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Reframing the local–global food systems debate through a resilience lens

Nature Food volume 4, pages 22–29 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Despite the growing knowledge that food system solutions should account for interactions and drivers across scales, broader societal debate on how to solve food system challenges is often focused on two dichotomous perspectives and associated solutions: either more localized food systems or greater global coordination of food systems. The debate has found problematic expressions in contemporary challenges, prompting us to revisit the role that resilience thinking can play when faced with complex crises that increase uncertainty. Here we identify four ‘aching points’ facing food systems that are central points of tension in the local–global debate. We apply the seven principles of resilience to these aching points to reframe the solution space to one that embeds resilience into food systems’ management and governance at all scales, supporting transformative change towards sustainable food systems.

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Fig. 1: Four food system aching points and the transformative pathways that emerge when reframed through a resilience lens.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Azote for producing the conceptual figure. A.W. was partly supported by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS (grant no. 2019-01579). C.Q. was partly supported by the Swedish Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (grant no. 2017.0137) and the FeedBaCks FORMAS/Era project (grant no. 1648401). L.D. was partly supported by the Swedish Research Council VR (grant no. 2018-02051). B.G.-M. was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research innovation programme (grant no. 682472—MUSES). M.J. was partly supported by the Mistra Food Futures programme (DIA 2018/24 8). L.P. was partly supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant no. 115300) and Swedish Research Council FORMAS (grant no. 2020-00670). E.W. was supported by the Erling-Persson Family Foundation. This work was partially funded by the IKEA Foundation, project number 31002610.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Amanda Wood, Cibele Queiroz, Lisa Deutsch, Blanca González-Mon, Malin Jonell, Laura Pereira, Hanna Sinare, Uno Svedin & Emmy Wassénius

  2. Global Resilience Partnership, Stockholm, Sweden

    Cibele Queiroz

  3. Nordic Institute of Latin American Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Lisa Deutsch

  4. Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

    Malin Jonell & Emmy Wassénius

  5. Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

    Malin Jonell

  6. Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Laura Pereira

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Contributions

A.W. and C.Q. developed the initial framework and led the writing and editing. L.D., B.G.-M., M.J., L.P., H.S., U.S. and E.W. contributed to the conceptual development, writing and editing of the manuscript. All co-authors approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Amanda Wood.

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Wood, A., Queiroz, C., Deutsch, L. et al. Reframing the local–global food systems debate through a resilience lens. Nat Food 4, 22–29 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00662-0

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