Research Series 67: Towards food systems transformation – five paradigm shifts for healthy, inclusive and sustainable food systems

Food systems must serve different societal, health, and environmental objectives. They therefore face numerous challenges. This paper highlights five fundamental paradigm shifts that are required to overcome trade-offs and build synergies between health and nutrition, inclusive livelihoods, environmental sustainability, and food system resilience.

We focus on the challenges to raise policy ambitions, harmonize production and consumption goals, improve connectivity between these goals, strengthen food system responsiveness, and anchor inclusive and participatory governance of food systems.

Taken together, these paradigm shifts shape a new narrative for food system transformation that will be capable of responding to current and future policy challenges.