1303. Transformative Food System-Wide Governance

As the world continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, food systems are severely affected by the simultaneous crises of climate change, economic downturn, and conflict. Food systems face challenges in providing equitable, healthy diets to people around the world, supporting sustainable livelihoods, and ensuring environmental protection. A Nature Food editorial proposes a rethinking of food system-wide governance to address these issues.

Food system governance is challenged by conflicting interests, policy misalignments, and power asymmetries. The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit and subsequent stocktake meetings have raised many challenges on how food systems should be governed, particularly how participatory and multisectoral approaches can be applied without institutionalizing or exacerbating existing power imbalances. There is a recognition of the need for governance in transforming food systems towards better social, environmental, and economic outcomes.

One governance approach that has the potential to optimize food system outcomes and improve coherence is food system-wide governance. This approach can be defined as having formal and informal mechanisms and structures that help streamline and somewhat align the thinking and actions of all sectors and actors, from food production to consumption and waste. This requires a combination of multisectoral governance, where government agencies from different policy sectors work together, and government-led participatory approaches, where government agencies engage with commercial and market actors, civil society, academia, development partners such as UN agencies, international financial institutions, and foreign government development agencies. However, multisectoral and multistakeholder governance arrangements must be very carefully considered to ensure transparency and manage diverse interests. To date, there has been limited research on how food system-wide governance is conceptualized and what such effective mechanisms might look like.

Facilitating a shift in system paradigms, structures of power and control, and system goals will change the incentives operating across the food system, leading to better food system outcomes. In other words, a paradigm shift that emphasizes governance over who should govern is key to improving food system sustainability and resilience and realizing better social, environmental, and economic outcomes. The editorial highlighted the need to consider interrelationships and linkages within food system governance by applying systems thinking, emphasizing holistic understanding rather than separate analyses, and strengthening policy coherence by implementing multi-sectoral and government-led participatory governance approaches. Operationalizing an approach that conceptualizes food system-wide governance opens up possibilities to bring together all necessary actors and sectors, redress power asymmetries, and carefully design to systematically integrate interests and ideas.

(Reference)
Patay, D., Reeve, E., Thow, A.M. et al. Whole-of-food system governance for transformative change. Nat Food (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01196-x

Contributor: IIYAMA Miyuki, Information Program