Food systems have enormous potential to support healthy diets and nutrition while also advancing prosperity and protecting the planet. However, this potential is often left largely unexploited. Existing food systems, shaped in large part by an array of piecemeal and even contradictory policies, result in widespread hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and environmental degradation. By taking a food systems approach to policymaking, governments could harness the power of food systems to benefit people and the planet.

This brief defines a food systems approach to policymaking, briefly sets out how to take such an approach, and describes why it would make a difference. It is targeted at policymakers across government ministries and agencies with responsibility for any policy with the potential to influence diets and nutrition, such as policies on food, agriculture, the environment, health, transport, trade, education, and the economy. While the focus of this brief is public policymaking and associated actions taken by governments, the what, how, and why can also be applied to actions outside of government, as well as to food system challenges beyond nutrition.

Key Messages

• Existing food systems, shaped in large part by an array of piecemeal and even contradictory policies, result in widespread hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and environmental degradation. By taking a food systems approach to policymaking, governments can harness the power of food systems to benefit people and the planet.

• A food systems approach to policymaking maximizes the potential of food systems to support healthy diets and nutrition while also advancing prosperity and protecting the planet by aligning policy to leverage benefits and manage risks for multiple food system objectives.

• A food systems approach maximizes the ability to achieve multiple food system objectives by increasing the potential of finding the most effective solutions, helping identify the portfolio of policies needed, increasing the efficiency of policy in attaining multiple objectives, reducing the risk of unintended consequences, helping identify who needs to be involved in policymaking, and providing an inclusive framework for coordinating policymaking mechanisms.

• In practice, taking a food systems approach involves several processes, including:

  • Identifying policy options by looking for existing and/or new policy entry points across food systems, sectors and government departments;

  • Designing policies by considering how policy instruments designed to achieve one objective may deliver benefits or pose risks for other objectives, and combining policies into mutually reinforcing portfolios.

  • Establishing inclusive policy governance that brings together stakeholders from different parts of food systems and sectors.