-specific; each country should have domesticated food-based dietary guidelines.

When evaluating diet quality, it is important to consider the data source and how it is processed, interpreted, and used. The source of dietary data can be at the level of the household or the individual. This data can then be processed in the form of metrics or benchmarks, food composition tables, or statistical analysis. Metrics and benchmarks for processing data include nutrient adequacy; consumption of specific health or disease promoting dietary components (e.g., fat, sugar, salt, fruits, and vegetables), and overall quality of diet. No single method is perfect, and all methods have their strengths and weaknesses.

Recent developments such as a resource guide in supporting countries to strengthen nutrition actions based on the policy recommendations of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) ( WHO, 2018 ) and the endorsement of the CFS voluntary guidelines for food systems and nutrition are a first step in the right direction toward food systems transformation. However, tools to evaluate the impact of these recommendations and climate-smart solutions are needed. Such tools should be developed with due regard to trade-offs related to crop yield vs. nutrient content and bioavailability, nutritional benefits related to increased animal source food consumption vs. environmental footprint and biodiversity; win-win of moving toward more healthy dietary patterns that are also more sustainable; health consequences of altered food intake behavior; and cross-cutting issues such as gender, urbanization, and food wastage ( Figure 1 ). Future food systems must find ways to provide adequate nourishment without environmental trade-offs.

Figure 1 . A food systems continuum and value chain schema to address the link between climate change and diet quality and identify entry opportunities for stable isotope techniques relating to soil, water, and seed biodiversity, food production, nutrient retention and bioavailability, and nutrition, health, and cognitive outcomes.

Some such remaining questions are: (1) What is the impact of climate change on crop nutrient density and bioavailability; are there particularly sensitive nutrients and how does anti-nutrient content vary? (2) What is the role of alternative proteins such as edible insects in the food systems value chain; what is their implication on environmental footprint and food waste? (3) What is the linkage between climate change, sanitary conditions, diet quality and health; what is the role of environmental enteric dysfunction, diarrhea, and mycotoxins? (4) What are the most appropriate tools to holistically assess the foods systems value chain; what role can stable isotope techniques play? (5) What is the minimum set of indicators that can be used to measure the entire food systems continuum (from food production to health including functional outcomes)? Promising innovations in foods systems assessment tools could range from stable isotope techniques ( Owino et al., 2017 ; Owino and Mouratidou, 2019 ) to assess nutrient bioavailability, functional nutrition outcomes such as body composition, soil fertility, water use efficiency ( Wang et al., 2021 ); metabolomics to reveal the metabolic signature of changes in dietary behaviors and food composition ( Jin et al., 2019 ); to geospatial mapping ( Gashu et al., 2021 ; Giller and Zingore, 2021 ) to predict the risk of malnutrition based on soil and crop nutrient profiles; (6) What are the implications of climate change on diet quality in the context of population displacement, urbanization, and shifting consumer behavior? (7) How can we make nutrition and health-related research useful to policy makers? (8) What partnerships and collaborations are needed; how can other sectors and disciplines be brought in to comprehensively understand the food systems continuum?

Climate change and unsustainable food systems interact reciprocally with adverse impact on food and nutrition security. Climate change impacts food systems via multiple pathways, including soil fertility, water availability, reduced food yield, reduced food nutrient concentration and bioavailability, increased food anti-nutrient content and increased episodes of infectious diseases. Unsustainable food systems characterized by mass monocultural production with excess fertilizer use, mass livestock production, and deforestation lead to elevated greenhouse gas emissions and loss of biodiversity. Reducing environmental footprints linked to food systems may be achieved by reverting to more sustainable diets that meet nutrition requirements while safeguarding the environment. Dietary diversification, fortification, biofortification, and the inclusion of alternative protein sources (e.g., edible insects) are some of the available alternative options. All of these food systems-climate change-diet and nutrition outcomes are made even more complex by other dynamic factors, including rapid population growth, urbanization, evolving eating habits, and emergent pandemics such as COVID-19. Food systems have witnessed dramatic changes overtime. However, there is a limited ability to measure the multiple points at which these interactions occur. Recent developments at the global level, including ICN2 recommendations and the endorsement of the CFS voluntary guidelines for food systems and nutrition, are a first step in the right direction toward food systems transformation. However, tools to evaluate the impact of these recommendations and climate-smart solutions are needed. The development of these tools should consider crop yield vs. nutrient content and bioavailability, nutritional benefits related to increased animal source food consumption vs. environmental footprint and biodiversity; the win-win of moving toward more healthy, sustainable dietary patterns; unintended health consequences of altered food intake behavior; and cross-cutting issues such as gender, urbanization, and food wastage. Potential health consequences of multiple food-based interventions targeting micronutrient deficiencies must also be assessed. Robust tools and indicators for assessing the impacts and complexity of food systems are needed.

Author contributions

VO, CK, BE, MP, LE, NR, WL, and DT wrote sections of this manuscript. All authors also provided independent review.

All costs related to the virtual Technical Meeting on Leveraging of Stable Isotope Techniques in Evaluating Food-based Approaches to Improve Diet Quality and the Open Access fee for this review were contributed by the IAEA.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to all participants of the virtual Technical Meeting on Leveraging of Stable Isotope Techniques in Evaluating Food-based Approaches to Improve Diet Quality (EVT1904254) organized by the IAEA from 19 to 21 October 2020 for their contribution to discussions that inspired the writing of this review. All internal reviewers [Stineke Oenema, Executive Secretary, UN Nutrition; Cornelia Loechl, Head, Nutritional and Health Related Environmental Studies Section, Division of Human Health, International Atomic Energy Agency, Omar Dary, Health Science Specialist, Bureau for Global Health, United States Agency for International Development, Maria Xipsiti, Food and Nutrition Officer, Nutrition and Food Systems Division, FAO] are appreciated for their editorial input.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

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Abbreviations

ASF, Animal Source Foods; CFS, Committee on Food Security; COVID, Coronavirus Disease; DIAAS, Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score; FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; FZA, Fractional Zinc Absorption; HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus; IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency; ICN2, Second International Conference on Nutrition; IRRI, International Rice Research Institute; LMIC, Low-and-middle-income countries; SarCOV2, Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2; UNDP, United Nations Development Programme; UNICEF, United Nations Children's Education Fund; UN SDGs, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; WHO, World Health Organization.

