Accelerating food-systems transformation: priorities for 2027

Five years on from the inaugural UN Food Systems Summit, where does food-systems transformation stand? Globally, things are not looking good. The 2026 Food Systems Countdown Initiative reports that for Africa, fully three-quarters of the 40 food-system indicators are far or very far from the 2030 global benchmarks, while other continents, including Europe, are not doing much better. Extend the horizon to 2050, though, and the chances of meeting these benchmarks improve substantially. The targets span hunger, malnutrition, jobs, climate, environment, resilience and governance. Food-systems transformation is a path to multiple wins through smarter food choices. So what needs to change from 2027 onwards to meet these targets?

First, attract more finance to the agri-food space—finance aimed at delivering economic returns as well as advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This means identifying opportunities that can generate both economic and social impact, then de-risk them. We need to strengthen the pipeline, aggregate actors to address small-ticket sizes, and understand what investors see as sources of risk so we can mitigate them. At the same time, we need to rebalance investment away from what undermines social impact—such as subsidies on unhealthy foods—towards public procurement and public R&D that make healthy wholefoods more accessible, through greater support for horticulture, pulses, poultry, dairy and aquaculture. Finally, when we do see investment in firms supplying healthy foods, we need to back them with the right financial instruments to help them scale.

Second, we all need to move faster. A lack of urgency is a corrosive force in food-systems transformation. Many thresholds, once crossed, cannot be uncrossed—such as serious environmental degradation, tipping-points in sea temperature, deprivation that triggers emigration and conflict and unsafe food that sparks new viral outbreaks. This means moving from plans and strategies to identifying the binding constraints, such as poor infrastructure, incoherent policy, barriers to setting up a business, bad data and a lack of financing, and then unlocking them. Turning strategy into a pipeline of investable opportunities means using diagnostics to find the “kinks in the hose”, then bringing financiers to the table early so they can help co-create solutions and get the investment flowing.

Third, we live in an increasingly turbulent world, one in which planning, forecasting and prognosticating are all harder to do in a way that adds insight. We need to be increasingly ready for anything. For food systems, as with any system, resilience means diversifying: what, where and how food is grown, and by whom; how it is processed, moved, stored and retailed; and how it is prepared, eaten and disposed of. Currently, the world looks closer to a monoculture than a diverse system—just ten crops supply 83% of all harvested calories. But diversification alone isn't enough; we need to breed crops and animals intentionally for resilience to shocks, whether natural or human-made. We also need to safeguard the health of the people who keep the food system running. Covid-19 showed us how quickly the food system stalls when food workers fall ill. Programmes supporting their health and nutrition build sturdier value chains and workforces.

Fourth, we have to use AI more creatively. On-farm applications for producing food efficiently are growing fast, but uses beyond the farm gate seem to be lagging. Where are the tools using images to screen for food safety in wet markets or milk adulteration? To assess the nutritional value of school meals? To mine existing data for nutritious-food SMEs ready for investment? To use voice applications to help farmers explore diversifying into nutritious crops? Such tools may exist, but they remain small, untested and unscaled. We need all the help that AI, used responsibly, can offer.

Finally, don't lose faith in systems. In a world of scarce aid, we can go one of two ways. Silver bullets are the most seductive option—easy to sell, implement, evaluate and label with a donor's name. But do they change systems, or simply get negated by some other predictable but unanticipated shift elsewhere in the food chain? Unless the system is scanned, the way to unlock it identified and the key turned with the rest of the system in mind, nothing changes. I'm often asked what single thing I'd do to fix the food system, and my answer is always: stop asking that question. Food-system change is often seen as high-risk because so many actions and incentives must align to capture its full promise. But given the world's dismal record on improving the health of people and the planet, failing to work systemically is the biggest risk of all. We cannot afford another five years of looking for silver bullets.

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