Food is at the heart of many of the world’s environmental, social and economic challenges. The issues – from soil health to public health and sustaining a growing global population on finite resources – are complex and cannot be solved in isolation.
As it stands, the way we produce, consume and value food is pushing the planet and systems we rely on beyond their limits. So how do we ensure we produce enough safe, nutritious and affordable food for everyone in just and regenerative ways?
We need to transition to thriving food systems that optimise health and nutritional outcomes while restoring key ecosystems, farming and fisherfolk livelihoods, and communities which we depend on.
The world is responding to the need for sustainable nutrition built on just and regenerative supply chains. We’re seeing:
This all makes for a promising transition, but is it really adding up?
Food systems are at a crossroads. The transition will either be deep, deliberate and urgent – tackling the root causes of our challenges…
…Or they will fall short, failing to maintain momentum and match the scale of change needed, with ‘solutions’ addressing specific problems in isolation. These ‘fixes’ will ultimately fail – going neither far enough nor fast enough, while simultaneously risking unintended consequences.
At Forum for the Future, we believe we need a socially just and ecologically safe shift to a food system fit for a radically different future. A thriving food system for people and the planet, balancing health and nutritional outcomes with restoration of natural ecosystems and farming livelihoods, on which we all depend.
This must be underpinned by both climate mitigation and adaptation practices, with a focus on mainstreaming regenerative agriculture, enhancing resilience and transforming key supply chains that deliver from plant to plate, boat to bowl, crop to cup.
By 2030, we aim to have enabled a systemic, urgent transition in our food system to fulfil the needs of diets, livelihoods and nature. To do this, we are focused on three interconnected areas where we believe our skills, expertise and experience can make a real difference:
Scaling just and regenerative food supply: Catalysing market-level changes, shared visions and new collaborations that unlock barriers to the regenerative transition.
Reframing food narratives: Enabling changemakers to reshape narratives about food system goals and change to center on social and ecological justice and regeneration.
Reshaping local food systems to thrive and adapt: Enabling diverse actors to reimagine and reshape rural and urban food systems for long-term resilience, through a place-based approach to enable deeper systemic impact (scoping in 2024).
We work directly with ambitious organisations in the global food system on cutting-edge strategy development and implementation. We design, host and facilitate multi-stakeholder collaborations to tackle critical food system challenges.
Get in touch Contact us, or see more about our work in food below.
Contact us, or see more about our work in food below.
Accelerating the transition to regenerative food and agriculture Read more
Cultivating a more resilient future for the UK dairy industry Read more
Orchard Fruits: Collaborative action-research to accelerate a regenerative and resilient future for the UK orchard fruit industry, part of Growing our Future – UK Read more
FeedBack Nashville is a systems transformation initiative that brings community members together to imagine and build a just and sustainable food future for our city and its residents. Read more
A futures and innovation process to drive development of resilient, regenerative and just agricultural value chains in an increasingly disrupted world. Read more
What is the future of protein in Southeast Asia? And how can 'protein visionaries' enable transformative change to a just and regenerative protein system in a rapidly changing region? Read more
Working together to accelerate the transition to a just and regenerative agriculture system in the United States. Read more