Food and the systems that produce, disrupt, prepare it are central to all human life. Yet, scholarly analysis of the food systems that support human life are highly fragmented across a variety of disciplines. Public administration, with its focus on the doing of public policy, would seem to be a logical home for analysis of food systems in action. However, food is largely ignored by public administration scholars, and scholars from other disciplines can unintentionally draw up established public administration literature. The chapters in this edited volume highlight where the lenses and languages of public administration can and should be used to analyze food systems. Viewed collectively, the editors argue that the lenses and languages of public administration can and should become a common ground for scholars and practitioners to discuss food systems.

A public health approach to the US food system Introduction to the US Food System: Public Health,Environment, and Equity is a comprehensive and engagingtextbook that offers students an overview of today's US foodsystem, with particular focus on the food system'sinterrelationships with public health, the environment, equity, andsociety. Using a classroom-friendly approach, the text covers thecore content of the food system and provides evidence-basedperspectives reflecting the tremendous breadth of issues and ideasimportant to understanding today's US food system. The book is richwith illustrative examples, case studies, activities, anddiscussion questions. The textbook is a project of the Johns Hopkins Center for aLivable Future (CLF), and builds upon the Center's educationalmission to examine the complex interrelationships between diet,food production, environment, and human health to advance anecological perspective in reducing threats to the health of thepublic, and to promote policies that protect health, the globalenvironment, and the ability to sustain life for futuregenerations. Issues covered in Introduction to the US Food Systeminclude food insecurity, social justice, community and workerhealth concerns, food marketing, nutrition, resource depletion, andecological degradation. Presents concepts on the foundations of the US food system,crop production, food system economics, processing and packaging,consumption and overconsumption, and the environmental impacts offood Examines the political factors that influence food and how itis produced Ideal for students and professionals in many fields, includingpublic health, nutritional science, nursing, medicine, environment,policy, business, and social science, among others Introduction to the US Food System presents a broad viewof today's US food system in all its complexity and providesopportunities for students to examine the food system's stickiestproblems and think critically about solutions.