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Keywords: climate change, sustainable food systems, COVID-19 pandemic, nutrient deficiencies, food composition

Citation: Owino V, Kumwenda C, Ekesa B, Parker ME, Ewoldt L, Roos N, Lee WT and Tome D (2022) The impact of climate change on food systems, diet quality, nutrition, and health outcomes: A narrative review. Front. Clim. 4:941842. doi: 10.3389/fclim.2022.941842

Received: 11 May 2022; Accepted: 21 July 2022; Published: 16 August 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Owino, Kumwenda, Ekesa, Parker, Ewoldt, Roos, Lee and Tome. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Megan E. Parker, mparker@path.org

This article is part of the Research Topic

Climate Change and Health: From Data and Strategies to Real Actions

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Big data in the food supply chain: a literature review

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• Abderahman Rejeb 1 ,
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• Karim Rejeb 3  

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The emergence of big data (BD) offers new opportunities for food businesses to address emerging risks and operational challenges. BD denotes the integration and analysis of multiple data sets, which are inherently complex, voluminous and are often of inadequate quality and structure. While BD is a well-established method in supply chain management, academic research on its application in the food ecosystem is still lagging. To fill this knowledge gap and capture the latest developments in this field, a systematic literature review was performed. Forty-one papers were selected and thoroughly examined and analysed to identify the enablers of BD in the food supply chain. The review primarily attempted to obtain an answer to the following research question: “What are the possibilities of leveraging big data in the food supply chain?“ Six significant benefits of applying BD in the food industry were identified, namely, the extraction of valuable knowledge and insights, decision-making support, improvement of food chain efficiencies, reliable forecasting, waste minimization, and food safety. Finally, some challenges and future research directions were outlined.

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1 Introduction

The food industry is an integral part of every economy and plays a critical role in supplying the necessities for human survival and provides consumer choice (Turi et al. 2014 ). According to estimates, US$14 trillion of foods is produced, packaged and sold worldwide every year and encompasses a multitude of transactions between suppliers, retailers and consumers (Ji et al. 2017 ). At the same time, the global food system is still encountering a series of serious challenges such as the increase of world population, rapid urbanization, ageing of countries’ populations, sustainability, and the alarming global change of the environment (Cerqueira et al. 2019 ). Similarly, the fragmented nature of global food supply chains presents an additional challenge to respond to consumers’ requirements in terms of food safety, quality, and authenticity. The food supply chain is a dynamic system encompassing food brands, primary producers, processors, regulators, third-party actors and other resources engaged in various processes and governance (Yu and Nagurney 2013 ). With the fast pace of technology developments, the conventional ways of managing and delivering food products to markets and consumers are evolving. Today, technology is viewed as a critical enabler, and Nambiar (Nambiar 2010 ) argued that food suppliers could use technology to enable continuous monitoring to preserve quality and provide cheaper food products to consumers. The use of technology results in increased operational efficiencies and savings throughout all the links of the food supply chain (Huscroft et al. 2013 ; Jayaraman et al. 2008 ; Jovanovic et al. 1994 ).

Digital technologies are constantly developed and deployed across the agro-food system, from the farmer to the consumer (Rotz et al. 2019 ). Over the past twenty years, advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have enabled new opportunities and innovations for improving the outcomes of agricultural activities (Xin and Zazueta 2016 ). For example, Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology can be integrated into the food supply chain allowing organizations to gain enhanced granularity in supply chain traceability for compliance and business process improvement (Attaran and Attaran 2007 ). RFID also enables the real-time monitoring and visibility of re-usable assets such as pallets or totes carrying food products. It facilitates the acquisition of more accurate inventory data and tracking of food cargo at various levels of aggregation in the supply chain. The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) enhances the pervasive presence of ‘things’ or ‘objects’ with RFID tags, sensors and actuators interacting or participating on a network (Atzori et al. 2010 ). This can benefit the food industry and improve aspects such as the management of food loss (food loss occurs in pre-consumer phases) and food waste (Wen et al. 2018 ). The use of IoT in food chains has also intensified with billions of ubiquitous and interconnected devices ranging from mobile tools, equipment and machinery on farms to household appliances and temperature-sensing devices (Rao and Clarke 2019 ). When IoT is combined with other technologies, it helps to visualize food supply chain processes and geographic mapping of supply routes (Rejeb 2018a , b ; Rejeb et al. 2019 ). Furthermore, sophisticated tools, devices and technology also include autonomous guided vehicles (AGV), precision farming using robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), distributed ledger technology (DLT), cloud computing and BD tools that combine to reshape agriculture at an unprecedented pace (Phillips et al. 2019 ). Technology is leveraged to process and handle large data streams from multiple sources and origins in the food chain.

