Food systems are expected to provide food security and nutrition, to contribute to the livelihoods of millions, and to do so in an environmentally sustainable way. The broad outlines of these challenges are clear, and in many cases evidence exists on how better policies can improve the...

This article, focusing on produce and grain, discusses the environmental and climate change impacts of food production, processing, packaging, and distribution, which ultimately contributes to both economic and social costs. The article addresses environmental energy costs in the food supply

The high number of hungry persons makes it imperative to identify whether last decades' agricultural research model, based on seed corporations, has served its purpose. After referring to recent research on impacts of IP rights, three regimes are analyzed: human rights, defined in the...

The issue of food has evolved significantly in recent years throughout Europe, under the pressure of environmental and climate constraints as well as a set of factors related to food dependence and changes in consumption patterns. Short circuit practices, embedded in localized agrifood systems,...

More and better quality private sector investment in food systems will be needed if countries are to achieve their Sustainable Development Goals. The key challenge addressed in this paper is how investment in food systems can be redirected such that it is both adequate to drive dynamic food...

Understanding specialization patterns of countries in food production can provide relevant insights for the evaluation and design of policies seeking to achieve food security and sustainability, which are key to reach several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this paper, we use production...

The UN Food Systems Summit 2021 was different from all six previous food summits held in the past eight decades. New features of this Summit included the fact that it was anchored in the Sustainable Development Goals, focused on food systems, was based on multi-stakeholder engagement, had a...

Agriculture and food systems are in urgent need of transformation. Various foresight reports unpack food systems’ challenges and propose diverse pathways of change towards sustainability. We interrogate the framings and proposed pathways of eleven selected reports from a food system...

This paper connects the discussion on the trade-offs between agricultural production and environmental concerns, including the asserted need for global land use expansion; and the issues of rural livelihoods and food security. Several widespread narratives are challenged. The key insights are:...