Food supply
The amount of food available to a population, shaped by agriculture, climate and economics.
At a glance
Key signals
0% cross fields · reaches 5 more
- Economics
- Agriculture
- Nutrition Science
- Explanation
- Examples
- Misconception
- Sourced relations
- Attribution
Dependencies
What this concept builds on and what it makes possible — derived from the atlas’s dependency, causal and structural relations, not from every related edge.
Foundations · builds on
Food supplydepends onAgricultureStrongly supported
Food supply depends on agriculture.
Mechanism: Most of the food available to people is produced by agriculture.
Structural role & consequence
Interpreted from the current atlas graph — what the connections mean, not just how many there are.
Currently dark in the atlas: no key date stored · 2 of 2 of its relations lack claim-level evidence.
atlas representation · Describes the current Thinking OS representation, not the state of the world.
Builds on 1 foundation (requires / depends-on / derived-from / emerges-from).
structural · Structural graph analysis — not a claim of importance, causation or history.
Exercises 2 annotated mental models — a concept that connects several thinking patterns.
curated · Curated annotations, not a derived measure.
Structural neighbourhood: 2 → 7 → 65 concepts reachable within 3 hops.
structural · Structural reach — being reachable is not the same as being understood.
cross-field
2 within-field, 0 cross-field
Strengths & constraints
Constraints
- Evidence coverage currently thin in the atlas — few of its relationships carry claim-level evidence. atlas representation
- No dated history stored — the atlas records no key date for this concept. atlas representation
Conditions
- Its dependency reading rests on 1 foundation relation. structural
- Read structurally — most of its relationships carry no external evidence yet, so claims here are graph-derived. structural
Dependency radial
What this concept builds on (left) and what it makes possible (right) — derived from dependency and causal relations.
Seen through each discipline
How this concept sits in each of its fields — derived from its real connections in the graph, not asserted.
Through this lens it connects to Agriculture and Scarcity.
Food supply is studied in this field.
Where you'll meet it
Journeys that walk you through this idea. You may recognise it from more than one.
Related ideas to explore
Concepts that look related but are not yet connected here — candidates for a connection to reason about, not established links.
This idea also appears in…
The same structure shows up in other disciplines. These are real recurrences drawn from the graph — a starting point for asking “what carries over, and what changes?”
Stocks and flows39 disciplines · 35 concepts
Trade-offs40 disciplines · 31 concepts
Concepts
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
Mental models at work here
Stocks and flows
A stock is an amount that accumulates; flows are the rates that add to or drain it. The stock changes only when inflow and outflow differ.
Think of a bathtub: the water level (stock) rises or falls depending on the tap (inflow) and the drain (outflow).
Trade-offs
When getting more of one thing means accepting less of another, because resources or constraints are limited.
Ask what you give up (the opportunity cost) to gain what you want.
- Connects 2 other ideas across 4 disciplines.
- A cross-disciplinary bridge — its connections reach into 5 other fields.
- Most of its connections are of the “Dependency” kind.
- It exercises 2 reusable thinking patterns.
- It features in 1 learning journey.
Derived from the graph’s real structure — observations, not a score.
Sources
- Population food supply and agricultural development (1974) verified
- Animal Agriculture and Global Food Supply (1999) verified
- Food Safety Economics (2018) verified
- Economics of Food Chain Coordination and Food Safety Standards: Insights from Agency Theory (2018) verified
- Woodhead Publishing Series in Food Science, Technology and Nutrition (2010) verified
- Woodhead Publishing Series in Food Science, Technology and Nutrition (2015) verified
- Public policy and the supply of food (1999) verified
- Export supply chain and food safety in India: new issues for policy research (2010) verified