Research

INTRODUCTION

Food systems offer an important and urgent lever of change as societies face and tackle multiple sustainability challenges. Calls for food systems transformations abound in the literature, from peer-reviewed research to the diverse abundance of reports and publications from international and governmental organizations, advocacy groups, etc. (IPES-Food 2015, Gordon et al. 2017, HLPE 2017, Willett et al. 2019, FOLU 2019, Fanzo et al. 2020, FAO et al. 2020, Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition 2020, WWF 2020, Slater et al. 2022). The recognition of food systems as levers of change, especially in relation to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals has recently gained particular attention as evidenced by international initiatives such as the United Nations Food Systems Summit. Despite critiques and the coexistence of diverse viewpoints (Jonas 2021), this attention has helped highlight both the urgency and opportunities for transformative action within food systems across all societal sectors and scales (from households to nations, from governments to industry and academia).

Within the research literature, the interest in food systems as a unit of analysis (Ericksen 2008) and a locus of purposive change has been growing over the last three decades (Weber et al. 2020). In 1994, a paper by Kenneth Dahlberg, published in the journal Futures, called for a transition to regenerative food systems as a way to tackle emergent societal threats such as climate change, pollution, energy inefficiency, ecosystem collapse, livestock and human population increase, loss of bicultural diversity, economic inequality, social justice, and inclusion issues. The article states that the actions needed to generate large transformations of industrial agriculture, include a decolonization and restructure of industrial agriculture, the support and preservation of indigenous and traditional food systems, and a major value shift that involves adopting systems approaches and a health (rather than productivity) evaluation criteria. This conceptualization implies a particular theory of change that may have been ahead of its time three decades ago, but is particularly poignant now. A theory of change, following Thornton et al. (2017), refers to a description in the form of a hypothesis of how change is expected and planned to come about (from design, actions, outputs, and outcomes), which typically also includes making the assumptions behind such strategy and its effectiveness explicit. In Dalhberg’s argument, change should be developed using systemic approaches, constitute a change in values or paradigm (which determine what outcomes or impacts are seen to be desirable), and offer a reconfiguration of structures of production, distribution, trade, and consumption that moves away from the hegemonic industrialized food system while it integrates and is sensitive to diversity: perspectives/worldviews, knowledge types, and ecosystems. Although this argument was very clear then, the current state of the myriad food systems-related concerns and the increasing calls for their transformation seems to suggest not much progress has been made (Fanzo et al. 2020, Slater et al. 2022).

As happens with many sustainability-related buzzwords (see Paehlke 2005, Davoudi et al. 2012) certain trendy terms are adopted and co-opted to the point of becoming vague or empty of meaning. The term food system transformation has been used to imply and suggest very different types of change: from mere reformation and adaptations to radical and deep overhauls (Slater et al. 2022). Oftentimes, change refers to very different types of outcomes or goals, which are in turn enabled via different strategies based on how the problems are framed, either as a technical or political challenge (e.g., solutions are suggested to range from technology-driven to governance or paradigm change). Importantly, answers to questions about how to change (strategies), or change from what to what (goals and desired outcomes) and by whom (agents of change) are not always made explicit. In a review of the most common theories of change within food systems transformation, Weber et al. (2020) have identified five divergent approaches in the scholarly literature, suggesting interventions and strategies oriented to sustainable diets, food as commons, sustainable agriculture, alternative food movements, or healthy and diverse societies. Although overlaps between these areas of focus do exist, synergies and trade-offs need to be considered carefully to avoid unintended impacts and ensure desired outcomes (Stefanovic et al. 2020). Another layer of complexity is found when looking at the terms adopted to describe change; some examples include shift, deep change, transformation, or transition among others.

