Agrifood systems are broader than "food systems"; they include other agricultural products like biofuels, fibres, wood and non-wood forest products, marine products, and other natural resources and raw materials – and everything they touch. In the FAO Constitution, the term "agriculture" and its derivatives include crop and livestock products, fisheries, marine products, aquaculture, forests and primary forestry products. 

These non-food products matter because they form part of the agricultural economy, shape rural livelihoods, and affect land, water and environmental sustainability. All of these elements have an impact on global food supply and provide resources needed to access food.

The term "agrifood system" encompasses a broader picture that shows how food and non-food agricultural products are connected. This holistic view can support better decision-making in agrifood systems and a longer-term perspective.

Food security – when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life (FAO, 1996) – is the key goal of agrifood systems. Agrifood systems, and their transformation, are the means to achieve that goal.

Past efforts to address food insecurity through agrifood systems focused mainly on increasing the availability of “staple” foods, such as wheat, rice and maize. While this approach improved supply, it did not tackle other critical aspects such as equitable access, healthy diets, food safety, resilience and environmental sustainability. The focus on staple food production represented a narrow interpretation of what was required and overlooked deeper drivers, such as unclear land tenure, gender inequality, climate change, water scarcity, poverty and conflict.

To truly improve food security and nutrition, agrifood systems must function as cohesive, interconnected systems that produce safe, nutritious food, support farmers and workers, build resilient supply chains that ensure access, enable healthy diets, mitigate climate change, promote gender and youth inclusion, and conserve, restore and sustainably use biodiversity. They must empower people with the agency needed to make decisions about their diets and livelihoods.

Achieving this goal requires fundamental changes within agrifood systems and across related systems such as land, health, social protection, education and economic systems. Transformation must span the entire chain – from production and processing to distribution and retail – through interconnected, systemic action. This is why adopting a systems approach is essential to meaningful and lasting food security.

A system is a set of interconnected components that interact dynamically to produce multiple outcomes (FAO, 2025). In food and agriculture, multiple activities, components and people are linked, with changes in one part of the system influencing outcomes in others. These interactions generate both synergies and trade‑offs. For example, fertilizers and pesticides can increase crop yields but, if overused, can degrade soils and pollute water. Similarly, policies that promote biofuels can reduce the land available for food crops, potentially affecting food availability. In short, some changes may bring short-term benefits for food security in one area, but create more widespread challenges over the longer term.

Viewing food and agriculture as a system helps us understand what is required to deliver food security and nutrition for all. When policies and actions reinforce each other, and when the risks and opportunities arising from these interactions are actively managed, agrifood systems can achieve multiple objectives. For example, adopting sustainable farming practices that avoid clearing new land can help protect forests while maintaining agricultural productivity (Dupong et al., 2025).

Sustainable agrifood systems enable food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised (HLPE, 2014). These systems are founded on three pillars:

• Economic sustainability – providing economic value, and decent and viable livelihoods for those involved.
• Social sustainability – creating benefits that reach everyone, promote social cohesion and equity, and enhance nutrition and health.
• Environmental sustainability – conserving, restoring and making sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity, building resilience and minimizing harm to the environment.

FAO (2014) has defined five key pathways for achieving sustainability in food and agriculture:

1. Improving efficiency in the use of resources.
2. Conserving, protecting and enhancing natural ecosystems.
3. Protecting and improving rural livelihoods, equity and social well-being.
4. Enhancing the resilience of people, communities and ecosystems.
5. 5. Promoting responsible and effective governance mechanisms across natural and human systems.

Agrifood systems exist to ensure food security and nutrition, but their purpose extends well beyond supplying sufficient food. When they function well, agrifood systems deliver a set of interconnected and interdependent outcomes across economic, social, health and environmental domains.

These outcomes include:

• sustainable agricultural productivity;
• healthy diets, safe food and improved nutrition and health;
• decent livelihoods and inclusive economic growth;
• gender equality, youth engagement and other forms of social inclusion;
• environmental sustainability and resilience.