BD is perceived to be a critical technology in food chains, agriculture, and other sectors of the economy (Sonka 2014 ). BD is defined as “ a conglomeration of the booming volume of heterogeneous data sets, which is so huge and intricate that processing it becomes difficult, using the existing database management tools ” (Subudhi et al. 2019 , p.2). It can be understood as the processing and analysis of large data sets obtained from various sources such as online user interactions, consumer-generated content, commercial transactions, sensor devices, monitoring systems or any other consumer tracking tools (Li et al. 2019 ). BD also refers to the massive amounts of digital information about human activities, which are generated by a wide range of high-throughput tools and technologies (Marchetti 2016 ). According to Cavanillas et al. ( 2016 ), BD is an emerging field where innovative technology offers new ways of extracting value from the volumes of data and information generated. In the context of food supply chains, BD is a fast-growing area that supports decision-making processes, differentiates and identifies final products based on market demands, and aids in food safety (Armbruster and MacDonell 2014 ). Research and developments on crop improvement and sustainable agriculture have significantly benefitted from the usage of BD in crop modelling for targeting genotypes to different environments (Löffler et al. 2005 ). For instance, analyses based on consumption and crop growth data could aid farmers in determining which crop varieties to plant and which to minimize, enhancing crop yield, increasing sales, and maximizing returns on investment (Tao et al. 2021 ). Similarly, the use of big geospatial data (e.g., from wireless networks, farm machinery telemetry, and periodic remote sensing) enables better management practices in soil erosion, water pollution, and disaster risk management in agriculture (Řezník et al. 2017 ). The ability to collect and analyze data on crop variety, quantity, quality, location, weather events, market prices, and management decisions can support predictive analytics tasks and enable farmers and farming cooperatives to improve crop forecasting (Jakku et al. 2019 ). The use of BD also encourages the development of precision agriculture, which contributes to water conservation (O’Connor et al. 2016 ), soil preservation, limited carbon emissions (Ochoa et al. 2014 ), and optimal productivity (Mayer et al. 2015 ).

Furthermore, the advent of BD has the potential to improve the design of food supply chains, the relationship development among stakeholders, enhance customer service systems, and manage daily value-added operations (Waller et al. 2013 ). The application of BD can help food businesses become more profitable by increasing their operational efficiencies, improving their potential economic gains, and optimizing their resource allocation. When BD is combined with artificial intelligence (AI) tools, the risks related to the occurrences of pathogens, contaminants or adulterants used in economically motivated adulterations (EMA) in the agriculture chain can be predicted (Marvin et al. 2017 ; Spink et al. 2019 ). Although these benefits are tangible, several challenges remain.

While BD has gained remarkable attention from both scholars and practitioners, research investigating the applications of BD in food chains remains scarce (Rotz et al. 2019 ). Moreover, few studies are using BD analytics with a focus on sustainable agriculture and food supply chains (Kamble et al. 2019 ). Therefore, to fill this knowledge gap, the primary goal of this study is to explore the relevant literature and identify how BD potentially impacts food supply chains. By synthesizing the literature published in leading journals, authors strive to demonstrate how the adoption of BD in the food supply chain will improve operational efficiencies, enhance food quality and safety, and develop a sustainable food ecosystem. In dealing with this increasingly important topic, this study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the following research question (RQ):

RQ: What are the possibilities of leveraging BD in the food supply chain?

The contributions of this research to the BD literature is significant. Based on the authors’ current understanding and knowledge, this study presents the first reference to the potential of BD in food supply chains. Besides, the review is among the first to capture the dynamic nature of this topic, providing a systematic review of the recent investigations on BD in the context of food supply chains from literature appearing in leading journals. The review of previous scholarly research provides a timely summary of current evidence that can be used to increase the understanding of BD for scholars focused in the food, technology and supply chain industry. Food industry practitioners and decision-makers can derive new insights into how to design sustainable food supply chains with the emerging field of BD. Thus, this study is motivated by the limited discourse about the usefulness of BD in supply chain management (Engelseth et al. 2018 ). Hence, this gap in the literature is what authors explicitly intend to fill.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section  2 describes the methodology of the review. The subsequent section presents the statistical classification of publications. Section  4 provides a detailed discussion of the possibilities of BD in the food supply chain based on the findings of the reviewed literature. In Section 5 , some challenges of BD are discussed. The last section concludes the papers, discusses the research contributions, limitations and future research directions.

2 Methodology

2.1 research protocol development.

To answer the research question of the present study, the authors conducted a systematic review of published literature following the guidelines proposed by Denyer and Tranfield ( 2009 ). A systematic literature review (SLR) is a scientific activity that aims to evaluate and interpret all available research relevant to a particular research question or topic area or phenomenon of interest (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ; Kitchenham 2004 ). An SLR is also a method that helps to consolidate and advance scientific research through locating, appraising and summarizing the existing literature. In order to survey the current state of scientific knowledge regarding the research question, an SLR is driven by prescribed steps to ensure the relevance of the retrieved literature, the minimization of research errors and bias, and the reliability of the quality assessment. The presentation and the process of the SLR in this study aim to establish a familiarity with what is already published about BD applications in the food supply chain. Along the process, care is taken in ensuring that the steps of the review are transparent, rigorous, reliable and repeatable. Furthermore, the authors developed and strictly followed a review protocol that is based on the iterative cycle of identifying adequate search keywords, selecting the relevant studies, and eventually carrying out the analysis. The review protocol is generated based on the central research question and the search string in order to extract the relevant studies. All the authors jointly specified and developed the necessary stages of the protocol. Table 1 describes in detail the selection of the search database, the collection of studies, and the eligibility criteria.

2.2 Data collection

Based on the surveyed Scopus research database, the initial result of the search queries was 131 publications. To further refine the results, the corresponding author undertook the removal of duplicates and the articles with missing bibliographic data points. The publications were also analyzed and filtered according to the eligibility criteria mentioned in Table  1 . The authors screened the titles and abstracts to identify the initial relevant studies, retrieving 62 publications for full-text review. After reading the full content and assessing the quality of articles, a total number of 41 articles were selected for complete review. The final selection of articles was guided by the research question of this study. In other words, out of the 62 publications, authors only considered publications that identified the possibilities of BD from the food chain perspective. As a result, all the 41 publications were relevant to the scope of the present study, and they provided discussions on BD from the perspective of food supply chains. Figure  1 shows the process of data collection.

Schematic presentation of data collection

3 Statistical classification of publications

3.1 publications by year, country, and journal, 3.1.1 publications by year.

