About this Research Topic

Background

Food systems are at a critical crossroads, confronting multiple biophysical, social-economic and ethical challenges, including climate change emissions and impacts, environmental degradation, loss of biological and cultural diversity, malnutrition and negative public health outcomes, social inequality, exploitation of human labor and non-human animals, and longstanding food insecurity at the national and international level. The United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a framework of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at addressing these social and ecological externalities and building a more healthy, resilient, equitable, and sustainable world for all.

The food and agriculture sector has a direct or indirect influence on 13 of the 17 UN SDGs; transformation of the food system is both urgent and essential to realize these goals by 2030. To mitigate and adapt to climate destabilization and reach the SDGs, rapid development of new intellectual infrastructure and global innovation is acutely needed to advance and scale integrated and transdisciplinary research, education, extension, planning, implementation, policy, and governance, along with the scientific monitoring and evaluation to inform the adaptive management of sustainable food systems through time.

This Research Topic will focus on the centrality of food system transformation in achieving the UN SDGs, as well as the key strategies, models, opportunities and obstacles associated with this process. We welcome international submissions on a broad range of topics in the form of research articles, case studies, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, policy and practice reviews, perspective and opinion pieces related to sustainable food systems and the realization of the UN SDGs. The Research Topic invites submissions that address the social, scientific, political, economic and institutional drivers of food system transformation leading to the realization of the UN SDGs.

Topics may include, but are not limited to the following:
● Agroecological and biologically diversified farming systems and their contributions to the realization of the UN SDGs;
● Innovative food system governance for the realization of the SDGs;
● Food system public policy and private sector investment for the realization of the SDGs;
● Research methods, models and social processes of developing (qualitative and quantitative) food system indicators and metric systems to measure progress toward the realization of the UN SDGs;
● City, state, regional or national level food system planning and implementation, monitoring and evaluation and the UN SDGs;
● Biocultural restoration and indigenous foodways as means to the realization of the UN SDGs;
● Food justice, social equity and the UN SDGs;
● Climate de/stabilization, food and farming system resilience, and the realization of the UN SDGs;
● Social and educational processes for normalizing the UN SDGs framework within state, regional municipal food system transformation initiatives;
● Technological innovation and digital infrastructure for realizing food and agriculture related UN SDGs.
● University research agendas needed to support the realization of food and agriculture-related UN SDGs;
● Post-secondary food systems education and student core competencies for realizing food and agriculture related UN SDGs.

We invite the submission of original articles that offer new insights, data and perspectives on food system transformation and the SDGs, as well as case studies that demonstrate replicable and scalable sustainable food system practices and initiatives. By bringing together interdisciplinary research and practice, this Topic will provide a platform for knowledge exchange, collaboration, and collective action toward building healthy, equitable, resilient and sustainable food systems for all.

Keywords: Adaptation, Resilience, Social-ecological Systems, Transformation, Mitigation, Food Systems, Food System Governance, Sustainable Finance, SDGs

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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