Food systems transformation: Navigating politics and processes

Our food system is not in good shape: despite tremendous progress made in the last two centuries, more than 800 million people still do not have regular access to sufficient nutritious food. At the same time, and occasionally in the same countries, an increasing number of people are becoming obese or overweight-more than 1 billion people globally. The food system is also a major driver of climate change, contributing up to 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and contributes to soil erosion and biodiversity loss, largely through agricultural activities.

Food systems clearly need to be transformed to achieve more healthy, sustainable, resilient, and equitable outcomes. The call to transform food systems has become louder, especially following the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit, but lack of guidance on how to undertake this transformation process has left many actors uncertain, skeptical, and even low-spirited about our prospects of achieving this ambitious task.

In a recent articlepublished in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, researchers Chris Bénéand Abdul-Rahim Abdulaifrom the CGIAR Initiative on Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT)argue that achieving food systems transformation is possible but will depend on food systems politics. In their paper, the authors argue that politics is at the center of creating and maintaining current unsustainable food system trajectories. As such, politics will also be crucial in guiding change processes toward sustainable goals. The authors explore this argument through a conceptual framework that is relevant for both high- and lower-income countries. The framework integrates multiple perspectives and practical experiences on transition, transformation, and politics to propose a holistic diagnostic and prescriptive tool for food systems transformation.

The authors show that for societal and global transformation to happen, several steps need to occur in sequence. The first step is the destabilization of the current system. Identifying points of resistance and barriers that prevent necessary change is key to initiating the transformation process. Second, after identifying and challenging these barriers, a new momentum must be created and maintained; here, a "new momentum" means the emergence of an alternative model underpinned by changes in societal norms, individual and collective behaviors, and institutional values. As a third step, this new momentum must be converted into sustainable options. The desirable alternative should be mainstreamed and institutionalized in society, converting it into prospects that can be extended and followed, as well as new social, technological, economic and political standards.

The final step is cross-cutting with the other three: this step represents the need to manage trade-offs, reduce incoherence, and prioritize actions to minimize contradictions and maximize co-benefits in processes and outcomes. Given the many competing views, objectives, goals, and potential outcomes of food systems transformation, managing trade-offs and prioritizing actions will be critical to achieving a fair and effective transformation.

Header image: Climate-smart forage cultivation in Vietnam, CIAT/NeilPalmer

The International Food Policy Research Instituteand the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIATlead SHiFT in close collaboration with Wageningen University and Researchand with contributions from the International Potato Center. SHiFT combines high-quality nutritional and social science research capacity with development partnerships to generate innovative, robust solutions that contribute to healthier, more sustainable dietary choices and consumption of sustainable healthy diets. It builds on CGIAR's unparalleled track record of agricultural research for development, including ten years of work on food systems and nutrition under the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.