The search was carried out in October 2019. Figure  2 presents the number of publications published by year and extracted from the execution of the research protocol. Despite being a well-established technology, the interest in BD within the food industry has considerably increased over the recent years. Papers studying the application of BD to food supply chains were almost all published from 2013 onward. More specifically, there is an upward trend in the number of articles published on the subject from the year 2013 to 2019. The number of articles published from 2014 onward has exponentially increased, showing that the applications of BD have gained more recognition and increasing academic attention among food chain researchers. The reason is that many globalized food supply chains are currently migrating to an Industry 4.0 setting, embracing modern technological solutions that are commonly used in other industries (e.g., automotive industry). Industry 4.0 represents a milestone for the modernization and acceleration of food supply chains. As a critical technological component of this emerging paradigm, BD promises a revolutionary leap in the management of food chains among highly dispersed networks of several actors. BD contributes to the successful development of data-driven food supply chains responding to the core needs of businesses and other stakeholders. Out of the total reviewed studies, 36 papers were published in the last three years (2016-2019), reflecting that the integration of BD into food chain activities is still a nascent research area worth discussing and exploring in a much more in-depth manner.

Publication details according to year

3.1.2 Publications by country

In order to analyse the geographical distribution of publications concerning BD in the food supply chain, the authors’ affiliations were identified at the time of publication. As shown in Fig.  2 , a significant contribution to the BD literature in the context of food supply chains came primarily from the USA and the UK, with 15 and 7 papers, respectively. This finding is predictable for both countries. For example, Armbruster and MacDonell ( 2014 ) noted that several efforts are steadily underway in the US food system to harness BD to preserve the quality and safety of food products. BD applications in weather and climate have been applied in the USA in the establishment of climate predictions and disaster response in real-time network systems using satellite image data (Lee et al. 2015 ). According to the analytical agency Mind Commerce, the market size of BD in the US in 2013 reached $20 billion, whereas, in 2014, the value was $29, achieving a growth rate of 45% (Ramzaev 2015 ). The importance of BD is also rising in the UK, where the technology has been identified as a driver for economic growth and one of the eight key government priorities (Government 2013 ). The UK government invested £ 73 million to help public and academic projects to unlock the potential of BD in diverse sectors of the economy. Agrimetrics is one of the agricultural innovation centres recently launched in the UK to engage with the food industry stakeholders and enable detailed and collective understanding of the needs of farmers, food producers, retailers, and consumers through the use of BD and analytical tools (Agrimetrics 2015 ). To a lesser extent, scholars from Canada and China were equally responsible for the publication of 4 articles. In this regard, Barrados and Mitchell ( 2017 ) pointed out that there is a proliferation of automated data systems in Canada. This finding is consistent with the assertion of Clarke and Margetts ( 2014 ) who noted that the government of Canada was later than the UK and the US in introducing an open data initiative, which was set up in 2011 by Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board. Five countries, including India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Spain, were responsible for ten articles (two each). Only one publication was identified in every remaining country within the sample of the relevant literature.

When authors considered the analysis of publications on a continental basis, researchers from North America are the central contributors to the literature representing 37% of the total participation. To a lesser extent, relevant contributions for each of Europe and Asia represented respectively, 29% and 24% of the total studies. There was an increasing international focus on BD applications to food supply chains that are reflected in the contributions of developing countries in Africa with 8% of the total relevant studies. In comparison, Oceania represents 2% of the total studies. These findings suggest that the rise of BD is not limited to developed economies, but also the technology has extended to the food supply chains of the developing economies (Fig. 3 ).

The distribution of publications among countries

3.1.3 Publications by journal

The reputation and credibility of the journal ranking have a significant impact on how people assess the value of the publication. The classification of journals was facilitated by the use of the BibExcel tool. The reviewed publications were from 37 journals. While ranking the journals based on the citation analysis, twenty-nine (29) articles were published in journals that had an impact factor in Journal Citation Report- JCR (2019) . Table  2 presents the journal titles, the number of publications, and the impact factors exceeding 4. The category “ Others ” includes 29 journals, of which only 18 journals have an impact factor. It should be noted that all the publications spanned across a wide range of fields that cover food sciences, manufacturing, computer sciences, supply chain management and logistics, and business. The variety of the scope of the journals reflects the multi-dimensional perspectives of BD and its versatile applications to several areas in the food supply chain.

3.2 Big data publications based on the type of research

Figure  4 presents the distribution of the selected 41 papers by the methodological approach used. Two main research approaches were identified for the classification of articles; conceptual and empirical. Conceptual papers review and discuss the applications, theories, capabilities, and challenges of BD based either on the extant literature or without the collection of primary data. However, empirical papers tend to present data collected through case studies, interviews and focus on measurable and visible BD activities and processes in the food supply chain through other methodological approaches such as algorithmic analyses, prototypes, and system designs. As shown in Figs.  4 , 17 papers provided a conceptual discussion or review on BD. The remaining 24 papers dealt with the topic using empirical research approaches that included case studies and interviews (7), algorithmic and mathematic analyses (4), prototype and system design (4), survey and multi-methods (3). Table  3 presents in detail the classification of these studies according to their methodological approaches.

Distribution based on the type of research

Figure  5 shows the trend of how different research approaches have been used to study BD in the context of food supply chains during the period 2013-2019. The trend depicted in Fig.  5 reveals that there is a steep increase in the conceptual and review studies. The trend also shows that the concepts applied to BD research are being tested and validated through empirical techniques and methods such as case studies, interviews, algorithms, prototypes and surveys. While there is a sharp increase in theoretical studies, the increase in studies using empirical investigations is not significant. Therefore, empirical studies are necessary in order to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of BD in the food supply chain.

Distribution of research approaches during the period 2013-2019

4 Review discussion

4.1 increased knowledge and insights.

In highly uncertain business environments, the dynamic and globalized nature of the food supply chains has created both fragmentation and complexity with a higher dependency on data and information analysis (Gereffi et al. 2012 ; Kamble et al. 2019 ). Large unstructured data sets are now generated on a real-time basis, which challenges the current approaches for decision-making and calls for a revamped focus on advanced analytical tools (Xin and Zazueta 2016 ). The proliferation of new technologies has given rise to a wave of data originating from different sources such as IoT and wireless sensor networks, the web, mobile applications, and social media. The ability to effectively process these data, manage information and extract knowledge is becoming key for achieving competitive advantage (Curry 2016 ). Advances in information technology offer new possibilities to extract new insights and knowledge from BD (Akhtar et al. 2018 ). The advantage of BD tools compared to conventional analytics and business intelligence is their ability to more effectively process the massive volume of data than others (Subudhi et al.  2019 ; Alfian et al. 2017 ).

