Abstract
Global concern for land use revolves around human activity, such as agriculture for food, employment, recreation, and daily sustenance (e.g., air, water, shelter). While the introduction of policy helps to abate the impact of detrimental land use practices in the United States, other national food sustainability indicators created by The Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN) introduce new performance metrics that inform policy. These indicators, such as the environmental impact of agriculture on natural land and water resources, provide a method to determine if key factors are being addressed or have yet to progress towards desired targets and then compare results to other nations. The Food Sustainability Index report, based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and other international input such as the Milan Protocol, demonstrates the US status in the global race for improvements in diet, agricultural practices, and food waste. This brief reflects positive, marginal and poor indicators of US headway on overarching problems relating to climate change, such as food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, and nutritional challenges impacting the ecosystem and population health. These indicators provide a baseline and progression to pinpoint areas that remain unresolved to educate, spur on innovators to pioneer solutions, and guide policymakers.
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Glossary
- Environmental biodiversity
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The variety of species and organisms in an ecosystem
- Food loss
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Products that are lost along the food supply chain for various reasons including spoilage and retail requirements for display
- Land use
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Linked to several major areas of public administration such as natural resource management, waste disposal, transportation, urbanization, agriculture, recreation, and forest
- Sustainable agriculture
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Environmentally friendly agriculture methods with the objective to preserve an ecological balance by avoiding natural resource depletion
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Fiedler, B.A. (2018). Food Sustainability Index Report on the United States: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. In: Fiedler, B. (eds) Translating National Policy to Improve Environmental Conditions Impacting Public Health Through Community Planning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75361-4_3
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