Paradigms and scenarios of food system transition for carbon neutrality

Agriculture and food face many environmental and health challenges. The development of prospective scenarios is an approach to designing and evaluating strategies to meet these challenges. Here, we compare seven scenarios that share the common goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. However, these scenarios differ in terms of land use, agricultural practices and diets. We show that they mobilize ecosystem services, circular economy, sobriety, and technologies in different ways. Human health and biodiversity issues are not always explicitly considered. Our analysis allows us to distinguish scenarios based on societal changes, such as a decrease in meat consumption, from those relying more on technological bets.