In food supply networks, BD enables companies to discover consumers’ needs, create new values, and improve the management of their organizational processes (Ji et al. 2017 ). According to Engelset et al. ( 2019 ), BD is not a pure technology per-se; instead, it is a valuable method and tool set to manage, analyze, capture, search, share, store, transfer, visualize and query supply chain information. In the agriculture field, BD can help to efficiently extract value from the vast amounts of data such as environmental information, biological data, agricultural equipment information, monitoring data of production processes, sales and management data, food safety procedures, yield rates and soil health (Li et al. 2019 ). The high capabilities to process and handle large datasets can optimize the operational decisions and coordination in the food chain. As such, the knowledge gained from the application of BD can be useful in designing adaptive processes for the optimization of the food supply chain. In this context, companies operating in the food industry would be able to optimize process steps from procurement to production to marketing by deriving new insights that were traditionally ‘hidden’ within data patterns (Ji et al. 2017 ). In this regard, Sonka ( 2014 ) argued that BD tools are more efficient in enabling analysts to explore massive quantities of texts and identify the relevant descriptors within the information. BD allows food retailers to adapt and become consumer-centric by providing useful analytical tools necessary for extracting relevant insights into consumer sentiments and behaviours (Singh et al. 2018 ).

In the era of BD, food supply chains are heavily dependent on the use of technology to create valuable knowledge. The mining of the data generated at each echelon of the supply chain provides an effective basis for agri-food decision-making, optimization of processes, and identification of interdependencies (Li et al. 2019 ). For example, a BD platform is needed to handle a large amount of unstructured and continuously generated real-time sensor data (Alfian et al. 2017 ). The time and temperature information retrieved from the sensor network and analyzed with BD tools provide real-time insights into the product shelf-life information (Li and Wang 2017 ) and can help to reduce food waste. The intuitiveness of IoT networks and connected sensors across the food supply chain can be enhanced with BD to capture data related to time and temperature and to share it with exchange partners in order to dynamically manage the optimization of storage, packaging, delivery and selling according to the data drawn from the sensor networks (Li and Wang 2017 ). The increased data visualization capability can be applied in real-time to fresh food supply chains to improve customer value and reduce costs (Engelseth et al. 2019 ). Khanna et al. ( 2018 ) argued that the combination of BD, advanced information and computational technologies could improve knowledge of the processes and relationships in the agri-food sector. Tan et al. ( 2017 ) pointed out that the ability of BD to extract embedded knowledge from large amounts of data can help to solve several specific issues in the halal food industry, such as the contamination of halal food products. Therefore, food businesses, including small and medium enterprises can utilize BD to create actionable knowledge and insights, strengthen their oversight and management of data, and improve their competitiveness in the increasingly competitive global marketplace (O’Connor and Kelly 2017 ). Based on the previous discussion, we develop the following research proposition (RP):

RP1: BD supports food supply chains by increasing knowledge and actionable insights.

4.2 Improved decision-making

According to Malakooti ( 2012 ), decision-making is a complex, multi-dimensional process that can take place spontaneously without any prior planning, or it may emerge after exhaustive and well-contrived analysis. The complexity of supply chain management has resulted in a lengthy decision-making process due to the time required to access information that is necessary to make business decisions. In the context of global food supply chains, strategic decision-making is essential as the holistic efforts could increase the profitability of an entire chain from an efficient framework (Zhong et al. 2017 ). Despite the advances in technology and decision support systems, achieving responsive and adequate decision making is a difficult task. However, leveraging BD in food supply chains can significantly improve decision-making. Moreover, BD counteracts the conventional ways of thinking and decision-making that are based on the intuition and experience of the owner or manager (O’Connor and Kelly 2017 ). BD enables a more informed, evidence-based decision-making (Akhtar et al. 2018 ) by providing managers with access to explicit information and equipping them with new tools and capabilities (Sonka 2014 ). BD provides sophisticated tools where farmers can assess different scenarios from different farming decisions (Xin and Zazueta 2016 ). In this regard, Kamilaris et al. ( 2018 ) developed the AgriBigCAT platform that can support farmers in their decision-making processes and administration planning to meet the challenges of increasing food production at a lower environmental impact. Moreover, BD increases the visualization of information across the food network and drives enhanced transparency, higher productivity, and informed decision making (Ji et al. 2017 ). Decision making would no longer be undertaken in food supply chains with insufficient or fragmented data and information. Consumers also benefit from the outputs of BD initiatives as it can provide contextual information about the food, its origin, method of processing and other information, which aids in a more informed purchasing decision. Lin and Mahalik ( 2019 ) argued that BD improves data storage and enhances the application of agri-food scientific research by providing intelligent decision-making. Tan et al. ( 2017 ) noted that halal industry players could make better and more efficient decisions using BD. Therefore, BD enables food supply chain exchange partners to be involved in interactive and consistent decision processes. BD leads to more intelligent and smarter decision making that can improve the operational performance of food chains, reduce costs, minimize the cycle time of decisions, and mitigate potential risks. Thus, we suggest the following research proposition:

RP2: BD facilitates decision-making processes in the food supply chain.

4.3 Improved efficiencies

Managing efficiencies in food supply chains is an ongoing process that requires the better utilization of available resources, the optimization of processes, and the minimization of costs (Angkiriwang et al. 2014 ). Hence, food supply chains are pressured to enhance efficiencies at every stage, from procurement, logistics, manufacturing, marketing and sales to after-sale services. Similarly, the agri-food sector is dynamic, diverse, and requires more sophisticated tools to improve efficiencies (Duncan et al. 2019 ).

