The fragility of food systems.
Food systems are expected to deliver several essential services, which can be summarised as the “triple challenge”. They must:
- provide food security and nutrition for a growing population,
- provide livelihoods to those working along food supply chains, and
- ensure environmental sustainability.
Food systems are also increasingly expected to contribute to social equity and public health outcomes, as an integral part of the broader sustainable development agenda.
As such, they are a powerful embodiment of the One Health concept, which recognises the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. However, this very interconnectedness makes food systems prone to failure in multiple, compounding ways:
Through biological hazards.
For example, plant and animal diseases can rapidly cascade through food systems. Viral and viroid pathogens can lead to crop loss (e.g. Cassava mosaic virus) or reduced efficiency of production and mortality in livestock (e.g. African swine fever virus) and aquaculture (e.g. Tilapia lake virus). As food supply chains become more global and concentrated, the risk of transboundary disease outbreaks has also grown (WHO, 2021).
In Asia, the 2018 outbreak of African swine fever in China resulted in the culling of over 200 million pigs, devastating livelihoods and causing pork prices to skyrocket.
Through physical hazards.
For example, long-term climatic changes, such as rising average temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, and increased frequency of extreme weather events, are altering the geographies of production. This results in crop loss due to pests or droughts, and declining productivity in livestock and aquaculture due to heat stress or altered water conditions. These impacts are disproportionately borne by smallholder producers who often lack adaptive capacity.
Through chemical hazards.
These can originate from both agricultural practices and environmental pollution. Eutrophication, often driven by excessive nutrient runoff from fertilisers, can reduce the quality of irrigation water, feed and forage, affecting terrestrial and aquatic productivity. Residues of pesticides and heavy metals in food can further exacerbate public health risks.
Through socio-economic hazards.
These include structural inequalities such as unequal access to land, finance, labour, and knowledge. Gender, ethnic, and geographic disparities continue to shape who benefits from food systems. Inadequate investment in rural infrastructure and governance weaknesses further entrench marginalisation, reducing the resilience and productive capacity of both terrestrial and aquatic food systems.
Check out this international community of experts working on these pressing issues!
One Food is an international transformative movement to produce safe, nutritious, and sustainable food for all.
It employ a ‘systems’ thinking approach to bring together deep specialisms in new collaborative ways to design and champion sustainable food system design. They articulate the importance of identifying and controlling hazards in food systems as a tangible means to operationalise One Health — creating safer food and a better environment
One Food is developing the “One Food Risk Tool”, a quantitative tool that will allow users to estimate the impact of multiple hazards through and across all food sectors, generating information on risks to animal/plant health (i.e. our food), human health (individual wellbeing and societal health) and environment health (biodiversity, ecosystem quality and climate resilience).
For more information visit onefoodcommunity.org
Failures of food systems are most harshly felt by people in fragile contexts, as they are more likely to also experience conflict, climate shocks, or volatile government structures (FAO, 2022* – also see our blog post from last month).
Out of 59 countries and territories with acutely food insecure populations in 2024, 43 were experiencing high or extreme fragility (OECD, 2025*). This highlights the critical role of food systems as a linchpin in societal resilience. The ability to secure or maintain stable and adequate food supply and access is thus a fundamental coping capacity for states or actors facing fragilities such as political instability, conflict, environmental degradation, and climate change (OECD, 2022*).
Building more resilient food systems through a One Health lens therefore entails integrated, context-specific interventions that address both immediate hazards and underlying structural vulnerabilities.
*References
OECD (2025), States of Fragility 2025, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/81982370-en.
FAO IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO. (2022). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing Food and Agricultural Policies to Make Healthy Diets More Affordable. Rome: FAO. doi: 10.4060/cc0639en
OECD (2022), Environmental Fragility in the Sahel, OECD Publishing, Paris.
