Abstract
Non-technical summaryOur current global food system – from food production to consumption, including manufacture, packaging, transport, retail and associated businesses – is responsible for extensive negative social and environmental impacts which threaten the long-term well-being of society. This has led to increasing calls from science–policy organizations for major reform and transformation of the global food system. However, our knowledge regarding food system transformations is fragmented and this is hindering the development of co-ordinated solutions. Here, we collate recent research across several academic disciplines and sectors in order to better understand the mechanisms that ‘lock-in’ food systems in unsustainable states.
Highlights
The current configuration of our global food system is undermining many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), leading to calls for major food system reform and transformation
The participating member states emphasized that policy coherence and an enabling environment for sustainable development require engagement by all stakeholders including governments, public–private partnerships, the scientific community, the private sector, the donor community, non-governmental organizations, cooperatives, community groups, academic institutions and other relevant actors (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2017)
Given such a multiplicity of stakeholders, and the fact that complex interdependencies create major trade-offs between sustainable development goals (Waage et al, 2015; European Environment Agency, 2016; IPES-Food, 2016; International Council for Science, 2017), a significant challenge is to prioritize suites of interventions that are most likely to be effective in transforming socio-ecological systems, such as the global food system, to better deliver the UN SDGs
Summary
There have been optimistic approaches to achieving transformations in social–technical systems in sectors such as energy and transport (European Environment Agency, 2016). Under what is called the ‘multi-level’ perspective, social–technical systems are characterized as being structured and stabilized by factors such as knowledge, investments, policies, institutions, skills and cultural values (European Environment Agency, 2016; Geels, 2011) To disrupt this prevailing ‘regime’, new ideas, technologies, business models or cultural norms have to emerge, and positive ones (such as renewable energy technologies) may need protecting from immediate pressure from the regime (European Environment Agency, 2017). Certain authors even suggest actively searching for ‘cracks’ in the prevailing regime to sow disruption (Fourcade, 2012) Such approaches, which focus primarily on developing alternative approaches could remain largely theoretical unless we can tackle the strong feedback mechanisms that maintain a given system in its current undesirable state. A case in point is the extensive global land area degraded by soil erosion and desertification, such as the Loess Plateau in China, which requires extensive ecosystem restoration to facilitate sustainable food production and associated social benefits (Zhao et al, 2013)
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