As technology is critical for improving supply chain efficiencies (Attaran 2017 ), the use of BD and its visualization capabilities allows firms to automate the process of exploring hidden patterns that can occur in the food supply chain efficiently and cost-effectively (Ji et al. 2017 ). BD allows food supply chain businesses to explore every opportunity to improve their operational efficiencies, simplify processes, and reduce transaction costs. The management, analysis and response to food-related data can be facilitated through BD and automated to predict situations in real-time (Tzounis et al. 2017 ). For example, Kshetri ( 2017 ) argued that a system based on BD could deliver information to farmers and water service providers on a real-time basis about the current and predicted water and soil moisture levels. Alfian et al. ( 2017 ) proposed a real-time monitoring system that utilizes smartphone-based sensors and BD to handle IoT-generated sensor data and helps food operators to implement critical strategies related to the perishable supply chain. Farmers can capitalize on BD to monitor the health status of animals in the food chain. To confirm this development, Sivamani et al. ( 2018 ) proposed a method based on BD to control the nutritional intake of the livestock, improve the health and diet of animals, and support the early detection of diseases.

While the applications of BD to agriculture dates back to the 1990 s (Carolan and Carolan 2017 ), the technology can play a substantial role in advancing modern precision agriculture. Precision agriculture is a technology-driven approach for the management of farming activities such as the monitoring, estimation and prediction of crop-related data. According to Bucci et al. ( 2018 ) precision agriculture is adopted by innovative farmers who rely on the capabilities of BD to enable the intelligent usage of precision farming data. Similarly, BD is a promising instrument for farmers wishing to develop smart agriculture, improve their productivity, and enhance their integration in the food supply chain. The constellation of technologies in the agri-food sector, such as remote sensing, satellite imagery and high-spatial-resolution BD from farms, has already produced a sophisticated method of farming that increases the efficiency of agricultural production and enables site-specific crop and livestock management decisions (Khanna et al. 2018 ). In this respect, Li and Mahalik ( 2019 ) posit that BD can utilize data from GPS/GIS to track crop yields, determine the optimization of crops, and increase harvesting productivity. The combination of BD with IoT data can help farmers optimize their farm operation. In research by Kamilaris et al. ( 2018 ), BD is used in an online software platform to analyze geophysical information from various sources, estimate the impact of livestock on the environment, and increase resource efficiencies. Khanna et al. ( 2018 ) noted that in 2017, Great Lakes Watershed Management System brought environmental forecasting capability to precision agriculture by allowing farmers to input GIS coordinates for their fields, run tillage and fertilizer management scenarios, and to view predicted estimates of nutrient loading and soil erosion to nearby water bodies. Therefore, the enormous potential of BD applications to enhance precision agriculture is evident in the reviewed papers. Therefore, BD aids in the efficient usage of scarce resources (e.g. water) and the optimization of crop cultivation and harvesting. Furthermore, BD helps to develop more accurate models for agriculture management and monitoring of farming activities. Consequently, we introduce the following research proposition:

RP3: BD has a positive impact on the operational efficiencies of food supply chains.

4.4 Reliable forecasting

Food supply chains are inherently complex to the extent that inputs cannot be completely controlled, managed, and safeguarded against uncertainties. Therefore, forecasting is a necessary activity that aims to evaluate the value of events in the future with uncertainty based on the observed patterns from the previous record (Ahmed 2004 ). Demand forecasting has long been a critical issue of the food industry that calls for reconsidering sophisticated technologies such as BD to aid more accurate and useful forecasting (Nita 2015 ). Hence, BD can act as a critical enabler in the food supply chain because of its power to aid forecasting accuracy and precision. The predictive capabilities of BD are beneficial to support the management of food chains, which are increasingly characterized by their short life cycles and speed of response. Moreover, the technology enables the systematization of demand forecasting, resulting in improved accuracy of consumers’ demands, reduced distribution costs and disposal losses (Nita 2015 ). Farm management and operations will dramatically change because of the high resolution of BD information, real-time forecasting, and transparent prediction models. In crop management, Badr et al. ( 2016 ) noted that BD could provide the data required to run crop models under different climate and management scenarios, and this approach is useful for mitigating some food security issues. The authors argued further that technology and BD-centric forecasting could support decision-makers, crop growers, and researchers to gain a deeper understanding, better manage supply and demand of the food chain, anticipate food-related challenges, and develop practical solutions to overcome food insecurity and price uncertainties. Testing the credibility of forecasting results, Nita ( 2015 ) found that a BD-enabled system for a food manufacturer could produce a high forecasting accuracy within 70% of the target commodities. The benefits of proper and reliable forecasting include the optimization of food chain operations, lower product perishability, better planning and utilization of resources, and the improvement of the overall supply chain performance. BD also drives more collaborative forecasting and scheduling between the food business and its supply chain exchange partners, resulting in better inter-organizational collaborations. Thus, the following research proposition emerges:

RP4: BD leads to more accurate and reliable forecasting in the food supply chain.

4.5 Waste minimization

In the context of agri-food supply chains, waste represents a catch-all term that encompasses non-value-adding activities, excess inventories, additional wait times, unnecessary processing steps, and other variabilities. According to Hicks et al. ( 2004 ), waste is a strategic issue in the supply chain that forces companies to seek ways to minimize all types of waste and thus achieve cost-savings. Research on food waste has established that one-third of the food produced is either wasted or is lost, accounting for 1.3 billion tons per year (Mishra and Singh 2018 ). (Note, food loss refers to pre-consumption stages such as pre and post-harvest loss whereas food waste occurs when the food is consumable but discarded).

