Transformations towards sustainable food systems: contrasting Swedish practitioner perspectives with the European Commission’s Farm to Fork Strategy

Abstract

AbstractThis study explores features of food system transformations towards sustainability in the Farm to Fork Strategy in relation to perspectives of Swedish food system practitioners. Transformations towards sustainable food systems are essential to achieve the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and the need for more sustainable food systems has been recognised in the European Green Deal and its Farm to Fork Strategy. The Swedish ambition to act as a  global leader in achieving the 2030 Agenda and the European Commission’s aspiration for Europe to lead global food system transformations offer a critical opportunity to study transformational processes and agents of change in a high-income region with externalised environmental and sustainability impacts. Drawing on theories of complex systems transformations, this study identifies features of food system transformations, exploring places to intervene and examines the roles, responsibilities, and agency related to these changes. The results of this study provide three main conclusions highlighting (i) alignment of high-level policy and the perspectives of national practitioners at the paradigm level, especially concerning how food is valued, which is a crucial first step for transformational processes to come about (ii) a lack of clarity as well as diversity of pathways to transform food systems although common objectives are expressed, and (iii) governance mechanisms as enablers for a diversity of transformations. Moreover, these processes must acknowledge the contextual and complex nature of food systems and the level of agency and power of actors.