Effective agrifood systems are efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable – able to withstand and adapt to climate change, economic shocks and conflict while continuing to meet human needs. FAO summarizes these desired outcomes through its framing of the four betters: better production, better nutrition, better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind. Together, these outcomes underpin the realization of the right to adequate food and make agrifood systems central to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Recognizing their potential to deliver integrated benefits for people, planet and prosperity, the United Nations Sustainable Development Group has identified agrifood systems as one of six key transitions requiring targeted investment to drive transformative change towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The inability of agrifood systems to meet expectations, and the resulting frustration, has led many critics to describe them as "broken".

However, agrifood systems continue to deliver large quantities of food and agricultural products daily in many parts of the world. The fundamental issue is that these systems were not designed to balance the achievement of all outcomes agrifood systems are now expected to deliver – including production, equitable access to safe and healthy diets, gender equality, decent jobs, and environmental sustainability and resilience. From this perspective, many systems may appear productive or profitable but fail to meet broader societal needs while undermining longer-term resilience.

Such underperformance becomes more visible when outcomes are imbalanced or contradictory. Examples include systems that produce large quantities of food which is unsafe or with limited nutritional value, generate environmental degradation or biodiversity loss, allow significant food loss and waste, create economic gains that are unevenly distributed, rely on poorly paid or unsafe labour, or enable healthy diets for wealthy populations that are inaccessible for marginalized groups.

These patterns do not arise from isolated failures but rather from systemic challenges, such as:

• missing or malfunctioning components (e.g. regulations without effective enforcement; markets for nutritious foods that fail to reach marginalized populations);
• failing subsystems (e.g. fragmented or exclusionary market chains);
• weak or distorted connections (e.g. pricing structures or incentives that reward environmental harm);
• neglected key relationships (e.g. between agriculture and ecosystems, or highly concentrated power dynamics);
• governance and accountability gaps (e.g. prioritizing efficiency or profitability without safeguards for social and environmental outcomes).

Agrifood systems are not "broken"; they are insufficiently configured to deliver multiple, interconnected outcomes equitably. Addressing these shortcomings means deliberately re‑designing and re‑aligning how these systems function. This is the essence of agrifood systems transformation.

Agrifood systems transformation is the deliberate and ongoing process of changing how agrifood systems function with the goal of achieving sustained improvement in multiple, interconnected outcomes at scale. These outcomes including nutrition and health, environmental sustainability ,and decent jobs and livelihoods. While transformation can be catalysed by shocks, it often emerges from the cumulative effect of actions that build over time. By accelerating progress towards these goals, transformed agrifood systems can bring significant improvements for food security and nutrition for current and future generations.

Transformation is a process that involves explicitly recognizing and dealing with trade-offs. It implies systemic shifts in purpose, structure and relationships – fundamental changes in how agrifood systems function. That means rethinking how decisions are made, who is involved, how money and investments flow, and what kinds of results are valued.

What sets agrifood systems transformation apart from other transformations in food and agriculture is its broad scope, which considers economic, social and environmental outcomes holistically, and its normative orientation – that is, its focus on the outcomes agrifood systems should deliver.

This focus differs from agricultural transformation and rural transformation, for example, both of which refer to ongoing, structural processes of change. Agricultural transformation relates specifically to the shift from subsistence farming to a modern, commercialized agricultural sector (FAO, 2017). Rural transformation implies broad changes in rural livelihoods, infrastructure, services and economic diversification (FAO, 2017).

While these are important and ongoing transformations, they differ from the normative concept of agrifood systems transformation, which focuses on deliberately changing how the agrifood system as a whole functions in order to achieve a set of desirable goals.

This concept can also be applied to specific subsystems. For example, aquatic food transformation refers to maximizing the contribution of fisheries and aquaculture to improved outcomes such as nutrition, livelihoods and environmental sustainability.

