Chapter One
Reshaping Food Systems
The Imperative of Inclusion
Shenggen Fan and Johan Swinnen
Redesigning food systems to be inclusive of poor and vulnerable people is a moral imperative.
KEY FINDINGS
- Inclusive food systems can help break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.
- Including marginalized people in food systems can help them secure well-paying jobs and make gains in other areas that impact long-term livelihoods, such as education.
- A value chain framework is key to designing inclusive food systems—from improving farmers’ access to resources and information to creating off-farm jobs and enterprises in the midstream of the chain.
- Recent innovations such as mobile phone technologies offer opportunities for marginalized and excluded populations to access information and services, and to participate all along the food value chain.
- Education is a major driver of inclusion, increasing lifelong income and improving nutrition, health, civic engagement, and gender equality.
- Marginalized people should be empowered to make strategic choices within food systems and have a voice in holding governments accountable for delivery of inclusive food systems.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
- Address inclusion at the global policy level, using awareness of inequality to spur discussion of the need for large-scale investments in research and programming to build inclusive food systems.
- Take action at the national level so that the local context— including the status of specific populations, economic structure, and cultural norms—can be taken into account in shaping inclusive food systems and improving diets.
- Tailor food system policies so that they create opportunities for marginalized people while addressing key challenges such as unhealthy diets and climate change.
- Identify the needs of marginalized people early on, and give them a voice in research and policy- and program-design processes.
- Recognize the contributions that excluded people already make to food systems with their time and labor through policies that empower them to secure more equal benefits.
Browse Chapters
Chapter One
Reshaping Food Systems
Chapter Two
Smallholders and Rural People
Chapter Three
Youth
Chapter Four
Women
Chapter Five
Refugees and Conflict-Affected People
Chapter Six
National Food Systems
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