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A number of voices are converging in an urgent call for global action to fundamentally reform the world鈥檚 food system, given climbing rates of food insecurity, diet-related disease, and environmental degradation due to food production[i] [ii] [iii]. As analysts have shown, the costs of the global food system outweigh the total value produced. According to a report published last year by the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC), persistent hunger, under and malnutrition, diet-related disease as well as loss of biodiversity, environmental damage and climate change associated with the current food system costs the world fifteen trillion US dollars a year - more than what the system itself contributes to global GDP[iv]. Eleven trillion of these unaccounted costs are related to healthcare, with the balance associated with environmental impacts related to food production, processing, distribution, and packaging.

October 16^th is . This date, celebrated annually, commemorates the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945. The theme this year is 鈥淗and in Hand for Better Foods and a Better Future鈥� with a vision for a peaceful, sustainable and food-secure world. As Noble Laureate Amartya Sen demonstrated in his study of the Great Bengal Famine, and as shown by many others since, armed conflict is one of the biggest drivers of hunger and malnutrition[v] . It鈥檚 not that the world doesn鈥檛 produce enough food to feed our current population[vi]. Resolving food insecurity is a question of access, poverty reduction, and entitlements.

Full cost accounting of the current food-system

The figures on food insecurity in Canada 鈥� a wealthy country 鈥� are staggering. 鈥淚n 2024, 25.5% of people in the ten provinces lived in a food-insecure household. That amounts to approximately 10 million people, including 2.5 million children, living in households that struggled to afford the food they need鈥�[vii]. Furthermore, the healthcare costs associated with diet-related disease in Canada is estimated at nearly [viii]. Much of this affects children. For example, less than one third of Canadian children consume the required amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables[ix] and over-consume highly and ultra highly processed foods, including sugary drinks[x].

, 10% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions are from crop and livestock production, excluding emissions from the use of fossil fuels or from fertilizer production (emphasis added). A recent report from IPES-Food stipulates that food systems consume 40% of all petrochemicals and 15% of fossil fuels[xi]. Add to that, packaging 鈥� much of which is made of plastic 鈥� leads to biodiversity loss, contamination of water resources and the devastating impacts to human, animal and environmental health.

To make matters worse, at least one third of the food produced in the world goes to waste, whether we consider post-harvest losses in the Global South or food that gets thrown out at the grocery store and within food service (restaurants, cafeterias, etc.) in the Global North. As many authors argue, we are on an unsustainable trajectory unless radical change takes hold now. One study estimates that transforming food systems 鈥渨ould provide economic benefits equivalent to at least five trillion USD a year鈥� around the world, in addition to the lives improved from better nutrition and saved outright starvation and diet-related disease[xii].

Figure 1- Net Economic Benefits of Food System Transformation Compared to Current Trends (Ruggeri Laderchi et. al. 2024, p. 62)

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The Blueprint for Change and Related Economic Benefits

There are a variety of pathways toward transformation. To begin, we 鈥� the wealthy - could change diets to eat less processed foods and items lower on the food chain, namely more fruits and vegetables, while avoiding excessive sugar, salt, and saturated fat. "Global convergence towards healthy diets would contribute as much as 70% of the total economic benefits of pursuing the Food System Transformation pathway through direct effects on dietary health and indirect impacts on the environment鈥�[xiii]. Adopting such a 鈥減lanetary health diet鈥� is consistent with the . Other recommendations for reform include supporting small farmers, protecting arable and forested land, investing in infrastructure, and shifting to environmentally sustainable production resulting in the food-system becoming a net carbon sink. These investments are modest compared to the economic benefits and the price tag associated with a failure to act.

Last month, the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) issued their report entitled Building Resilient Food Systems. The panel鈥檚 approach, rooted in governance, policy, and values to achieve, is based on similar objectives to those put forward by the Food Systems Economics Commission. The Panel鈥檚 work centres human rights and dignity, protecting nature, and building the capacity of the most vulnerable, but also puts added emphasis on crises and shocks such as armed conflict and pandemics, which deeply affect the food-system. The panel鈥檚 recommendations and associated Theory of Change (depicted below in Figure 2) is based on four core themes, namely: governance and policy coherence; emergency preparedness, contingency planning and foresight; diverse systems for equitably transformative resilience; and knowledge systems and processes[xiv] .

Figure 2 - Equitably Transformative Resilience in Food Systems: Theory of Change (HLPE-FSN 2025, p. xviii)

Against this backdrop of increased global attention to food systems, how can Canada respond? What are some of the strengths and vulnerabilities in our own food systems governance and policy? Will the Government of Canada step up in the next federal budget to build on some of the modest, yet significant investments made over the last 10 years such as the - including 鈥溾�� labelling - the and the ? While the Carney government its intention to make the National School Food Program permanent[xv], funding support for this initiative is still inadequate.

This is the moment for smart economic and social policy around the world with respect to food systems transformation. Such transformation is critical to the advancement of the , which all UN Member States, including Canada, have committed. Our country has a historic opportunity to invest boldly in a transformed food future, by demonstrating the global leadership necessary to achieve zero hunger, improved human, environmental and animal health, underscored and facilitated by significant economic benefits.

About the Author

Gis猫le Yasmeen, Ph.D. is a JW McConnell Professor of Practice for 2025-26 at the Max Bell School for Public Policy, 秀色直播.