Transitioning to Sustainable Food Systems

Developing sustainable food systems is an existential and complex issue. There are several interconnected goals to consider – feeding a growing population, ensuring food safety and security, promoting environmental sustainability, safeguarding rural communities’ culture and way of life, and enabling technological innovation and economic progress – which can sometimes appear to be in conflict with one another. But the stakes have never been higher. Europe urgently needs more sustainable and secure food systems to respond to accelerating environmental degradation, economic uncertainty, geopolitical volatility, and rapid societal change. At the same time, the debate on how to get there grows ever more polarised, reinforcing biases and deepening social divides within communities.  

As part of an inter-organisational Task Force on Sustainable Food Systems and Innovation, led by Re-Imagine Europa, ALLEA has been working on different aspects of the transition to sustainable food systems in Europe, with the primary objectives of the Task Force as follows:  

1. To develop a shared understanding of what is meant by sustainable food systems, including which values and goals should be prioritised. 

1. To assess how innovations can support the transition to a European model for sustainable agriculture promoting social, environmental, and economic sustainability, going beyond the debate on NGTs (New Genomic Techniques).