A systems approach to food and agriculture is a way of thinking, acting and working together that considers the interconnections among components and outcomes across agrifood and interrelated systems (FAO, 2025). Its purpose is to change how agrifood systems function so that they can achieve and sustain multiple interconnected goals at scale. This is what we call agrifood systems transformation.

While identifying what needs to change is important, a systems approach focuses on how change happens and how decisions are made to make it possible – advancing alignment across all elements. This contrasts with a siloed approach, where issues are addressed in isolation without considering interlinkages, often leading to misalignment, unintended consequences or trade-offs (IPBES, 2024).

A business-as-usual approach will not leverage the power of agrifood systems to deliver solutions to many of today’s pressing challenges. In contrast, a systems approach provides a practical pathway to more effective solutions across agrifood systems by enabling decision-makers to:

• prioritize actions with the greatest potential for impact;
• enable more efficient use of resources by uniting otherwise fragmented efforts;
• implement integrated solutions that tackle interrelated causes together;
• promote actions that bring benefits across multiple goals, such as nutrition, economy and environment;
• enhance policy coherence across different sectors, such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries;
• identify trade-offs and help manage unintended consequences and underlying power dynamics.

A systems approach also helps to overcome bottlenecks created by siloed ways of thinking, acting and working together. Linear thinking, for example, makes it easy to miss how work on one issue connects with others. Uncoordinated financing focusing on short-term outputs within narrow mandates fails to encourage cross-sector collaboration. Isolated policies and actions create inefficiencies, power struggles, duplication and missed opportunities.

These benefits are illustrated by school meals programmes that are designed to consider children's nutrition, supply infrastructure, food safety, cost, local family farmers, environmental sustainability and gender. While considering only one of the above elements may deliver quicker results within a narrow scope, taking a broader, more interconnected approach has the potential not only to improve children's diets but also to become a lever for more widespread, long-term change – delivering sustainable, far-reaching outcomes that strengthen the agrifood systems on which future generations depend.

Adopting a systems approach involves making intentional shifts in how people and institutions think, act and work together. It means moving from fragmented efforts to aligned action to solve complex problems. Insights from policy, practice and systems science point to six core, interrelated elements that distinguish a systems approach from a siloed one. The six elements of a systems approach are set out in FAO’s practical guide “Transforming food and agriculture through a systems approach" (FAO, 2025):

	Systems thinking Understanding how things are connected and who needs to be involved. This foundational mindset enables people to see interconnections, create shared visions and identify strategic entry points. It is essential for recognizing how components of systems influence one another and for identifying the people and institutions whose actions are critical to enabling systemic change.
	Systems knowledge Working together to understand causes, effects and what gets in the way. This involves generating and using evidence to understand interlinked causes and how actions create multiple outcomes. It integrates diverse knowledge sources, including people's lived experience, to identify bottlenecks and inform strategic action with foresight.
	Systems governance Sharing decisions, working across sectors and dealing with power imbalances. This involves connecting efforts across the many sectors and people involved in changing agrifood systems, through a distributed approach to leadership, inclusive planning and processes that address conflicts.
	Systems doing Implementing actions that support each other and delivering bigger results. This practice translates a shared vision into coherent, joined-up implementation. It involves aligning diverse policies and actions in portfolios that create co-benefits, manage trade-offs and avoid creating new problems.
	Systems investment Funding the big picture, not just short-term projects. This refers to mobilizing and directing resources for long-term transformation. It requires sustained, flexible and coordinated funding from multiple sources that matches the complexity and duration of systems change.
	Systems learning Learning, adjusting and sharing what works. This practice integrates continuous learning and adaptation into all activities. Because agrifood systems are dynamic and unpredictable, it involves embedding real-time collective learning to adjust actions and improve outcomes.

These six elements are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, and their transformative power lies in how they interact. Systems thinking is the foundation for systems doing, which is enabled by knowledge, governance and investment. Learning underpins adaptation, while leadership and innovation accelerate the process. The systems approach is also pertinent for the agrifood systems transformation agenda.

