Solutions Now: Key Solutions from the Six Workshops and Learning Journeys at the 5th Global Conference of the SFS Programme
As the world grapples with interconnected crises—climate change, biodiversity loss, malnutrition, and inequitable food systems—the Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) Programme convened six transformative Solution Workshops and a set of seven immersive Learning Journeys in Brasília. These workshops united policymakers, farmers, researchers, and activists to forge actionable pathways toward sustainability, equity, and resilience. They moved from diagnosis to identifying actionable solutions, which are calls to action for key upcoming policy processes such as the UNFSS+4, CFS53, CP30 and UNEA-7.
Workshop 1: Addressing Trade-offs & Maximizing Co-benefits
Challenge: Food systems struggle with competing priorities—economic growth, social equity, and environmental protection—often resulting in harmful trade-offs, such as agricultural expansion driving deforestation. Over 2.8 billion people cannot afford healthy diets, highlighting systemic access issues.
Solutions:
A systemic approach is needed where policies assess impacts across scales, recognizing that local decisions have global consequences.
Inclusive governance models must engage farmers, Indigenous groups, and consumers in policy design to balance productivity with equity and biodiversity.
Policymakers should reform misaligned subsidies and incentives that currently favor unsustainable practices.
Workshop 2: Social Protection & School Meals for Transformation
Challenge: Despite their potential, school meal programs and public food procurement often remain disconnected from sustainability goals due to fragmented governance, complex regulations, and underinvestment in smallholder inclusion.
Solutions:
Successful models, like Brazil’s mandatory 30% family farm sourcing for school meals, show how policy can link nutrition, agriculture, and livelihoods.
Decentralized procurement—backed by national funding and simplified sanitary rules—can better include smallholders.
Policymakers must move beyond pilot projects to binding commitments that align food procurement with dietary guidelines, climate goals, and rural development.
Workshop 3: Scaling Finance for Food Systems
Challenge: Food systems receive less than 3% of global climate finance, with minimal reach to small-scale producers, while biodiversity funding remains largely disconnected from agriculture.
Solutions:
Blended finance mechanisms, like Sierra Leone’s government-backed credit facilities, demonstrate how to de-risk private investment for sustainable farming.
National climate plans (NDCs) and biodiversity strategies (NBSAPs) should explicitly integrate food systems, directing funds toward agroecology, smallholder resilience, and Indigenous-led conservation.
Financial institutions must develop accessible instruments tailored to local food producers.
Workshop 4: Multi-stakeholder Governance
Challenge: Top-down policymaking often excludes farmers, women, youth, and Indigenous peoples, despite their critical roles in food systems, leading to ineffective or inequitable outcomes.
Solutions:
Brazil’s participatory food security councils (CONSEA) proved that structured, long-term platforms with clear roles can bridge divides.
Policymakers should institutionalize inclusive governance, ensuring marginalized groups have decision-making power, alongside funding for sustained participation.
Transparency measures are needed to manage corporate influence while elevating grassroots voices.
Workshop 5: Policy Coherence for Food Systems
Challenge: Sectoral silos—between agriculture, health, and environment—result in contradictory policies, such as subsidies promoting unsustainable monocultures while nutrition programs fight diet-related diseases.
Solutions:
Brazil’s SISAN (Interministerial Chamber on Food and Nutrition Security) provides a model for cross-sectoral coordination, linking food production, social protection, and sustainability.
Policymakers must phase out harmful subsidies, align public spending with agroecological transitions, and strengthen local food governance—particularly for women and smallholders, who face the greatest barriers.
Workshop 6: Circular Food Systems & Food Waste
Challenge: One-third of food produced is lost or wasted, exacerbating hunger and climate emissions, yet few countries have systemic strategies to address it.
Solutions:
Binding national targets, like the UK’s food waste reduction roadmap, combined with investments in cold storage, redistribution networks (e.g., Brazil’s Sesc Mesa Brasil), and consumer education, can dramatically cut waste.
Policymakers should integrate food loss reduction into climate policies, support circular business models, and strengthen urban-rural food loops through infrastructure and regulation.
Learning Journeys: Local Solutions in Action
Visits to Brasília’s urban gardens, food banks, and research hubs revealed how grassroots innovation—when supported by policy—can drive systemic change. Community kitchens like Sol Nascente combat hunger using local produce, while Embrapa’s research on post-harvest losses informs national strategies. These examples underscore that effective food systems transformation requires empowering local actors with resources, technical support, and inclusive governance structures.
