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AuthorEl Bilali, Hamid
AuthorStrassner, Carola
AuthorBen Hassen, Tarek
Available date2024-04-23T05:38:49Z
Publication Date2021
Publication NameSustainability (Switzerland)
ResourceScopus
ISSN20711050
URIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13116260
URIhttp://hdl.handle.net/10576/54092
AbstractAgri-food systems (AFS) have been central in the debate on sustainable development. De-spite this growing interest in AFS, comprehensive analyses of the scholarly literature are hard to find. Therefore, the present systematic review delineated the contours of this growing research strand and analyzed how it relates to sustainability. A search performed on the Web of Science in January 2020 yielded 1389 documents, and 1289 were selected and underwent bibliometric and topical analyses. The topical analysis was informed by the SAFA (Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems) approach of FAO and structured along four dimensions viz. environment, economy, society and culture, and policy and governance. The review shows an increasing interest in AFS with an exponential increase in publications number. However, the study field is north-biased and dominated by researchers and organizations from developed countries. Moreover, the analysis suggests that while environmental aspects are sufficiently addressed, social, economic, and political ones are generally overlooked. The paper ends by providing directions for future research and listing some topics to be integrated into a comprehensive, multidisciplinary agenda addressing the multifaceted (un)sustainability of AFS. It makes the case for adopting a holistic, 4-P (planet, people, profit, policy) approach in agri-food system studies.
SponsorOne reason for the north bias might be the funding of the research field. Indeed, the most important funding agencies are based in developed countries and regions (Table 6), namely the European Commission, UK Research Innovation-UKRI, National Science Foundation-NSF (USA), and Natural Environment Research Council-NERC (UK). However, it should be pointed out that the list of the top 20 funding agencies features some international organizations (CGIAR), funding organizations from emerging coun- tries (National Natural Science Foundation of China-NSFC), as well as some philan- thropic organizations (Wellcome Trust).
Languageen
PublisherMDPI AG
SubjectAgriculture
Alternative food networks
Bibliometrics
Culture
Diet
Food chain
Food supply chain
Food systems
Governance
Sustainable development goals
United Nations' Food Systems Summit
TitleSustainable agri-food systems: Environment, economy, society, and policy
TypeArticle Review
Issue Number11
Volume Number13
dc.accessType Open Access


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