Many concepts and practices have emerged that explicitly recognize particular interconnections in agrifood systems in order to address defined challenges. They are often accompanied by methods and tools designed to support implementation within their specific area of focus. Examples include:

• Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) place innovation in agriculture within the wider system of actors, relationships, institutions and enabling conditions that shape how new technologies, practices and organizational forms are developed, adapted and used.
• Agroecology builds synergies across crops, livestock, soils and ecosystems to enhance efficiency, resilience and livelihoods, and recognizes the interconnections between food, identity and community.
• Bioeconomy involves managing biological resources and related knowledge and innovation to provide sustainable products and services across sectors and enable a transition to a sustainable economy.
• A circular economy approach links resource use, waste management, nutrient cycling and business models to reduce waste and regenerate natural resources.
• An Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) places fisheries within an integrated ecological, social and economic system to balance biodiversity conservation, sustainable resource use, livelihoods and food security through coordinated management.
• The humanitarian–development nexus refers to the link between humanitarian assistance and long-term development efforts, including in food and agriculture, recognizing that crises and development challenges are interconnected and require complementary approaches.
• Indigenous Peoples’ food systems are biocentric approaches based on the knowledge systems of Indigenous Peoples, viewing ecosystems and their human and non-human co-inhabitants as intrinsically connected.
• Integrated landscape management coordinates land, water, biodiversity and production within a defined territory as an interconnected system to balance food security, livelihoods, ecosystem services and climate resilience.
• Market Systems Development treats markets as dynamic systems of actors, rules and supporting functions, shifting incentives and capacities to improve inclusion, livelihoods and sustainability.
• One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, plants, animals and ecosystems.
• The sustainable food value chain (SFVC) approach is a systems-based holistic framework for improving the performance of food value chains in ways that deliver economic, social, and environmental benefits, considering all actors and activities and support services from production to consumption.
• Sustainable public food procurement links institutional demand with local production and supply chains to steer agrifood system outcomes toward improved nutrition, livelihoods and sustainability.
• Territorial approaches treat places as integrated socioeconomic and ecological systems, coordinating cross‑sector interventions to balance growth, inclusion and environmental stewardship within a defined geography.

Building a shared vision for agrifood systems transformation involves bringing together people from different sectors to uncover how their goals and actions are connected. It often begins by organizing cross-sector dialogues and workshops where participants can share perspectives, identify interlinkages, and reframe problems and solutions together. This process helps everyone see the bigger picture and understand the value of working towards common, long-term goals. Co-creation is key. It is important to facilitate inclusive discussions that allow all relevant voices, including those with lived experience of agrifood issues, youth, policymakers, the private sector and civil society to contribute. Practical tools, such as system mapping or participatory modelling, can be helpful to visualize connections and highlight shared priorities.

Transforming agrifood systems involves working across multiple ministries, using approaches suited to the unique structure of each national or local government. Different aspects of agrifood systems are typically dealt with by different government sectors, whose focus and specialization may result in responsibilities becoming siloed. When addressing food-related issues for which they are separately responsible, agriculture, health, trade, commerce and environment ministries may overlook how their actions affect one another's goals. This fragmentation can lead to incoherent policies and missed opportunities for greater impact, and may even provoke unintended negative consequences in another sector.

Many countries are using "systems governance" to create structures that address siloing in agrifood systems. One option is to create a formal cross-government leadership mechanism that links ministries and stakeholders around a shared vision and clear strategic entry points. Such a body can coordinate joint planning, align budgets and monitor progress against indicators that span diets, livelihoods, environment and equity, helping sectors to see their combined impact. Distributed leadership practices, such as rotating chairs or shared facilitation, can strengthen accountability and collective ownership, while integrated evidence briefs and conflict-management processes keep everyone working from the same facts and openly address trade-offs. Another strategy is to use the planning process itself as a mechanism for overcoming silos. Advocating for integrating the agrifood systems agenda within a top-level crosscutting ministry (e.g. the Office of the Prime Minister) may also help address siloing in government.

