The Global Food System is Not Broken but Its Resilience is Threatened

Abstract

AbstractThe global food system is not broken. Apart from specific contexts, access to food has never been so easy as it is today. The global food system has been resilient and able to adapt during the twentieth century to many shocks and stressors such as an unprecedented population growth. The huge increase in production has exceeded the demographic growth. Together with the expansion of trade, they have been key in ensuring food system resilience of most countries, including those with limited resources. Yet, a profound transformation is needed for the following reasons: (i) food is today the major problem in public health, (ii) the economics of food chains fuel inequalities, and (iii) food systems are responsible for major environmental and climatic damage. Numerous calls for engaging in such a transformation highlight the need for a paradigm shift. However, despite such shared observations and alerts, no “great transformation” is taking place, for different reasons, including conflicts of interest. Resilience of food systems in the twenty-first century can thus be considered a property that is constrained by past transformation. Resilience depends on the ability to change the very drivers that made food systems resilient in the twentieth century.