Today’s increasingly industrialized and concentrated agri-food systems are contributing to accelerated biodiversity loss, climate change and other environmental impacts, while failing to address rising food insecurity, malnutrition and food waste. At the same time, the world continues to feel the impacts of multiple interlinked crises - collectively known as the 4Cs (Climate, Covid, Conflict and Costs).

The 4Cs impede progress made on internationally agreed sustainable development goals and hence appropriate strategies need to be developed in face of these new challenges to achieve inclusive and sustainable global development.

The Climate Impacts of Food (CLIF) project, co-implemented by TMG, WWF Germany and corsus corporate sustainability, aims to develop a systematic understanding of the transformation of food systems. This includes the state of the debate, key actors and drivers, and strategies for concrete political and structural pathways to transformation. The partners have finalized a first set of three research reports with the overarching title, FORESEE (4C): The Transformation of Agri-Food Systems in Times of Multiple Crises.

The reports underscore that increasingly severe and interrelated global crises are al new dynamics that must be factored into the implementation of current multilateral agreements on sustainable development. In the absence of a global framework to guide agri-food systems transformation, it is proposed that the three Rio Conventions could offer insights on possible entry points, as well as pathways towards the required transformative actions.

The full series, including a summary report, can be downloaded here.