Research series , 2022

Even before the pandemic, there was a push to transform food systems for better nutritional, health, and environmental outcomes. In 2019, several publications argued for major changes in agricultural land use, production systems, and dietary choices in order to achieve this. However, these reports fail to fully consider the impact of these measures on the livelihoods of 2.7 billion rural people who depend on small-scale food production. They also failed to propose specific measures to ensure the rural poor participate in – and benefit equitably from – food system transformation. Although the importance of inclusion in food system transformation is gaining traction, this paper argues that recent research and discourse on the topic is insufficient and that specific actions are needed to ensure that this transformation does not take place on the backs of the rural poor.

IFAD Rural Development Report, 2021

This report calls for a revolutionary transformation of the world’s food systems. Today’s food systems have failed to make nutritious diets accessible or affordable to the poor and in a sustainable way. In consequence, at least three billion suffer undernourishment, nutrition deficiencies, or have become overweight. Over the past 70 years the global food system has become less efficient at its primary objective - delivering nutritious food sustainably. A focus on producing high-calorie grains has pushed up yields and cut prices of staple foods. The cost? Food waste, malnutrition and obesity, and environmental degradation. We need to transform the world’s food systems so that they deliver adequate, nutritious diets for all. They must be reshaped to provide decent livelihoods for all who grow, process, store and market our food. They must become fair, inclusive…and sustainable. This report analyses the problems, and provides the solutions. We need to put small-scale farmers and the midstream of firms that supply them with inputs and services, and handle the trading, storing, processing and distribution of food to consumers, at the centre of this transformation.

Food security is an integral part of the national security and foundation for sustainable development. Eradicating hunger is the major challenge for sustainable development. According to the FAO, there are currently more than 795 million people, or 1 in 9, around the world suffering from chronic hunger, including 159 million children who are chronically malnourished. Almost 490 million (62 percent) undernourished people resides in Asia and Pacific region out of which 281 million (35.4 percent) are merely in Southern Asia. Agriculture is a livelihood for 86 percent of rural people in the world – 1.3 billion smallholders and landless workers. According to FAO, the rate of agricultural production is expected to fall to 1.5 percent between now and 2030, and to 0.9 percent between 2030 and 2050. Meanwhile the population is estimated to increase by 34 percent in that time. The conflict, neoliberal corporate regime, natural disaster, climate changes, economic crises and post-peak use of fossil fuel are the major challenges for the realization of right to food and food sovereignty.

Editor's note The centre of George Kent's visionary work for over 30 years, as a scholar, advocate, and advisor to relevant UN agencies, has been and remains the human right to adequate and nourishing food. As professor of political science at the University of Hawai'i, he has taken an increasingly broad 'big picture' view of the value of food and nutrition, the meaning of world hunger, and how all countries and communities could be well nourished.

Food Security, 2022

Even prior to COVID, there was a considerable push for food system transformation to achieve better nutrition and health as well as environmental and climate change outcomes. Recent years have seen a large number of high visibility and influential publications on food system transformation. Literature is emerging questioning the utility and scope of these analyses, particularly in terms of trade-offs among multiple objectives. We build on these critiques of emerging food system transformation approaches in our review of four recent and influential publications from the EAT-Lancet Commission, the IPCC, the World Resources Institute and the Food and Land Use Coalition. We argue that a major problem is the lack of explicit inclusion of the livelihoods of poor rural people in their modeling approaches and insufficient measures to ensure that the nature and scale of the envisioned changes will improve these livelihoods. Unless livelihoods and socioeconomic inclusion more broadly are brought to the center of such approaches, we very much risk transforming food systems to reach environmental and nutritional objectives on the backs of the rural poor.

Nature, 1999

IFAD Research Series, 2022

Creating a policy landscape that aligns rural poverty alleviation with food systems transformation requires a better understanding of: the wide set of inequalities and vulnerabilities affecting poverty and hunger; the diversity of rural households; and the impact of rapid structural changes in markets, the environment, and the political economic context. This paper provides a framework for assessing the dynamics of rural wellbeing and food systems change. It provides a synthesis of over 840 recommendations made in recent international reports on the linkages between food systems and rural development. It also looks at the viability of small-scale farming and the diversification of livelihood options needed to overcome rural poverty and inequality.

Food Security, 2022

The future wellbeing of billions of rural people is interconnected with transforming food systems for equity, nutrition, environmental sustainability, and resilience. This article tackles three blind spots in the understanding of rural poverty and vulnerability: the narrow focus on extreme poverty and hunger that hides a much wider set of inequalities and vulnerabilities, insufficient recognition of the diversity of rural households, and an inadequate appreciation of the impact of rapid structural changes in markets, the physical environment, and the political economic context. A better understanding of these areas is necessary for imagining a new policy landscape that can align progress on rural poverty alleviation with a wider transformation of food systems. The article provides a framework for assessing the dynamics of rural wellbeing and food systems change. It looks at the viability of small-scale farming and the diversification of livelihood options needed to overcome rural po...