Since the recognition that work on food systems demands systems-based approaches and special attention to outcomes (Ericksen 2008), part of the literature has integrated either socio-technical transitions (Geels 2002) or social-ecological transformations (Olsson et al. 2014) theories. These refer to two distinct academic communities that have developed theories to explain change in complex systems based on different, but overlapping, disciplinary backgrounds. Recently, these theories have become closer and some scholars argue that they offer complementary views (Hölscher et al. 2018). Within the food system change literature, Weber et al. (2020) confirms that both concepts are used, but oftentimes without a clarification of the type of change process the term refers to. Still, not all the literature on food systems change adopts approaches that are sensitive to systemic features such as complexity, uncertainty, feedback loops, emergence, and trade-offs. In addition, food systems are not always seen as the coupling of social/institutional and natural systems with connections that span across levels and spatial and temporal scales (Ericksen 2008). It is recognized that beyond the complex local and global dynamics, various contextual features are key determinants of change: local needs, resources, priorities, and interests (Stefanovic et al. 2020, Dengerink et al. 2021). Because interactions and trade-offs deserve special attention, siloed approaches (e.g., by focus area, sector, or discipline) that do not engage the politics of change or that propose singular solutions are seen as limited (Hubeau et al. 2017, Lamine 2018, Anderson and Leach 2019). This brief overview highlights how change in relation to food systems is a very elusive and often unclear concept, which complements the fact that food systems themselves are understood in multiple ways within the research community (Leeuwis et al. 2021).

The urgency to move from theory to action prompts us to outline the current state of the field and its evolution, especially in contrast with Dahlberg’s seminal work. New insights on how food system change is conceptualized today could help clarify and navigate an often fuzzy field, outlining how concepts are used, the different theories of change that are implied, and how, if at all, food system transformations or transitions can be defined. Our synthesis presents the results of a semi-systematic review that confirms and expands previous work while mapping out the most prevalent literature and theoretical contributions made in the last three decades. The following sections describe the methodology and criteria adopted, offer the results based on three levels of analysis, and discuss the insights. In our discussion, we propose a novel way to describe this research field while offering signposts for fellow or new researchers to use and build upon.

METHODS

We carried out a semi-systematic review of the scholarly literature on food system transitions and transformations published between 1994 and 2022 (included). This type of review is suited to mapping a particular field (with key contributions, themes, and evolution over time), integrating both quantitative and qualitative results, and allowing a synthesis that can offer insights to new conceptual developments (Snyder 2019, Zunder, 2021). Although the scholarly production on the topic spans across large geographical regions, not all of the publications are written in English or indexed by global databases. To counteract this bias and capture more diverse perspectives, we complemented the English literature with inclusions from Spanish-based databases (indexing publications mainly from Latin America and Spain). All in all, three databases were reviewed: Scopus (English), Dialnet and REDIB (Spanish). The search string used in Scopus (and replicated manually in the Spanish databases) focused on key terms (food system/s, transition/s, and transformation/s) in either article titles and/or keywords. This choice focused on capturing the key (though not all) research literature theorizing food system transformation from systemic perspectives. Therefore, the exclusion criteria included filtering out unrelated subject areas (e.g., food chemistry, processing, neurology, and physics) or source formats (e.g., theses). Refer to Appendix 1 for details on search string, process, and filtering criteria. Results were merged and screened for consistency of criteria. Duplicates were removed (favoring Scopus records for data consistency if duplicated) and one article was manually added. Spanish publication titles and keywords were translated to English by the authors when a translation was not available.

To fulfill the aims of understanding how the food system transformation/transition field has evolved and what the key theoretical contributions have been in the last three decades, our analysis of the data was divided in three phases and sub-aims (with three corresponding Datasets), moving from quantitative to qualitative insights (see flowchart figure in Appendix 1): (1) generating statistical insights from the overall literature landscape (e.g., origin/authorship, journals, publication distribution); (2) mapping the thematic trends and evolution of the debate; and (3) identification of the main theoretical contributions and frameworks. An individual dataset was generated and is available for each phase.

The filtering process for each dataset was developed as follows. The first dataset includes 410 articles both in English and Spanish that matched the search and inclusion/exclusion criteria but does not discriminate on type of publication. For the second dataset, 102 research articles were considered after removing conference papers, books, book chapters, and other non-research article types (e.g., letters, editorials). During this phase, abstracts were screened to capture main themes of interest and generate a timeline of the evolution of the debate throughout the last three decades. The third dataset included 46 papers that, based on the abstract screening, suggested potential theoretical or definitional contributions. These publications were read in full to identify new theories, frameworks and gain a better understanding of the approaches, theories of change, and terms adopted. Filtering and clustering criteria was discussed and agreed amongst the three authors. A caveat is that in the case of contributions from Spanish databases, we restricted the inclusion criteria to the same search terms as in English to better grasp the theoretical and conceptual space on equivalent terms and because of limitations of the indexing platforms. We acknowledge that different terms or concepts are often adopted but may not always refer to the type of phenomena or approaches that are within the scope of this work (refer to Appendix 1 for more details). We still integrate prominent contributions throughout the discussion (and when noted) if not captured by the inclusion criteria.

