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.
The European Union (EU)’s food system is under pressure for reform.
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.
While the need for policy reforms to generate more equitable, healthier, and sustainable food systems increasingly is acknowledged by policymakers and the public, the political economy dynamics to achieve this will remain sizeable in the years to
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.
The world’s agrifood systems have served society well since 1798 when Malthus anonymously published An Essay on the Principle of Population.
In both developed and developing countries, agricultural support policies provide enormous transfers of resources to agriculture—about US$817 billion per year worldwide in the 2019–2021 period (OECD 2022).¹ Some agricultural support policies, such
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
Today’s food production and consumption has large consequences for the environment and human health.
Central to understanding the political economy of food systems transformation is clarifying the systems that enable—or prevent—monitoring progress on transformation, setting evidence-based commitments for improvement, and ensuring accountability f
This chapter focuses on African cities and problematizes emerging food system and urban system trends and actions in these cities. The focus on Africa is deliberate.
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
Background
Zinc-biofortified potatoes have considerable potential to reduce zinc deficiency because of their low levels of phytate, an inhibitor of zinc absorption, and their high consumption, especially in the Andean region of Peru.
Quantifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty in Africa has been as difficult as predicting the path of the pandemic, mainly due to data limitations.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) risks rolling back many of the efforts and global successes recorded in reducing poverty and food insecurity.