Demystifying food systems transformation: a review of the state of the field

Abstract

There is increasing interest and hype around the need for transforming food systems toward sustainability. Today, calls for food systems transformations abound in the scholarly and gray literature, and even major international platforms have brought attention to this argument. However, as happens with many sustainability-related buzzwords, trendy terms can become co-opted, emptied of meaning, or used to refer to very different types of change in relation to goals, processes, or outcomes. In addition, many terms and theories are adopted to speak of and explain change. Therefore, what is meant by food system transformation remains opaque, and underscores the fact that food systems themselves are understood in multiple ways within the research community. As the urgency in accelerating food system transformations worldwide builds up, it is important to understand how this field has evolved and how food system change is conceptualized today. We offer an overview and synthesis of the scholarly literature in English and Spanish anchored on food systems change in the past three decades to shed light on how the theory and literature landscape has evolved, and how concepts are understood. At the same time, we provide an overview of the mechanisms of change that are most prominent and the frameworks that have been proposed. We conclude with what we think is a key definition of this critical concept. Our contribution serves to confirm and expand recent reviews, while mapping out the most prominent contributions to allow fellow researchers to navigate a diverse field and build upon these insights.

Keywords

• food system transformation
• frameworks
• map of the field
• re-design
• synthesis
• theory
• transitions