Whether through formal structures, joint planning processes, aligned budgeting or informal relationship building, the key is to create space to move from fragmented responsibilities to a shared agenda, facilitating the greater policy coherence required for agrifood systems transformation.

Any effort to engage with people, groups and institutions that have conflicting interests starts with recognizing that tension and conflict is almost inevitable due to differences in personalities, priorities, power and values. The key is to create safe spaces for dialogue where people can share their views openly and listen to others. This will help uncover interconnections and build mutual understanding. This approach benefits from including often marginalized groups, such as women, youth and Indigenous Peoples. Rights-based approaches offer practical guidance for such engagement.

When trust is low, a neutral broker can convene actors and facilitate discussions. Creating a sense of urgency around shared problems can also motivate collaboration. Making divergent views explicit, encouraging people who experience marginalization to speak and managing debate constructively prevents disagreements from derailing progress. Building coalitions and formal platforms helps align actions over time, and empowering underrepresented voices facilitates fairness and trust. Ultimately, engagement means fostering inclusive dialogue, managing conflict constructively and building shared accountability so that all perspectives are reflected in decisions. This approach increases support for system-wide change.

Agrifood systems transformation is not a matter of changing everything, everywhere, all at once. It means solving a particular problem more effectively while “doing no harm” to other parts of the agrifood system – and potentially addressing other problems at the same time. For this approach to be effective, it is important to consider the key relationships that might be affected by any decisions.

This process can help identify what else needs to change, trade-offs and unintended consequences, and co-benefits and synergies, as the following examples show:

• What else needs to change. Recognizing the relationship between producers and consumers, for example, could help decision-makers seeking to promote increased consumption of fruit and vegetables, see that lowering the retail prices of fruits and vegetables will be more sustainable and effective if steps are taken to support producer livelihoods. Similarly, a consideration of the relationship between agrifood systems and interrelated systems could reveal, for example, that in addition to reducing prices, it is necessary to improve convenience and the reliability of household energy supplies, so families have the means to prepare and store fruit and vegetables. Without accounting for these relationships, decisions risk creating unintended consequences and achieving only limited impacts.
• Trade-offs and unintended consequences. Recognizing the relationship between specific practices in agrifood systems and the outcomes they influence can help decision-makers anticipate ripple effects. For example, a decision to enhance food safety or make production more sustainable might unintentionally increase labour demands on women, negatively affecting gender equality. Alternatively, a decision to maximize the fish catch of a particular species might destabilize the underpinning ecosystem. Understanding these trade-offs early enables decision-makers to design solutions that minimize harm while still achieving their primary goals.
• Co-benefits and synergies. Similarly, recognizing the relationship between different spaces, places and jurisdictional levels can help decision-makers design interventions that deliver multiple benefits. For instance, a well-designed public procurement programme in an urban area can improve child diets and gender equality locally, while also supporting farmer livelihoods in surrounding rural territories. Considering these spatial and governance-level connections allows decision-makers to maximize impact and create win-win solutions across the system.

Agrifood systems transformation requires shifting from assessing problems in isolation to co-creating evidence on interconnections – anticipating ripple effects, trade-offs and synergies before implementing policies. A number of tools can support this process:

• system mapping (e.g. FAO's Solutions-Tree toolkit for forestry in Dupong et al., 2025);
• assessments of the hidden costs of agrifood systems based on True Cost Accounting (FAO, 2024);
• strategic foresight (e.g. The Future of Food and Agriculture report (FAO, 2018); Alexandrova-Stefanova et al. (2024); and the FAO Food Safety Foresight programme);
• applied general equilibrium economic modelling (e.g. FAO's Policy Optimization Tool [PolOpT] and the MIRAGRODEP model).

Combining these tools can offer a holistic but consistent approach, as demonstrated in the Global Roadmap for Achieving SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5°C threshold (FAO, 2023).

