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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Social Movements, Institutions and Governance
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1489266
This article is part of the Research Topic Regenerative Agriculture and Support in Changing Policy Environments: Farmers’ Rights, Contract Farming, and Navigating towards Sustainable Practices View all 6 articles

Public sector involvement in non-state governances for sustainable food systems -a biodiversity perspective

Provisionally accepted
Talia Shalom Talia Shalom 1,2*Tamar Dayan Tamar Dayan 3Eran Feitelson Eran Feitelson 4
  • 1 Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • 2 School of Zoology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • 3 The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • 4 Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The extensive use of natural resources in agri-food systems has widespread effects on biodiversity. Policies advanced to address these effects have largely failed to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss significantly. Current strategies for biodiversity and sustainable food systems increasingly advance two modes of non-governmental governance, Multi-Stakeholder Initiative (MSI) and Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS), among their key policy tools. In this paper, we analyze public-private VSS and MSI governances related to biodiversity enhancement and discuss how and whether they have shaped the ground for the wide-scale use of MSIs and VSSs as suggested in post-2020 strategies. Our analysis highlights the importance of governments’ commitment to biodiversity enhancement as a prerequisite for effective and robust governance. We also emphasize the need for innovative regulation to supervise and advance various VSS and MSI simultaneously. Our findings indicate that up to 2020, governments' main motivations for being involved in food governance were the advancement of food safety regulation or economic development rather than biodiversity enhancement. Accordingly, public involvement in VSS and MSI at the global scale does not necessarily provide rigorous biodiversity protection. In 2020, the EU established a comprehensive strategy for biodiversity and integrated its three-decades-long engagement with organic farming into it as a policy tool. This policy has diffused to local European food policy councils. However, the capital-intensive boost in a single VSS, leaves other biodiversity-oriented initiatives without substantive governmental support.

    Keywords: Biodiversity Enhancement, post-2020 strategies, strengthening VSSs and MSIs, governmental involvement, sustainable food systems issues Font: Aptos Display, 12 pt, Complex Script Font: 12 pt Font: Aptos Display, Complex Script Font: 12 pt Nesadurai

    Received: 31 Aug 2024; Accepted: 06 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Shalom, Dayan and Feitelson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Talia Shalom, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

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