Food System Transformation - Role of Research

Changes in food production and consumption are key to limiting global warming, soil erosion and biodiversity loss on the one hand and human health on the other. The necessary transformation processes are complex and require both a food system perspective aligning sustainable food production systems with healthy diets and coherent food policies across the different dimensions of agriculture, environment and human health. Thus, we face two societal challenges

• to make food production more sustainable and food consumption more healthy, and
• to go through a political process of transforming the food system.

These societal challenges of redesigning food systems have important implications for social scientists (including economics). Thus, a thorough rethinking of the role of research in food system transformation is a crucial step.