By using these methods, decision-makers can better align interventions with the broader system, adapt policies as learning emerges and ensure that actions contribute to multiple outcomes rather than creating new problems.

A trade-off is a competition between different objectives in a decision-making situation, where pursuing one objective will diminish achievement of other objectives (IPCC, 2022). Trade-offs can occur within the agrifood system – such as decisions on water allocations between crop irrigation or aquaculture – or between the agrifood system and other systems. In all cases, navigating trade-offs requires a systems approach that helps decision-makers move beyond single-issue solutions and manage competing priorities and power dynamics in a transparent manner. Successfully navigating these trade-offs will involve the following:

• Make trade-offs visible through systems knowledge. Demonstrate through evidence how actions aimed at one goal, such as increasing productivity, may affect other objectives, such as environmental sustainability or gender equality. Considering these trade‑offs openly and transparently is part of effective systems governance. Decision‑makers also need evidence on how actions within the agrifood system affect other systems, such as forests and the wider natural environment. A range of methods can support this analysis, including (Bayesian) modelling, systems diagrams, expert elicitation and participatory processes. The key relationships in agrifood systems identified by FAO can help guide the choice of which interactions and trade‑offs to examine.
• Move from knowledge to systems doing. Design and implement actions that deliberately manage and mitigate trade-offs while maximizing co-benefits. For instance, strategies to expand agricultural production can integrate soil suitability mapping to avoid deforestation, while pairing large-scale investments with dedicated credit lines for smallholders to ensure equitable livelihoods. Similarly, measures to protect marine ecosystems – such as seasonal or spatial restrictions on resource use – can be combined with support for alternative income sources and short-term financing to balance environmental goals with economic and social needs.
• Strengthen systems governance. Ensure that the right people – including marginalized groups who often bear unintended consequences – are involved in discussions about trade-offs and their mitigation. Youth, women, farmers, fishers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities are key stakeholders. Inclusive governance builds trust and fairness in decision-making. Neglecting power imbalances and the voices of affected groups perpetuates competing interests and inequalities. The right to food provides a normative reference to ensure that trade-offs are addressed in a manner that protects minimum standards, prevents regression and prioritizes those most at risk of food insecurity.

By tracking outcomes across multiple goals, engaging diverse perspectives and adapting based on learning, trade-offs can be managed more fairly and effectively. This approach ensures that short-term gains do not undermine long-term system resilience or inclusion.

A shared vision about the intended outcomes of agrifood systems is a prerequisite for effective monitoring. Once this is established, progress needs to be tracked across all intended outcomes, rather than focusing on a single dimension.

Monitoring requires two complementary types of indicators.

• Outcome indicators measure long‑term results. These include improvements in diets, environmental sustainability, jobs, gender equality and inclusion in decision‑making processes. They reveal whether the agrifood system is delivering the desired outcomes over time. To assess performance and identify progress on persistent challenges over longer periods, countries are increasingly using tools such as national and local food systems dashboards, supported by initiatives like the Food Systems Countdown Initiative (Schneider et al., 2023).
• Systems‑change indicators track whether policies and interventions are having an impact on the functioning of agrifood systems. They look beyond outputs, monitoring changes in decision‑making processes, use of knowledge, power relations and collaboration across sectors. For example, FAO's Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) includes indicators on empowerment and peer learning as part of an overall assessment of whether agroecological transitions generate interconnected social, economic and environmental benefits. Similarly, FAO's SHARP+ tool integrates indicators on collaboration with multiple suppliers as part of its assessment of farm‑level resilience. These types of indicators provide "signals" of systems change, helping guide adjustments to policies and interventions during implementation as lessons emerge. Organizing systems change indicators around the six elements of a systems approach – systems thinking, systems knowledge, systems governance, systems doing, systems investment and systems learning – provides a consistent framework for monitoring progress.

Defining indicators needs to be accompanied by a robust monitoring system to regularly update indicators and collect data. Such a system supports evidence‑based decision‑making and enables collective learning and adaptation as programmes and projects unfold.