Overcoming Undesirable Resilience in the Global Food System

Non-technical summary Our 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. Technical summary 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. Concurrently, other science–policy and business initiatives call for a food system more resilient to economic and environmental shocks, for example, by improving the economic resilience of current supply chains. Prioritization of short-term security to a subset of vested interests, however, can undermine the resilience of longer term beneficial outcomes for society. Here we advocate a more inclusive and farsighted approach focussing on the resilience of positive outcomes for the whole of society, that is, capturing the aim to promote resilient delivery of multiple UN SDGs. A significant challenge is to prioritize suites of interventions that can effectively transform the global food system to deliver these goals. Here, we use a transdisciplinary lens to identify ‘lock-in’ mechanisms that span four key areas – knowledge-based, economic/regulatory, sociocultural and biophysical constraints – which will help avoid ineffective siloed solutions to food system reform. Furthermore, we show how emergent system dynamics need to be considered using a more holistic approach. We highlight the importance of well-coordinated actions on multiple leverage points during windows of opportunity for food system transformation.