Biodiversity flourishes in areas where natural processes, such as plant and animal reproduction and dispersion, take place without human interruption. At present, we estimate that such land where natural processes predominate (LNPP) covers 56% of terrestrial land. Here, the evolution of global biodiversity is modelled, as indicated by LNPP, for two scenarios for food and land-use systems change to 2050: a “Current Trends” pathway, based on current policies and historical trends, and a “Sustainable” pathway, depicting ambitious assumptions aimed at sustainable development.

The new Kenyan government faces a complex domestic and global environment, and it is widely expected to address key food and agricultural challenges with a new set of policies and programs. This policy brief presents key recommendations from a forthcoming book, Food Systems Transformation in Kenya: Lessons from the Past and Policy Options for the Future, which provides research-based “food for thought and action” to support the Kenyan government’s efforts to improve food security.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many researchers and international organizations voiced concerns about the resilience of food value chains amid lockdowns and border closures, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (Laborde et al. 2020; Reardon, Bellemare, and Zilberman 2020; Resnick 2020). This chapter explores the pandemic’s effects on dairy and vegetable value chains in Ethiopia’s capital through mid-2021.

The challenges relating to biodiversity loss, food insecurity and climate change show the urgent need to make transition towards sustainable food systems in West Africa. To bring about such a transition worldwide, the United Nations’ Food Systems Summit was held in September 2021. One of the main outcomes of the Summit was the national pathways to sustainable food systems. This review analyses whether and how agro-biodiversity is addressed in the food system transformation pathways submitted by West African countries in the framework of the Summit.

Many Kenyan base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) consumers—defined as the poorest two-thirds of the economic human pyramid—remain food insecure, despite the availability of nutrient-dense foods in the market. This study reveals how effective marketing strategies can strengthen food security among BoP consumers through increased access to nutritious foods such as nutrient-dense porridge flour. Nutrient-dense porridge flour refers to a multi-composite porridge flour composed of diverse nutritious ingredients that are necessary to achieve a healthy diet.

This paper explores the conditions under which the changes leading to the Great Transformation of food systems called upon by a growing number of international experts and development agencies, will (or not) happen. After discussing the meanings of ‘transformation’ in the specific context of food systems, we draw on different elements of political economy to show how various self-reinforcing dynamics are contributing to lock food systems in their current unsustainable trajectories.

This chapter discusses the process of building an Food and Nutrition Security policy in Cali. The conclusion, asks a number of key questions as part of an analysis of the main driving forces behind the successful construction and formulation.

Underutilized grain crops are an essential part of the food system that supports humankind. A number of these crops can be found in China, such as barley, buckwheat, broomcorn millet, foxtail millet, oat, and sorghum, which have characteristics such as containing more nutritional elements, being resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses, and having strong adaptability to poor environments. The diversity of these crops provides options for farmers’ livelihoods and healthy food for the population.

In order to facilitate sustainability transitions for food procurement programs, the Alliance of Bioversity-CIAT is developing a decision-support tool to evaluate and monitor the socio-economic and environmental impacts of different food procurement scenarios. Such a “Feed Me Sustainably” (FMS) tool can help build a more reliable evidence-base for policy-makers, food procurement managers, and other key stakeholders to address the challenges and opportunities for improving the sustainability and food security outcomes from school meal procurement programs.

The importance of the food environment in influencing dietary choices of consumers has been widely acknowledged, but little attention has been paid to the urban food environment in Africa despite the rise in incidence of obesity and other nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases (NR-NCDs). We contribute to the literature on urban food environments by conducting an observational macro-scan of the food environment in three cities – Accra, Cape Coast, and Koforidua – with a view to unravelling the nature of the urban food environment in Ghana.

Aquaculture plays an increasingly important role in meeting the rising global demand for fish fuelled by economic and demographic growth. However, in many middle-income countries, aquaculture is constrained by rising labour costs, limited input supply, environmental concerns, and infectious diseases. In this paper, we developed a multi-species, multi-sector equilibrium model and applied it to the fishery sector of Egypt, a leading aquaculture producer in Africa, to examine these barriers.