WHAT IS THE SIXTH FOOD SYSTEM?

Human history can be traced through five major food systems - each defined by how we grow, share, and consume food. The fifth and current system is industrial and extractive, built for efficiency and yield at the expense of soil, ecosystems, and local communities.

The next food system that will define this epoch of human history — Food System 6 — will restore ecosystems instead of depleting them, produce wholesome, nutrient-rich foods that promote human health, and ensure that every link in the chain —from farm to market — is supported by fair, resilient, and non-extractive flows of capital.

While food systems span millennia, the economic systems that shape American farming and ranching have evolved over just the last 400 years. To understand why today’s capital system works the way it does — and how to change it — we had to place it in the context of US agricultural system history.