Supply chain waste may stem from ineffective quality or process control, and large quantities of inventories can perish in agri-food supply chains. As the minimization of resource waste is a topic of paramount importance in the food supply chain, there is a high potential for BD tools to reduce waste in the food supply chain (Mishra and Singh 2018 ). The minimization of food waste through BD can result in increased resource utilization, better profitability and reduced risk of food insecurity. The visualization capabilities of BD can enhance the traceability of food supply chains and the visibility of key business processes. Belaud et al. ( 2019 ) pointed out that BD leads to more sustainable food supply chain designs that valorize agricultural waste. Li and Wang ( 2017 ) developed a BD-based system that aggregates time when the temperature exceeds a certain threshold at each stage of a supply chain and estimates the impact of improper quality control and perishability of food products (e.g., reduction in shelf-life, risk of spoilage). This increased control enables retailers and manufacturers to deliver satisfactory food quality and overcome the severe financial consequences of food loss and waste in the supply chain. Another benefit of BD tools is transparency, in the sense that whenever products pass through the supply chain, effective waste-related decisions can be dynamically made, such as pricing of food products based on their current shelf-life (Li and Wang 2017 ). The possibility of uncovering hidden and valuable insights with BD can also help food chain actors to reduce overall waste. For example, retailers today are utilizing BD for waste reduction by using consumer complaints made in retail stores (Mishra and Singh 2018 ). Data captured from social media (e.g., Twitter) can be analyzed using BD in order to develop effective waste minimization policies in the food chain. Therefore, BD contributes to more sustainable food chains as it can dramatically reduce the occurrence of perishability in the food chain and the immense food loss and food waste. Beyond overcoming the economic losses of waste, the technology also helps to incorporate other sustainability considerations that are relevant to food safety. For example, the aggregation of food data in a BD system empowers the trace-back and track-forward capabilities of the business. Hence, this capability enables the reduction of unnecessary food waste and the fast detection of products involved in foodborne illness outbreaks, their sources, and their current locations (if still in the supply chain). As a result, we outline the following research proposition:

RP5: BD reduces waste in the food supply chain.

4.6 Food safety

Food safety represents a growing and critically important public health issue (Aung and Chang 2014 ). It is a joint responsibility of all actors involved in the food industry to ensure that food is safe to consume. With the increasing concerns and awareness of consumers toward food safety, food supply chain partners are obligated to secure and protect food products from any sort of contamination or adulteration, whether it be unintentional or intentional. The assurance of food safety means that food is safe from causing harm (Demartini et al. 2018 ). To maintain food safety, the use of technology and information systems can provide incentives and accountability measures that are critical for identifying best manufacturing practices for food operators at various stages in the food supply chain (Ahearn et al. 2016 ). In this regard, Marvin et al. ( 2017 ) confirmed the significant role of BD in predicting the presence of pathogens or contaminants by matching the information on environmental factors with pathogen growth or hazard occurrence. Zhang et al. ( 2013 ) developed algorithms that used BD and visualized images to model contamination conditions in an IoT-based food supply chain, helping to develop consumer confidence in the food ecosystem. To assist farmers in the selection of the most eco-friendly beef cattle supplier, Singh et al. ( 2018 ) proposed a BD cloud-computing framework for carbon minimization. The captured information related to carbon footprint can be used by abattoir and processors in their supplier selection decisions while accommodating carbon footprint emissions in this process. Moreover, the deployment of BD in combination with ERP, IoT and other data sources connected to logistics providers can facilitate enhanced product tracking and risk management of food. By providing real-time information about the product, its condition (e.g., temperature), destination routes, including traffic and weather patterns, BD may prove valuable for trend detection of potential contamination during the delivery of food products (Tan et al. 2017 ). As stated earlier, the increased transparency gained from the BD application can provide thorough and real-time monitoring of the quality of perishable food products. In the highly complex global food chain, BD enables supply chain exchange partners to establish more effective and cooperative relationships in order to maintain food safety and enhance transparency. Li and Wang ( 2017 ) outlined that with BD applications, consumers would be able to obtain more information about the product shelf-life variation over time. Access to a granular level of information creates a conducive environment that not only assures food safety but it establishes more trust, confidence and commitment. Such digital transformation, is, according to Li and Wang ( 2017 ), a suitable framework for strategic innovation for marketing, quality management, and supply chain optimization. Therefore, BD can be viewed as a critical and value-adding element for food safety management that can respond to consumers’ growing concerns about food quality and safety. Based on the previous discussion, we suggest the following research proposition:

RP6: BD improves food safety management across the supply chain.

5 Further challenges of big data

The application of BD has tremendous potential in food supply chains. To achieve competitiveness, the food and restaurant industry could embrace BD to derive actionable business insights, make evidence-based decisions (Coble et al. 2018 ; Lokers et al. 2016 ), optimize operational efficiencies, produce reliable forecasts, minimize food waste, and ensure food quality and safety. In their study, Ma et al. ( 2018 ) argued that BD could enable restaurant owners to predict future visitors. For the service-oriented food industry, the implementation of BD has become a necessity given the ability of the technology to provide insights into customer spending habits and support restaurants to more accurately grasp the market trend (Tai et al. 2020 ). Although the benefits of BD for food supply chain players, including those operating in the foodservice industry, are tangible, several challenges are still hampering its wide-scale implementation.

5.1 Data complexity

According to Waldherr et al. ( 2017 ), the challenges of BD stem mainly from the growing amounts of data, the high speed of data generation, and the diversity of data formats and structures. The BD ecosystem is characterized by a great variety of data sources and the velocity of data flows for which advanced computational methods are imperative to analyze data (Zhou 2019 ). Similarly, the need for these methods and techniques is pressing as they allow to manage knowledge of chemical components of foods of importance to human health (Tao et al. 2018 ). Moreover, the increasing interconnectedness and complexity of BD result in overlaps, various links of data, and growing noise. To purify BD, food businesses are required to devise new strategies, tools and technologies that can improve data quality and analysis. In BD applications, poor data quality or so-called “dirty data” (Li et al. 2019 ) could increase concerns over the reliability and validity of BD analyses and create additional costs for food firms. For example, analysts approximate that the cost of poor data quality within a typical business is between 8% and 12% of revenues (Sethuraman 2012 ). Therefore, subtracting noise from BD is a challenging task because data keeps on varying inconsistently concerning time, thereby affecting the mechanism of effective data management (Subudhi et al.  2019 ).

