Agrifood system

Definition

The network of activities involving food production, processing, distribution, and consumption.

Ethical Language Guidance

Gender History

The term 'agrifood system' emerged in industrial-era economics, which coded male-dominated commodity chains as the 'system' while unpaid and undervalued female food labor (processing, retail, care) was treated as peripheral or invisible.

Inclusive Usage

Use 'agrifood system' while explicitly mapping all nodes including domestic food work, care labor, and informal sector roles—note where women concentrate and where power/profit flows.

Empowerment Note

Women's unpaid food labor—from milling to market-vending to household nutrition security—sustains agrifood systems; naming and valuing this work is a prerequisite for equitable policy.

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