RESULTS

1. Statistical insights of the literature landscape

In order to understand the main characteristics of the literature landscape referring to food systems change, we first present the results from our statistical analysis based on a total of 410 articles (Dataset 1) with publications spanning between 1994 and 2022. Results report the quantitative insights based on three lenses: (1) the number of publications per year (see Fig. 1), (2) the geographical spread of publications based on corresponding authors’ country of affiliation (see Fig. 2), and (3) the most prominent journals in which articles are published (see Table 1).

Looking at the publication trends within the roughly three decades between 1994 and 2022, a sharp and almost continuous rise was noticed after 2015 (going from less than 10 to 20 or more publications per year), with a particular spike from 2019 onward (an average of more than 40 publications per year). In 2021 alone, the total number of publications that matched our search criteria reached 104 and in 2022, the total was 46 (including research articles, reviews, editorials, notes, and even surveys). Of the total of publications, 90% (367) were published in the last 7 years since 2015, leaving 43 publications (10%) within the 1994–2014 20-year span where the average was between 0 to 4 publications per year except for 2013 and 2014 (7 and 10 publications, respectively).

In terms of geographic spread of publications, our results highlight a strong prominence of authorship based in the Global North, especially based at North American or European institutions. Figure 2 shows a map that highlights the number of articles by country of affiliation declared by the corresponding authors. This majority includes, for example, 78 articles with leading authors from the United States, followed by the Netherlands (37), Italy, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, France, Spain, Finland, Sweden, and Belgium (with a range of 29 to 12 articles). On the contrary, the lowest representation of corresponding authors is recorded mainly from countries from the Global South (with some exceptions like China, South Africa, and Brazil that are relatively well represented). For example, three or less articles were registered with leading authors from countries such as Indonesia, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Kenya, Ghana, Uruguay, and Chile, with most Least Developed Countries not being represented through leading authors at all. We note that many publications do have co-authorship representation based in different countries. The map in Figure 3 shows the total number of articles in which a country is registered based on the full authorship list. We found that a high representation of authors are still based in the United States (more than 100 articles), followed by the Netherlands, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom (between 60 and 70 each). Countries least represented in the authors list were mainly based in Latin America (Nicaragua, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile), Africa (Cameroon, Senegal, Uganda, Nigeria), the Middle East (Lebanon, Israel, Russia), and Asia (India, Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia; Fig. 3). The differences in the maps confirm that collaboration between authors based in the Global North and South do exist, but in most cases, authors based at institutions in a few Global North countries take the lead or act as corresponding authors. Notice that the country refers to the institutional location and not the country of origin or location of an author. It is also important to note that although some countries were registered as being represented by at least an author in the full author list (Fig. 3), some countries had no authorship representation in the literature whatsoever (shown in white in Figs. 1 and 2). Some examples are Bolivia, Ecuador, Algeria, Iran, Mongolia, and Papua New Guinea, and include some of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) like Angola or Sierra Leone. At the same time, some LDC were represented in the authorship list, but not as corresponding authors (e.g., Ethiopia represented in 3 publications, and Bangladesh in 1).

In terms of dissemination, the top 10 journals in which the majority of the literature was published include Sustainability with 37 publications, and was then followed by: Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (19), Food Security (17), and Agriculture and Human Values (17). Other journals, with fewer publications include: Nature Food, a new journal, (13), Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (11), Ecology and Society (9), or Food Policy (7). Journals from the Spanish databases with the most publications include Revista agroalimentaria (4) and Agroecología (3). Popularity of a journal may have been dependent on aspects such as publication fees, impact factor, thematic alignment, and importantly, journal trajectory. For example, the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (listing 14 publications) has been around for no more than a decade, whereas Agriculture and Human Values (17) has existed for more than 30 years. Please refer to Table 1 for more details.

2. Evolution of the debate and key themes

The second layer of analysis of the literature landscape focused on identifying the main thematic trends or areas of focus, as well as mapping out how the debate within the field has evolved. A second and smaller dataset of articles (N = 102) was used for this analysis, which included the screening of abstracts and keyword lists (Fig. 4 for a graphic timeline). It was possible to notice some key theoretical contributions as well as important synthesis and review articles. This review of the last three decades of published research referring to food system transitions or transformations rendered several key insights when looking at the differences and similarities between decades.

