Why is finding solutions to combat the increasing access to affordable ultra-processed foods so controversial and what strategies are necessary for policy change?

Agri-food systems transformation requires accelerated innovations to address multiple economic, environmental and health objectives. No innovation serves everyone’s interests. Political opposition to innovations is therefore inevitable.

Food systems policy has multiple legitimate aims, and different policy actors hold different values, beliefs, and interests around these issues.

Better policies offer significant potential to meet the challenges facing food systems, but policy reform has often proved difficult.

In August 2022, the Razoni cargo ship, laden with 26,000 tons of grain, navigated a narrow corridor of mined waters outside Ukraine’s port of Odessa.

Coalitions—or a set of individuals and groups with shared policy preferences—lie at the heart of political economy.¹ They are also often considered central to policy change.

This chapter examines four important food production innovations that have been favored by scientists but opposed by influential swathes of the public: Green Revolution farming, industrial agriculture, the use of synthetic chemicals versus organic

How were the governments of three middle-income countries with high levels of non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—India, Mexico, and South Africa—able to implement sugar-sweetened beverage taxes (SSBs) despite intense opposition from powerful corpora

The book emphasizes that the viability of reforms requires joint consideration of both the complexity of local, national, and global food systems and the increasingly polarized political and institutional contexts in which food policy decision-making occurs