There is consensus that the current global food system is not meeting the needs of people and the planet. There is also growing consensus that addressing food-related challenges requires a systems approach, and consequently a systemic approach to food system transformation that takes into account diverse contexts, values and needs.

It requires first to understand and to agree on what needs to be transformed and to consider whether all actors in the food system have the same capacity, power and agency to engage and lead transformation, whether there are winners and losers, and who those are.

In order to reconcile perspectives in the unified goal of food system transformation, the existence of different narratives needs to be acknowledged. The SAPEA report described five common narratives about food systems: Food as a commodity, Food as a human right, Food as a common good, Food as identity and culture and Food as humans’ closest link to nature.

The trend towards the fragmentation of research and the simplification of messages to explain a complex reality can lead to misunderstandings, contradictions and ultimately, to wrong decisions. One example of a complex reality is the case of livestock.

Increased population, rising incomes, the industrialisation of livestock production and urbanisation have resulted in a growth in the consumption of animal source foods at the global level. In the past 2 decades, there has been an increased recognition and understanding of the impact of the livestock sector on the environment, including on climate, water and biodiversity.

At the same time, animal-source foods have been described by the World Health Organization as the best source of high-quality nutrient-rich food for children aged 6–23 months. However, the correlations between the consumption of red and processed meat and some non-communicable diseases in Western diets is often dominating the debate.

In this context, the message both consumers and policy-makers get is: “To save the planet we need to stop eating meat”. But the reality is much more complex globally, but also in the EU, as livestock cannot be seen only as a commodity.

In Europe there is a diversity of livestock systems, which include large scale monogastric (pigs or chicken), mixed crop-livestock systems, extensive grazing ruminant systems, backyard poultry and pigs, among others. This diversity of production systems also means a diversity of contributions to food and nutrition security, to livelihoods but also a diversity of links with the environment, which include both positive and negative impacts and require various and diverse solutions.

Studies show large differences in environmental effects between livestock species (e.g. cattle, pig, chicken, sheep) and feed (concentrate, grass, by-products). A higher proportion of grass in the feed ration could also improve carbon storage and sequestration in soils. This could also significantly limit the need for feed imports and thus the externalisation of environmental pollution.

Ruminants also consume large amounts of biomass that are not edible by humans (including grass or agrifood waste), a large part of this biomass being produced on land that cannot be cropped. Ruminants also play a fundamental role in maintaining grasslands and pastures, reducing the frequency and severity of wildfires in the context of climate change and enhancing biodiversity. Livestock return nutrients to the soil through their organic waste, but they also shape traditional landscapes and cultures, and deliver a large diversity of products, including 230 protected geographical origin cheeses in the EU.

This shows that the required transformation in the livestock sector needs to consider the complex reality (multicriteria analysis) rather than responding to simple and linear messages, such as GHG emissions. While overconsumption of all types of food, including meat, is detrimental to human health, to the environment and to animal welfare, one should emphasise ‘more of the better' rather than 'less or none'. More sustainable food systems must continue to rely on livestock, as well as on crops, forests, fisheries and aquaculture.

In this context of complexity and diversity of values and narratives, scientists have a variety of crucial roles to play. The literature categorises their role into two transformation-focus research strings:

• Transformation research is mainly focused on retrospectively observing and describing causes for transformation; as well as on understanding the role of power, technology, societies, etc., in food system transformation;
• Transformative research is focused on transdisciplinary, where scholars become actors of change with non-academic partners, initiating, facilitating or even supporting change through transdisciplinary research into food systems transformations. Such research can facilitate spaces to envision alternative pathways for sustainable futures, that show the different values and framings, whilst at the same time ensuring ‘safe enough spaces’ for seemingly contradictory evidence to be unpacked, the trade-offs noted and then decisions made on what interventions to enable. For example, a long-standing debate between land-sparing versus land-sharing advocates has raged in the agricultural land use and biodiversity sectors. These kinds of decisions cannot be helped with the production of more ‘evidence’, rather they require spaces where conflicts and tensions can be held in constructive dialogue.

As well as making visible the plurality of alternative pathways towards more sustainable food systems, it is also important to ensure that more marginalised voices are also heard and that their opinions are able to enter the debate too. Addressing transformation requires also identifying agents of change and new governance structure.

Current modes of food policy-making across the globe tend to be characterised by high degrees of fragmentation, regulatory capture by vested interests, predominant support for the status quo, and the marginalisation of civil society movements, NGOs and innovative businesses pushing for food system reform. To overcome these challenges, future food system governance arrangements will have to strengthen boundary-spanning, adaptive, participatory and transformative capacities.

Boundary-spanning capacities allow for mitigating incoherencies resulting from fragmented governance efforts by creating connectivity between policy domains and governance levels.

Adaptive governance involves the ability to respond flexibly to the inherent uncertainty and volatility that exist within the food system.

Participatory governance is key for bringing the views and experiences of the millions of actors -from farmers and fishermen to retailers and citizens on whom a food system transformation ultimately relies-into political decision-making.