In the first decade (1994–2004) after Dahlberg’s (1994) paper arguing for the regeneration of food systems as a means to transition to a post-fossil-fuel era, no other key publications potentially shaping the field appeared until Busch and Bain (2004). These authors offer an analysis on how the global agri-food system is transformed based on changes to international regulations and the role of the private sector. The second decade (2005–2014) was marked by the first explicit call for a connection between food system change and transitions theory (Hinrichs 2014), an interest in focusing on local food system change, mainly based on community initiatives or via social movements (Block et al. 2008), as well as the prominence of the promotion of agroecology and food sovereignty discourses in direct opposition to corporate agri-food business dominance (Gliessman et al. 2007, Holt-Giménez and Shattuck 2009, Sage 2014). In addition, Holt-Giménez and Shattuck (2009) offer an analysis showing the impacts, tensions, and challenges through the interplay between changes in agrofuels (e.g., land use, prioritization of certain crops, price fluctuation) and food system outcomes.

The third span (2015–2022) encompasses the vast majority (roughly 90%) of the literature produced altogether (in Dataset 1) and 92% of the literature within Dataset 2. We break down results in two sections to allow for a detailed look (please refer to the zoomed-in section in Fig. 4). For the range between 2015 and 2018, we identified a prevalence of publications applying transition theory and the opportunities and limitations of its analytical tools to food systems. Examples include a focus on social practices and in niche/regime interactions (Cohen and Ilieva 2015, Bui et al. 2016). During this period, a stronger political agenda is noticeable with the continuation of the discourse promoting the upscaling of agroecology as a sustainable alternative model of production, consumption, and governance (Bellamy and Ioris 2017, de Molina et al. 2017, Miles et al. 2017), in addition to food sovereignty and food citizenship (Davila and Dyball 2015, Sumner 2015). An emerging theme during this phase refers to the connection between food system change and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; Campbell et al. 2018, Caron et al. 2018), several publications addressing aspects related to planning, especially in urban areas, as well as processes of change based on policies (Pitt and Jones 2016, Battersby 2017).

The final group (2019–2022), depicts a continuation of some of the previous trends plus the introduction of new topics of focus. Importantly, this 4-year range includes 74 papers, or more than half of the total number of publications, revised within this subset. Agroecology continues to appear as a key discourse (Kerr 2020, López-García 2020, Sandhu 2021), with particular attention to territorialization and land stewardship (Rastoin 2020, Yacamán-Ochoa and García-Llorente 2020, Passaro and Randelli 2022). The application of transition theory to agri-food systems becomes very prominent (Bui et al. 2019, El Bilali 2019, Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2019, Bui 2021, Leeuwis et al. 2021, Groot-Kormelinck et al. 2022, Lonkila and Kaljonen 2022, Mattioni et al. 2022) and is accompanied by a strong argument for the need for systemic and transdisciplinary as opposed to siloed approaches (Anderson and Leach 2019, Den Boer et al. 2021, Hebinck et al. 2021, Vilas-Boas et al. 2022). In complementarity, there is an interest in bottom-up/community-led or social-innovation processes as in the case of living labs or other multi-stakeholder processes (Anderson et al. 2019, Gamache et al. 2020, Nicol and Taherzadeh 2020, Pereira et al. 2020, Jonas 2021, Sandhu 2021, Herens et al. 2022) as well as the role of networks such as alternative food networks or other forms of governance platforms (Passaro and Randelli 2022, Reckinger 2022). Also, there is a stress on participatory processes that may be inclusive of otherwise less powerful actors and knowledge systems, e.g., indigenous peoples (Anderson and Leach 2019, Pereira et al. 2020, Argumedo et al. 2021, Dinesh et al. 2021, Carolan 2022). This marks the strong emergence of a key topic of interest related to social justice: just transitions (Lamine et al. 2019, Huttunen et al. 2022, Kuhmonen and Siltaoja 2022, Tschersich and Kok 2022, Maluf et al. 2023), power imbalances, agency, governance, and justice in governance (Anderson et al. 2019, Béné 2022, Jani et al. 2022, Mattioni et al. 2022, Säumel et al. 2022). There is also the recognition of accounting for differences based on local or contextual features and needs (Brouwer et al. 2021, Dengerink et al. 2021, Lonkila and Kaljonen 2022). A few case studies, with reports from the Global-South or comparisons across regions or scales are published as well (Muñoz Torres et al. 2022, Plassnig et al. 2022, Säumel et al. 2022, Tovar Zerpa and Rojas López 2022, Vilas-Boas et al. 2022, Maluf et al. 2023, also Juri et al. 2022 in Dataset 1).


