1406. Comprehensive Food System Transformation Achieves Both Limits on Global Warming and Improvements to Health, the Environment, and Social Inclusion

In transforming the global food system, it is necessary to understand how specific measures can contribute to system transformation. A paper published in Nature Food applied a global food and land systems modeling framework to quantify the impacts of food system measures on public health, environmental, and socio-economic outcomes by 2050. The analysis found that while each food system measure implemented individually would entail trade-offs across outcome indicators, combining all measures would reduce annual mortality by 182 million life years and nearly halve nitrogen surpluses, while offsetting the negative impacts of environmental protection measures on absolute poverty. Furthermore, the paper suggests that limiting global warming to 1.5°C is feasible through efforts that include non-food system measures.

The paper assessed the impact of 23 proposed food system measures, including increasing pulse consumption, protecting biodiversity hotspots from land-use change, compost recycling, raising minimum wages, and other measures, to improve the health, environment, and social inclusion of the global food system. Implemented individually, these measures could potentially increase food prices and amplify vulnerabilities such as trade dependence.

For example, increasing demand for biofuels without comprehensive land-use protection could have adverse environmental impacts. While dietary changes, for example, are generally considered low-risk and involve few trade-offs when implemented alone, potential trade-offs include reduced agricultural labor demand and associated declines in agricultural wages, labor migration, and increased unemployment. New job opportunities in the bioeconomy only slow structural change, and much of the surplus labor force will need to be absorbed outside the agricultural sector, through measures such as retraining and mobility assistance programs, cash transfers to older workers unable to find alternative livelihoods, and the promotion of hybrid business models such as direct sales, on-farm processing, and agritourism. If properly addressed, the challenges of structural change can be transformed into opportunities, enabling lean, green growth through more efficient use of production factors.

Furthermore, there are also trade-offs, or displacement effects, between regions. For example, improving biodiversity conservation may result in deterioration in some regions. Similarly, displacement effects associated with water resource protection could result in moderate water stress in some previously unaffected regions. The paper demonstrates that comprehensive food system transformation will bring about win-win outcomes for the majority of people, but emphasizes that achieving this transformation requires "a fundamental system-wide restructuring across technological, economic, and social factors, including paradigms, goals, and values." For example, addressing environmental pollution relies on regulating market failures such as externalities; dietary changes rely on changing individual preferences and cognitive biases; and reducing trade barriers relies on achieving international cooperation. Individual food system measures attempting these changes involve trade-offs, and the introduction of incremental measures typically faces opposition from certain social groups. The paper supports the development of a shared vision for integrating and implementing food system measures to make food system transformation feasible. 

(Reference)
Bodirsky, B.L., Beier, F., Humpenöder, F. et al. A food system transformation pathway reconciles 1.5°C global warming with improved health, environment, and social inclusion. Nat Food 6, 1133–1152 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01268-y

Contributor: IIYAMA Miyuki, Information Program