A4NH flagship 1: Food systems for healthier diets

Governments, businesses, and civil society groups increasingly realize the important need of supporting food systems to produce and supply diverse, nutritious, and safe foods for healthy lives. Flagship 1 responds to concerns about global diet trends and demands from countries on how to transform sustainable and systemic food system transfor­mations for healthier diets to address unabated problems of under­nutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overnutrition. This flagship takes a holistic perspective of food systems, including production, distribution, waste disposal, and food consumption. The systems approach aims to understand the interactions between differ­ent parts and act upon how together they are effecting change, rather than improving specific components in isolation. This is necessary because a food system is multidimensional. It includes sociocultural, economic, environmental, and political aspects, with many actors (food producers, food-chain actors, and consumers) managing multi­ple, linked agri-food value chains within dynamic food environments.