Finally, a series of reviews are published that look into research gaps (El Bilali 2019, van Bers et al. 2019), the types of leverage points addressed by food system interventions (Dorninger et al. 2020), the different approaches or themes in food system change (Weber et al. 2020), the differences in food system outcomes prioritized (Stefanovic et al. 2020), and a synthesis of theories of change co-existent in the literature (Dinesh et al. 2021). In addition, Rodríguez Peñaguirre and González-Arellano (2022) review the literature on sustainable food cities to identify the main food system features (with literature in English and Spanish) and Guimarães et al. (2022) analyze the sustainability of global value chains and their governance while also pointing to gaps and future research.

3. Theoretical contributions and main frameworks

The final layer of analysis developed was based on the third dataset of articles (N = 46) published between 2014 and 2022. It involved a full review of each paper as a way to identify the main theoretical contributions, perspectives, and theories of change adopted, and analytical frameworks or models proposed. Before we present the synthesis of the main theories identified, it is important to highlight how food system change is described.

Terms and definitions adopted

Change in relation to food systems is described by the use of very different terms: fundamental transformation/change (Pitt and Jones 2016, Anderson et al. 2019, Käyhkö et al. 2020, Mattioni et al. 2022, Tschersich and Kok 2022), reconfiguration of regime or socio-technical system (Cohen and Ilieva 2015, Bui et al. 2016, Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2019, Leeuwis et al. 2021), deep change (Caron et al. 2018, Pereira et al. 2020, Weber et al. 2020), profound reconfiguration (Bui 2021), regime change or shift (Hinrichs 2014, Pereira et al. 2020, Bui 2021), and as radical/dramatic change (Busch and Bain 2004, Caron et al. 2018, Anderson et al. 2019, Ruben et al. 2021; see list of terms adopted in Appendix 3). The meanings associated to such terms at times offer a direct link to the theories from which they are based (e.g., regime shifts), but also serve to stress the magnitude of change. Following this, transformative change in this scholarly literature is mainly understood to refer to a significant shift (e.g., radical, deep, fundamental) as opposed to incremental or adaptive change. Caron and colleagues (2018) and Béné (2022) are explicit about this difference. The aim of these transformations, regime shifts, is to intentionally move away from the current industrialized model that constitutes the status quo (e.g., Hubeau et al. 2017, Anderson et al. 2019, Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2019, Pereira et al. 2020, Leeuwis et al. 2021, Béné 2022, Holtkamp and van Mierlo 2022). In the Spanish results, especially the literature that refers to “agroecological transitions,” there is strong opposition to the industrial and globalized agri-food system. The goal of such transitions is to explicitly move to an “alternative” model (Yacamán-Ochoa and García-Llorente 2020, also de Molina et al. 2017 and López-García et al. 2018 in Dataset 2). In the English literature, Reckinger (2022) also speaks of alternative food systems in the context of what she calls, “value-based territorial food networks” (e.g., short food supply chains, civic food networks, or alternative food networks).

Regarding the theories adopted, over half of the contributions (21) in Dataset 3 explicitly align with theories on transitions (e.g., Hinrichs 2014, Cohen and Ilieva 2015, Bui et al. 2019, Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2019, Felici and Mazzocchi 2022, Mattioni et al. 2022), then followed by five linking to transformations theories (e.g., Eakin et al. 2017, Pereira et al. 2020) and at least five that use both (Anderson 2015, Anderson et al. 2019, Yacamán-Ochoa and García-Llorente 2020, Vilas-Boas et al. 2022). However, some authors adopt both terms without discrimination or definition (e.g., Caron et al. 2018; Käyhkö et al. 2020) or do not use systems-based language or references (e.g., Sumner 2015, Caron et al. 2018, Argumedo et al. 2021). In Spanish, it is more common to find references to supply chains or definitions of food systems in relation to their components than their complex dynamics and thus reference to such theories is lacking.

