Sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets has been identified as the first of the six pillars for action during the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. It is now THE defining issue for public health nutrition. A sustainable food system is one ‘that ensures food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition of future generations are not compromised'. Resilience refers to the capacity of a food system to achieve this same objective ‘in the face of various and even unforeseen disturbances’ including environmental, economic or socio-political shocks. Sustainable food systems are essential if we are to nourish a projected global population of nearly 10 billion in 2050 within planetary boundaries. However, today’s food systems are far from sustainable. Not only are dietary risk factors and malnutrition in all its forms the leading contributors to the global burden of disease, but also food systems are not operating within some planetary boundaries and are contributing to widespread and potentially irreversible environmental breakdown degradation, including potentially irreversible disruption. Understanding the impact of population dietary intake has extended beyond health and the ability of food systems to provide sufficient quantity, quality and diversity of safe, affordable and nutritious foods, to interlinkages of diets and food systems with climate change, water and land pollution, deforestation and biodiversity loss and other forms of environmental degradation. The focus on healthy diets from sustainable food systems connects all parts of food supply chains (from food production to consumption) and the social, economic and environmental outputs of those systems
