This Brief set out the practical steps of the transition process which need to be taken on the road to a fundamental transformation of food systems to respond simultaneously to nutritional, health, economic, and environmental challenges.

The complexity of food systems presents a challenge for policymakers trying to decide the first steps of the transition process. The choice of initial transition steps should be informed by a comprehensive analysis of existing policies and private sector investments, to help identify priority outcomes, and barriers to change.

Principles to guide transition choices

New metrics of ‘success’ in the process of food system transition are needed to frame and monitor policy decisions. For example, the failure to properly account for the value of human health and the natural environment in policy decisions relating to food systems is both a market failure and a widespread institutional failure. Unless addressed at the outset, this fundamental flaw will continue to distort or impede progress in food system transition.

Decisions involved in planning the transition of food systems will require a new approach which should adhere to the following principles: at every stage of the transition ensure inequality does not increase, and that the poor are able to access and afford healthy diets; avoid closing off options for the future; invest in strengthening institutions and capacity building; ensure transparency to engender trust and ‘buy-in’; base decisions on evidence and transparent expectations; and establish feedback mechanisms for adjustment.

Policy decisions across government also need to be aligned with national food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs). FBDGs are now available in roughly 100 countries across the world and are designed to inform consumer choice.

Placing poor and marginalised people at the heart of the transition

For individual families, the poorest will be least able to afford nutrient-rich food alternatives if they are more expensive, and less able to cope with fluctuations in food prices that might occur as food systems change. If the transition of food systems is to reduce inequality, then policymakers must commit to specific actions both at international and national levels:

• Disruption to trade in general, and through protectionism in particular, must be avoided;
• Governments need to promote growth that is specifically inclusive and pro-poor;
• Donors need to specifically focus their attention on protecting the poor from price fluctuations that may occur during the transition.

Governments in LMICs should give particular focus to actions that are cost neutral, for example rebalancing production subsidies and research, taxes and regulation. Influencing consumer dietary choices is potentially low cost but has considerable potential to drive change throughout food systems;

Tackling trade-offs

Trade-offs may usefully be approached through: mapping out existing policies in relation to new goals and likely trade-offs; developing a clear understanding of the costs and benefits of alternative actions; transparently defining who pays and benefits from alternative strategies; taking a longer-term perspective; and ensuring affordability as a priority.

Ensuring that the transition process is appropriately resourced

To ensure that reform can move beyond political aspiration, it is essential to have clarity from the outset about how the transition steps would be resourced. Beyond refocusing existing resources and identifying actions that produce multiple benefits, the following need to be considered:

• Incentivise the private sector to deliver healthier diets (and in particular to bottom of the pyramid’ families) and to do so sustainably;
• Establish a dedicated Global Financing Facility for a food systems transition, in particular to assist LMICs in their transition;

Realign donor policies towards supporting actions which promote the achievement of both human health and planetary goals, with a focus on social protection.

The Brief lists also a number of supporting actions for the selection of the relevant first steps of the transition:

• The need for ‘joined up’ policy (food, health, agriculture and fisheries, and climate);
• The need to address major gaps in the evidence base, particularly in LMICs. The idea for a creation of an ‘International Panel for Food System Science’ is gathering support;
• The need for open-access portals for data not just on diets, but on all elements of food system functions.

The Brief finally formulates recommendations to policymakers

International:

Leaders and decision makers should capitalise upon upcoming global fora to agree to new commitments for making food systems more resilient and diets that are healthy and sustainable.

Policymakers must build on existing global development targets (such as the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change) so they embody the goal of sustainable, healthy diets for everyone as a shared objective;

Governments:

Food systems and the policies which govern them need to be people-centred (healthy diets are available to all people irrespective of class, religion, gender and age).

Policymakers in relevant government departments must address planetary and dietary challenges simultaneously because they are fundamentally interlinked.

Governments in countries at all stages of development must resolve policy distortions which could fundamentally impede change –or even drive food systems in the wrong direction (e.g. taxation and regulation, subsidies, and food-related research and development).

Donors:

Donor agencies must support LMICs to ensure that the transition of food systems is socially and ethically just.

Companies operating in the food system:

Major trans-national businesses and local SMEs must work closely with governments on more clearly articulated common agendas to deliver sustainable, healthy diets.

Civil society:

Civil society advocacy groups and citizens need to play their part. The former have a major role in leveraging change in businesses operating across food systems and holding policymakers to account, and the latter have considerable influence to drive change through their purchasing power.