Understanding Our Food System: Food Supply Chains

The food system is the interconnected system of everything and everybody that plays a role in feeding the population. This includes the people, places, institutions, social factors, environmental factors, and activities that influence growing, processing, distributing, selling, eating, and disposing of food. Let’s zoom in on the activities that bring food from farm to plate, called a food supply chain.

A food supply chain refers to all the steps needed to move food from production to consumption. 

Food supply chains can be short, like buying carrots at the farmers market from the farmer that grew them, or long, like buying dried mangoes imported from Mexico from a grocery delivery company. Each step of the food supply chain is connected to the other steps. If there is a change in one step, all other steps are likely to be affected. 

🐝 Do you have ideas and dreams for Indiana’s food supply chains? 🐝