5.2 Security and privacy issues

The BD-driven food supply chains bring enormous challenges for food businesses, especially during data collection, storage, visualization, and information sharing. For instance, these include issues about data security and privacy (Sharma et al. 2018 ,  2020 ). As per Duncan et al. ( 2019 ), cybersecurity threats are problematic in the BD era because of inappropriate access to BD systems, data, or analytical technologies and the nefarious use of information for fraudulent food activities. Food supply chain partners need to secure the public and private information of individuals and businesses, including physical and digital footprints, searches, transaction histories, audio and video communications, service registrations, conversations, and messages (Li et al. 2019 ). The BD ecosystem is fraught with data security risks, which necessitate being carefully evaluated before food businesses engage in the adoption of BD systems. Thus, to sharpen their competitive advantage, food businesses have to ensure a high level of data security to implement BD successfully. Furthermore, the aggregation of data from different and distant information sources has also raised several privacy concerns due to the so-called private information leakage (Guo and Wang 2019 ). As a result, BD systems might entail collecting consumers’ private information without consideration of regulations, laws, and existing standards. Therefore, consumer-privacy issues could deter food businesses from shifting towards BD-enabled food supply chains.

5.3 Organizational challenges

At the organizational level, the lack of necessary capabilities and resources might hinder the applications of BD in the food industry. In this context, Kshetri ( 2017 ) points out that organizations might be in shortage of BD engineers and scientists who can understand, interpret, and perform analytics. This critique is also highlighted in the study of Tan et al. ( 2017 ) who argue that the halal industry still encounters the lack of talented professionals who could work with BD tools and techniques. Besides the need for analytical and technical know-how, organizations might commit sizeable initial investment to implement BD systems (Sonka 2014 ). For resource-constrained food businesses, BD might not be an economically feasible solution since the incorporation of IoT-based systems, and the expansion of human resources through BD corporate training programs could be a costly and risky investment. BD applications in food services can be unaffordable and almost exclusively developed for larger food firms. Therefore, when seeking to invest in BD applications, incapacitated food industry stakeholders, including farmers and foodservice organizations, could be skeptical of the benefits of BD for their business processes and reluctant to integrate BD systems into their organizational structure. This uncertainty could be further aggravated by the lack of interoperability (Jeppesen et al. 2018 ) among the technologies leveraged in the food supply chain.

6 Conclusions

This study aims to investigate the current state of research on the applications of BD to food supply chains by conducting an SLR on all relevant studies through an appropriate review methodology. Forty-one (41) articles were thoroughly examined and analyzed for this purpose. The findings of this SLR showed that the application of BD to food supply chains is getting increasingly popular with an increase in the number of publications recently. Initially, the SLR was focused on identifying the type of methodologies that were used in the reviewed publications. The use of conceptual approaches to contextualize and extend discussions on the possibilities of BD in the food chain was frequently noticed. Empirical methodologies were employed to demonstrate and validate the effectiveness of BD in sustaining food supply chains from different aspects. A significant number of studies (n= 13) used a case study methodology and interviews to gather data. Some studies developed and proposed prototypes, applied surveys or created system designs to validate the benefits of BD to food manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. The enablers of BD in the food industry identified from the SLR contribute to the literature, concepts, and theories on the capabilities of BD in bringing effective solutions to the management of food chains. In many instances, the ability to extract useful knowledge and insights from data demonstrates the enormous potential of BD and is frequently reported in the majority of studies. However, an observed lack of research studies investigating the capabilities of BD in optimizing food processes and supporting food procurement, processing and marketing is identified. It can be a potential area for further research.

The theoretical findings reveal that previous research on the application of BD to food supply chains have focused primarily on providing the basic concepts of BD and use cases demonstrating its benefits. A paucity of studies synthesizing the advantages of BD was found in the literature review. Hence, this study fills a knowledge gap and presents a contribution to the literature in the form of a detailed SLR. The findings of the SLR revealed six key enablers of BD in the food supply chain namely;

Improved knowledge and predictive insights

Decision-making support

Enhanced efficiencies

More accurate forecasting

Process-based waste minimization

Food safety management

The findings of the review revealed that BD implementations could be impeded by the poor data quality, security and privacy concerns, lack of organizational capabilities and skills, high initial investment costs, and resistance to operate with BD systems. Thus, future research studies may investigate the solutions necessary to accelerate the uptake of BD in the food industry. Research in this direction will help to provide a more balanced understanding of what enables and hinders the development of BD-based food supply chains. Further, this study identifies that BD can be combined with other technological tools such as IoT, AI, cloud computing, and decision support systems (DSS) to substantiate the value of technology in the agri-food industry. Scholars may investigate to what extent food businesses can benefit from the integration of these technologies in the supply chain. The findings of the SLR are one of the initial attempts to contribute to the understanding of BD applications and its connection to the food research area. The utilization of BD could unlock several benefits and sustain the delivery of safer food products to consumers. Therefore, food industry practitioners and decision-makers would gain a deeper understanding of the promising role of BD in contributing to the evolution of sustainable activities in their organizations. The enablers of BD identified in this study may be considered in the formulation of guidelines necessary for BD implementations in the food chain.

Although this study provides a timely review of an increasingly emerging technological capability, we recognize several limitations. The use of Scopus as a comprehensive database does not guarantee the full coverage of the extant literature. Some articles outside of Scopus might be relevant to the scope of the study but have not been considered. Hence, we encourage the replication of review studies in the future and the use of other accessible databases such as Web of Science and Google Scholar. The findings of this study are also limited to the selected number of publications, and therefore, the theoretical inferences drawn here should be validated with other empirical research methods such as expert interviews.

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Rejeb, A., Keogh, J.G. & Rejeb, K. Big data in the food supply chain: a literature review. J. of Data, Inf. and Manag. 4 , 33–47 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42488-021-00064-0

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Received : 17 November 2020

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42488-021-00064-0

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