Knowledge networks to support youth engagement in sustainable food systems

Young people are on the front lines of transforming agriculture and food systems, coping with the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 as well as environmental and climate change effects which are likely to accelerate and intensify during their lifetimes. At the same time, young people across global contexts are increasingly emerging as visible agents of change in food systems, especially through networks that create, transform, and distribute food systems knowledge. This policy and practice review examines the role of youth as actors through food systems knowledge networks. Increasing youth participation in creating sustainable food systems for the future requires policies and practices that support food systems-related knowledge in two ways: (1) democratizing formal education systems;and (2) strengthening horizontal networks of grassroots research and innovation, including through traditional, ecological, local and community knowledge (TELCK). Food systems policies should be developed through dialogue with diverse knowledge systems, experiences, place-based needs, and aspirations of young people to maximize their participation in food systems policy development and evaluation.

Dismantling and rebuilding the food system after COVID-19: Ten principles for redistribution and regeneration

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and cost economies trillions of dollars. Yet state responses have done little to address the negative externalities of the corporate food regime, which has contributed to, and exacerbated, the impacts of the pandemic. In this paper, we build on calls from the grassroots for states to undertake a strategic dismantling of the corporate food regime through redistributive policies and actions across scales, financed through reparations by key actors in the corporate food regime. We present a strategic policy framework drawn from the food sovereignty movement, outlined here as the "5Ds of Redistribution": Decolonization, Decarbonization, Diversification, Democratization, and Decommodification. We then consider what would need to occur post-redistribution to ensure that the corporate food regime does not re-emerge, and pose five guiding principles grounded in Indigenous food sovereignty to rebuild regenerative food systems, outlined here as the "5Rs of Regeneration": Relationality, Respect, Reciprocity, Responsibility, and Rights. Together these ten principles for redistribution and regeneration provide a framework for food systems transformation after COVID-19.

Risk and responsibility in the corporate food regime: research pathways beyond the COVID-19 crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has focused renewed public attention on the risks and harms generated by a globalized, industrialized, and corporatized food system. This crisis reinvigorates the need for a research agenda that identifies compelling ways of holding key actors in the corporate food regime accountable for creating and profiting from systemic risk in the food system. We draw upon theoretical conceptions of “risk,” “rights,” and “(ir)responsibility” to raise questions about how to move beyond narrow liberal notions of responsibility for postpandemic recovery. Redefining responsibility could be transformative in the pursuit of corporate accountability for past and present harms, and in financing pathways towards less risky, more resilient, and more just food systems of the future. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.