Food Systems Transformation

Our food systems are close to breaking point. Climate change, conflict, and economic challenges have driven the proportion of the world’s population who are food insecure to almost a third. Our food systems are also major drivers of climate change and biodiversity loss—meaning they are threatening the very ecosystems upon which they depend.

The need to better connect the dots between food systems, climate change, and health is clear. The question is how. Globally, leaders are increasingly recognizing the urgent need to transform their food systems to make them more sustainable, but their policies are often not fully consistent with this objective. This is particularly true of agricultural subsidies, which, in many cases, incentivize unsustainable production and consumption patterns. 

We seek to inform and support more coherent use of public policies, including subsidies, to incentivize sustainable agriculture and spur food systems transformation. We conduct in-depth research to provide governments with evidence and insights to help them design coherent policy mixes that achieve multiple sustainable development objectives, such as improving nutrition and tackling greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. We also provide insights into how governments can repurpose their existing support to agriculture to incentivize more sustainable farming practices.