Perspective article: Actions to reconfigure food systems

Ana Maria Loboguerrero; Philip Thornton; Jonathan Wadsworth; Bruce M Campbell; Mario Herrero; Daniel Mason-D'Croz; Dhanush Dinesh; Sophia Huyer; Andy Jarvis; Alberto Millan; Eva Wollenberg; Stephen Zebiak

doi:10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100432

Perspective article: Actions to reconfigure food systems

Glob Food Sec. 2020 Sep:26:100432. doi: 10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100432. Epub 2020 Sep 29.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia.
² CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya.
³ World Bank, Washington, DC, USA.
⁴ Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark.
⁵ Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Brisbane, Australia.
⁶ CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
⁷ International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia.
⁸ CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and Gund Institute for Environment, University of Vermont, United States.
⁹ CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), at Columbia University, USA.

Abstract

There is broad agreement that current food systems are not on a sustainable trajectory that will enable us to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly in the face of anthropogenic climate change. Guided by a consideration of some food system reconfigurations in the past, we outline an agenda of work around four action areas: rerouting old systems into new trajectories; reducing risks; minimising the environmental footprint of food systems; and realigning the enablers of change needed to make new food systems function. Here we highlight food systems levers that, along with activities within these four action areas, may shift food systems towards more sustainable, inclusive, healthy and climate-resilient futures. These actions, summarised here, are presented in extended form in a report of an international initiative involving hundreds of stakeholders for reconfiguring food systems.