Everywhere you look, “food systems transformation” is the new buzzword. From U.N. conferences to corporate boardrooms, the term is gaining momentum. But behind the headlines, real change remains elusive.
At last summer’s U.N. Food Systems Summit Stocktake in Addis Ababa, world leaders gathered to review progress. But for many, the event also exposed deep tensions.
The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM) – a global coalition representing hundreds of grassroots organisations within the U.N. Committee on World Food Security – withdrew from the process, citing concerns that corporate interests were being prioritised over the rights and realities of local communities.
This wasn’t just a political disagreement. It revealed something more fundamental: our food systems agenda is still anchored in an illusion of control, the belief that transformation can be centrally designed, measured and managed.
The systems we work within are increasingly complex, unpredictable and non-linear.
Development finance is retreating or being restructured as governments pivot toward defence and national security spending. Meanwhile, climate shocks are accelerating – Europe alone now loses 28 billion euros annually in agricultural damages, a figure expected to rise to 40 billion euros by 2050. These aren’t outliers; they are the new normal.
And yet, we continue to build planning frameworks, log frames and toolkits that assume change is linear and measurable.
Too often, what’s labelled as “learning” is an exercise of ticking boxes, not asking what’s working or why. Most monitoring and measurement systems reward the reporting of progress indicators, not serious reflection about efficiency, process or weaknesses in implementation.
For generations, farmers, pastoralists and local producers have been navigating uncertainty, not in theory, but in practice. Kenyan herders, for example, navigate volatile rainfall, shifting prices, pest outbreaks and political instability. In response, they’ve developed adaptive strategies: splitting herds, negotiating land access and diversifying crops and incomes. These are not nostalgic traditions; they are active, context-aware systems built for resilience
Yet, too often, this knowledge is ignored or overwritten by externally defined solutions. Localisation is high on the global agenda, but a recent FAO review of national food systems pathways reveals that sub-national actors remain under-resourced, under-represented and structurally disconnected from the planning and budgeting processes that shape their futures.
The good news? A different kind of transformation is already under way, in quiet corners, led by those who don’t ask for permission.
In Brazil, Uganda, and India, farmers are organising participatory guarantee systems, trust-based alternatives to expensive organic certification. Built on social networks and peer review, these systems are more than cost-effective. In Brazil, they’re recognised by law. More importantly, they restore agency and control to producers themselves.
In Ethiopia, the Bank of Oromia is trialling revenue-based loans, a new model that doesn’t require fixed monthly repayments or traditional collateral. Instead, repayment is tied to income, giving borrowers, especially agri-entrepreneurs, room to absorb shocks. This innovation reflects a more grounded understanding of agricultural risk and rural cash flow.
In Mali, the Regreening Africa programme convened joint reflection missions that brought together women’s groups, traditional leaders and officials to review evidence on land degradation. Equipped with new tools, 30 women’s associations successfully advocated for land rights. In a country where women rarely hold legal titles, these associations now own agroforestry plots, growing food trees such as shea, parkia, and moringa.
Even within the U.N. system, its Forest and Farm Facility provides flexible funding that allows producer organisations to set their own goals and define success in their own terms. It shifts power, quietly but deliberately, from compliance to agency.
Some funders are shifting the way they work. The philanthropic collective Co-Impact, supports long-term, locally led systems change without rigid targets. Its Gender Fund centres women leaders and grassroots organisations in defining outcomes, not just delivering pre-set ones.
None of these examples are perfect. But they share a common thread: they don’t start with control. They start with trust, local leadership and a commitment to learn in the face of complexity.
Global and national actors must shift from directing change to enabling it; from defining outcomes to facilitating learning, coordination and long-term support.
It requires investing in feedback loops and flexible funding mechanisms that allow for iteration, failure and adaptation. In a paper we developed with colleagues last year, we offer a practical framework for how this can happen.
In short, we don’t need more control. We just need the courage to learn, to listen, and to let go.