A social-ecological systems framework for food systems research: accommodating transformation systems and their products

The social-ecological systems (SES) framework was developed to support communication across the multiple disciplines concerned with sustainable provision and/or appropriation of common-pool resources (CPRs). Transformation activities (e.g. processing, distribution, retailing) in which value is added to resource units appropriated from CPRs were assumed in developing the framework to be exogenous to the SES of focal concern. However, provision and appropriation of CPRs are nowadays often closely integrated with the market economy, so significant interdependence exists between many CPR provision/appropriation activities and the activities in which appropriated resource units are transformed into the products ultimately marketed or consumed. This paper presents a modified version of the SES framework designed to better account for transformation activities in order to be more suitable for diagnosing those sustainability problems where it is inappropriate to define all such activities as exogenous to the SES of focal concern. The need for such modification was identified in a research project examining the challenges faced by Cambodian cattle-owning smallholders in accessing value chains for premium-priced beef. Hence the immediate focus was on strengthening the SES framework's value for facilitating a multi-disciplinary diagnostic approach to food system research projects of this kind. The modified SES framework's potential in this respect was illustrated by a preliminary application that drew on literature reviewed for the Cambodian project. Significant further potential exists in using the modified framework as a foundation from which to develop a version that is suitable for application to SESs in which transformation systems are appropriately represented as endogenous. Maintaining consistency with the standard SES framework will enable communication to occur more effectively between food system researchers and CPR scholars more generally.