Contributions typically do not offer definitions for the use of the terms food system transition or transformation (roughly 65% of Dataset 3). In most cases, ideas are either implicit or alluded to by defining transition or transformation and contextualizing it in relation to food systems (e.g., Cohen and Ilieva 2015, Bui et al. 2016, Pitt and Jones 2016). Authors that offer more direct descriptions include Pitt and Jones (2016:2) when speaking of transitions related to food systems as a “gradual, pervasive shift from one state or condition to something different” especially concerning sustainable modes of production and consumption. A similar definition is also adopted by Mattioni et al. (2022) referring to long-term and multidimensional processes within socio-technical systems shifts leading to sustainable modes of production and consumption. Also Leeuwis et al. (2021) describe food system transformation as a non-linear and long-term process of competition, negotiation, and reconfiguration, whereas Ruben et al. (2021) state that food systems transformations are interactive processes that need adaptive capacity to be able to adequately respond to unexpected challenges. On the other hand, Pereira et al. (2020) explicitly describe it as a deep change away from the current dominant (global-industrialized) food regime, and Yacamán-Ochoa and García-Llorente (2020) conceptualize agroecology as transformative practices to re-design the agri-food system. This purposive and proactive view is shared by Caron et al. (2018) who speak of transformation as a planned and agreed upon process, and Béné (2022) who highlights the contested (political) and normative (purposive rather than random) nature of food system transformations with the aim of seeking solutions (see Appendix 3 for a list of definitions). We build on these contributions in the discussion.

Theoretical contributions

We now turn to highlighting a series of publications that propose significant theoretical contributions to the food system transformation or transition discourse. This includes papers that articulate an explanation or offer a new lens through which to comprehend, analyze, or act toward this type of change. Key examples of explanations on how to promote food system change include Bui et al. (2016) who describe niche/regime interactions via enrolment and vision alignment, Pitt and Jones (2016) who explain transitions via policy transfers, Bui et al. (2019) who describe food system change via governance and value/paradigm changes (ethics), and also via actor-enrolment and vision alignment (Bui 2021). Later, Reckinger (2022) builds on these ideas to define the umbrella term “value-based territorial food networks.” Eakin et al. (2017) propose telecoupling, or considering interactions between distant social-ecological elements (e.g., actors, institutions, ecosystem services, and functions) as a way to understand and better plan for changes and their impacts. Others focus on the role of intermediaries in driving or supporting change through innovations: Vilas-Boas et al. (2022) explains boundary infrastructures (i.e., boundary objects and institutions that consolidate), Mattioni et al. (2022) focuses on the destabilization strategies developed by regime actors situated at city-level government, and Groot-Kormelinck et al. (2022) speak of the role of producer organizations acting as transition intermediaries. These examples see change as either being top-down driven (or planned for) or happening at the interaction of niches and regimes.

On the other hand, Anderson et al. (2019), describe territorial/bottom-up approaches stemming from multiple transformational domains; and Pereira et al. (2020) explain regime changes fostered via social-ecological innovations. This territorial focus is also part of Reckinger’s (2022) focus on change led by alternative food networks, and Felici and Mazzocchi (2022) who identify relational features and add a new spatial lens to the multi-level perspective, the heuristic tool from transitions theory that conceptualizes change through interactions between three analytical levels (niche, regime, and landscape) and their evolution over time (see Geels 2002). It also appears strongly in the Spanish literature as in Yacamán-Ochoa and García-Llorente (2020) arguing for land stewardship and cooperative approaches. These theories are explicit about a bottom-up transformational approach often reliant on diverse scaling processes such as scaling out or up as in Felici and Mazzocchi (2022) or upscaling policy tools emergent at a municipal level in Mattioni et al. (2022). An alternative theory other than scaling is proposed by Bui (2021) who describes niche/regime reconfigurations through vision and practice alignment and via the combined effect of multiple but disconnected niches. It is relevant to note that a significant discourse found in the literature, especially in Spanish, is focused on specifically scaling agroecology as in López-García et al. (2018) in Dataset 2.

Regardless of the change strategy (top-down, bottom-up, or hybrid/interaction), various authors agree that the processes should be participatory (López-García et al. 2018, Baldy and Kruse 2019, Käyhkö et al. 2020, Herens et al. 2022), especially involving all stakeholders (Eakin et al. 2017, Hubeau et al. 2017, Caron et al. 2018, Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2019, Käyhkö et al. 2020, Roque et al. 2022), making special effort to include diverse and often excluded voices (Anderson 2015, Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. 2019, Pereira et al. 2020, Argumedo et al. 2021, Carolan 2022, Tschersich and Kok 2022), and spanning across different societal sectors (civil society, industry, government) and levels/scales (Baldy and Kruse 2019, Herens et al. 2022).

