Response Doctoral Program

The food system encompasses all the actors that feed us: farmers, processing companies, retailers, restaurants, and consumers. This complex network faces growing challenges: climate variations, rising production costs, and societal demands for affordable and healthy products. To address these challenges, our food systems must become more resilient while remaining sustainable. At ETH Zurich, we have developed an approach to help regional policymakers transform their regional food systems.

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning to find the shelves of your usual supermarket half empty. Fruits from the other side of the world can no longer arrive due to a geopolitical crisis, local vegetables have been destroyed by an exceptional drought, and the restaurants in your neighborhood are closing one by one for lack of stable supply. Science fiction? Not really. The COVID-19 pandemic already gave us a taste of this fragility.

In Switzerland, as elsewhere, the way we produce and consume food has radically changed over recent decades. The globalization of trade has transformed our food system into a complex and sometimes fragile network. This evolution brings consequences. Swiss producers face international competition, price volatility, and increasingly frequent climate hazards – droughts, late frosts, floods. Meanwhile, we consumers have gradually lost the connection with those who feed us and the territories that surround us.

What is the aim of the project?

In recent years, cities and regions worldwide have been actively developing comprehensive plans and strategies for their territorial development. France has implemented Territorial Food Projects, while Switzerland has established Regional Development Plans. Building on this momentum, major metropolises like Paris, London, and Vancouver, alongside emerging cities such as Fez and Ho Chi Minh City, are now incorporating resilience – the ability to navigate through crises and adapt to change – into their food supply strategies.

However, if we humans strive for food systems to meet present needs without compromising future generations, we must ensure they are built sustainably. This sustainability imperative should guide our strategic choices, but with numerous approaches available to strengthen both resilience and sustainability, how do we identify the most suitable strategies for each specific context?

For identifying the most suitable strategies considering the context, Paul Donadieu de Lavit and the Sustainable Agroecosystems group at ETH Zurich provide decision-makers with a comprehensive assessment tool that evaluates their regional food system holistically, enabling them to make informed, evidence-based choices for their territory.

Main results

The assessment tool analyzes three interconnected components.

• The system, physical structures, and ecosystems
• The actors: everyone involved in the food system activities, from production to consumption
• The institutions, which may be formal or informal

The assessment tool evaluates the level of resilience and the sustainability of representative stakeholders within the food system. Five main characteristics (so-called dimensions, Figure 1) have been identified.

• Capital: Financial resources, physical assets, knowledge, relationships
• Economy: Economic performance and market relationships
• Environment: Environmental impact and resource use
• Governance: Decision-making processes and leadership
• Social: Community relationships and quality of life

Each dimension breaks down into more specific elements like social capital, water quality or quality of life.

Methodology in practice

Although similar analyses are available for all actors and institutions relevant to this study and region, the following explanation will focus on farmers for simplicity’s sake and for understanding.

The first step in analyzing one regional food system consists in selecting a group of farmers (15 to 50 according to the size of the region) that represents the diversity of the agriculture of the region. During farmer interviews (around 200 questions each), the farm’s agricultural practices, financial structure and income, social networks, the farmer’s attitude toward natural and economic risks, access to information, and involvement in collective projects were explored. Considering expert inputs and literature review, all responses were converted into scores from 0 to 100. These scores were aggregated to form the scores of the five resilience and sustainability characteristics.

A real-world example: The Franches-Montagnes case study

Among the four case study regions participating in this study, the Franches-Montagnes plateau features vast, relatively flat areas of meadows and wooded pastures characteristic of this region (Figure 2). Despite high rainfall, the subsoil doesn’t store water effectively.

The regional food system shows a clear split between two types of agriculture: milk delivered to industry (where cows are fed with grass silage and concentrates) versus cheese-making milk (where cows are fed from pasture and hay). Most cheese dairy milk is transformed into Gruyère and Tête de Moine. In 2023, 33 semi-structured interviews were carried out with farmers from the Franches-Montagnes. The results were encouraging since the answer farmer gave resulted in a score over 65/100 in each of the five characteristics (environment, social, economic, capital and governance, Figure 3) and over 53/100 in all sub-dimensions. This indicates they are resilient and prepared to withstand shocks and adapt to climate change.

The participating farmers in this region demonstrate exceptional performance in several key areas. For example, local economic integration scores high (76/100) because both dairies and labor force are located within the region, creating a truly local value chain. Animal welfare (80/100) reflects farmers’ commitment to high standards of care, while resource efficiency (79/100) benefits from extensive farming methods with minimal external inputs. Farmers report high satisfaction with their quality of life (80/100) and strong participation in the food system (76/100), making decisions cooperatively with their partners while avoiding conflicts. Economically, farmers report reasonable satisfaction with their income, including direct payments, though earnings show signs of stagnation.

However, several interconnected challenges pose the greatest risks to long-term resilience. Water management (55/100) presents a growing concern: while the region’s extensive livestock farming and rainy climate help maintain good water quality, this advantage becomes insufficient during increasingly frequent dry summers. Meadows, which form the backbone of the system, suffer most during water shortages, yet few farmers have adopted water storage techniques or methods to reduce water loss.

The region also faces a biodiversity paradox. Grasslands serve as important biodiversity reservoirs, particularly given the mosaic of artificial grasslands, permanent grasslands, and characteristic wooded pastures. However, the overwhelming dominance of grasslands creates a homogeneous landscape that limits overall ecological diversity (diversity: 56/100, biodiversity: 52/100). This uniformity extends to production systems: the region relies heavily on dairy cattle farming centered around a single breed, the Prime Holstein.

Relevance for decision and policymaking

While there are some initiatives for re-regionalizing agriculture and food, there’s generally a lack of genuine regional food governance—defined as “all processes of coordinating agents around food at the regional level, aimed at promoting their organization and limiting the fragmentation of initiatives affecting food systems” (Billion et al., 2016, p. 348) —that would enable steering of regional food system(s).

Resilience is implicitly woven throughout the various discourses, master plans, regional development projects, and urban food policy strategies at regional level. However, it is not the primary focus of regional agri-food development projects, unlike sustainability is. These documents still integrate themes that have been identified as key to resilience. For example, support for the local economy and fair trade through short supply chains and the maintenance/growth of added value brought by agriculture within the region, building a Shared Vision to create a common regional project or diversify buyers, income sources, or energy sources.

The resilience and sustainability assessment tool of regional food system would provide a diagnosis of the initial situation. It would also support regional governance in food planning for sustainable and resilient food systems.

Secondment

Throughout his project, Paul had the privilege of collaborating with the institute of research for organic agriculture (FiBL) based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Working at the premises of FiBL and being supported by colleagues with the relevant expertise helped him to build robust and adequate surveys to address the resilience and sustainability measurement challenge.

Paul Donadieu de Lavit was a PhD student at the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich, as well as a RESPONSE fellow in the PhD program Science and Policy. He conducted his research under the supervision of Prof. Johan Six and Dr. Dominique Barjolle.

References

Donadieu de Lavit, P., Willi, T., Six, J., & Barjolle, D. (2022). Combining sustainability and resilience assessment of a Regional Food System: evaluating an innovative Swiss alpine valley. https://doi.org/10.31223/X52H53
Donadieu de Lavit P., Bagnoud A., Johnston S., Milano M. & Barjolle D. (2024). The Role of Cheese PDOs in the Resilience of Mountain Dairy Regions in Switzerland. Journal of Alpine Research, Revue de géographie alpine. https://doi.org/10.4000/13q12

This article is authored by Paul Donadieu de Lavit.