Food shortages have plagued Australia’s supermarkets for some time, but experts are warning it may get worse. With a third La Nina weather event and heavy downpours forecasted, more producer pain and price hikes could follow. The price of poultry, grains, leafy greens and berries are all predicted to rise. “If we have floods in the next three to six months or if it rains at the wrong time, for example, during harvest, again, expect to see shortages or price rises,” National Farmers’ Federation Chief Economist Ash Salardini said Such a shortage is part of a bigger wicked problem, well distributed and sustainable food production on our planet. Imagine that you are a systems thinking expert team with analytics expertise. You have been asked to think of a data-supported solution, given a systems thinking framework, to the problem of sustainable food production and distribution across the globe.

1) Introduction and explanation of why food sustainable food production and distribution across the globe is a wicked problem.

2)Reframe the problem in terms of a question or questions that could lead to micro-solutions and recommendations, i.e. approaching the bigger problem via smaller ones. For example, perhaps you could limit the problem to sustainable necessary foods, not treats, or just look at the distribution side of the problem). This is to be a unique initiative of your group, which would lead to a more specific solution.

3)Explain the elements of the system now that you have reframed it.

4)List the possible perspectives of different “players” in the system.

5) List the boundaries (scope and scale of the system), having reframed the problem.

6)List five datasets which would be useful in getting insight into the problem, now that you have reframed it? Explain why.

7)Apply the Iceberg model to the problem in context (see week 3 notes).

8)Now write some notes on how you can think of this problem in terms of complex systems (e.g. unpredictable, evolving and self-organising).

9)Suggest some preliminary recommendations, solutions and suggest next steps.

10)Reflect on the usefulness of systems thinking and complexity science in this case.