An important group of theories is focused on promoting change via governance and participatory platforms that can inform policies or planning. Cohen and Ilieva (2015), for example, propose food system change via the strategic management of social practices led by urban planners and policy makers at city level. Leeuwis et al. (2021) speaks of governance change via a process of synthesis rather than analysis to cope with the impossibility of control and the limits of knowledge when driving complex systems change; and Herens et al. (2022) refer to the potential and limitations of governance change through multi-stakeholder platforms. The shift of attention toward governance is prominent in the contributions from 2022. For example, Tschersich and Kok (2022) and Huttunen et al. (2022) are concerned with the democratization of governance and the forms of participation in the context of just transitions, whereas Säumel et al. (2022) focuses on enhancing governance in urban-rural linkages in the context of shortening supply chains and urban food system transitions. Finally, Béné (2022) reinforces the idea that the possibility for a large transformation is dependent on changes to the governance of food systems, as a way to subvert current lock-ins maintaining the status quo. As perceived before, the discourse and theoretical contributions that integrate a justice lens to the food system transformation space has emerged only recently and is outlined and debated by authors such as Tschersich and Kok (2022) and Carolan (2022). They build from the scholarship on just energy transitions to describe different dimensions of justice and what this means to different decision-making processes. Finally, Tanzer et al. (2022) offer an analysis on the procedural justice and transformative potential of large multilateral platforms such as the 2021 UN Food System Summit. Please refer to Table 2 for a more detailed breakdown of these key contributions.

Other scholarly contributions are particularly explicit about the integration of new concepts or perspectives and the development of novel tools or frameworks. Those that are particularly aimed at planning for change include Hubeau et al. (2017) offering a framework to transform the mainstream food system; Baldy and Kruse (2019) who describe food democracy dimensions especially targeted for participatory planning processes; Käyhkö et al. (2020) who outline a typology of transformative adaptation in the context of climate change decision making; Roque et al. (2022) with a framework to inform the design and implementation of sustainability programs to foster change through plant-based school meals; and Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. (2022) who map networks and identify enablers and barriers to innovation in the context of public food procurement from family farming. Another contribution to practice worth mentioning is offered by López-García et al. (2018; outside of our inclusion criteria) who offer insights for participatory processes’ design in the context of agroecological transitions.

In addition, a series of authors propose new ways to categorize or analyze food system types; these include Anderson (2015) with a typology of food system change domains, Eakin et al. (2017) who offer a typology of telecoupled systems for governance arrangement analysis; Caron et al. (2018) with a framework for the assessment of SDG indicators; Gaitán-Cremaschi et al. (2019) who propose a classification of food systems based on the degrees of alignment with the dominant system. Finally, Felici and Mazzocchi (2022) adapt the multi-level perspective model from transitions theory to the sustainable food system transition context while adding a previously missing spatial scale to it.

Other conceptual propositions include Sumner (2015) articulating the role of food literacy and adult education as a strategy that enhances autonomy and affects food system change, and Argumedo et al. (2021) who propose that food system transformation can be enhanced via an emphasis on the stewardship (conservation, use, and celebration) of food-related biocultural diversity. Please refer to the table in Appendix 2 for a detailed list of frameworks.

DISCUSSION

Theorizing food system transformative change: strategies and goals

Insights from this review complement and expand recent review articles. For example, Stefanovic et al. (2020) identified different framings in relation to food systems change outcomes (from global environmental change, food and nutrition security, food system performance, resilience, or transformation), where these discourses shape the type of change and linked strategies dependending on how problems are understood. Our results also confirm that the strategies or actions proposed depend on the different conceptualization of food systems, the type of goals strived for, and the assumptions held (all in all, the theories of change). For example, when agroecology is seen as the alternative model to transition toward, strategies are mainly bottom-up, place-based, and focused on land stewardship and territorial, participatory governance. Whereas, when aiming to drive transformative change via planning or policy changes (at city, national, or global scales), more top-down approaches (often participatory) and tools are proposed.

Importantly, various and especially the more recent contributions offer more nuanced or hybrid approaches that transcend what Wood et al. (2023) call the “dichotomy of scale” on conceptualizing change as either bottom-up or top-down. Increasingly, there is an interest in focusing efforts on the governance of food systems change, identifying that many barriers relate to power and politics (i.e., agency, interests, and goals) and not merely a lack of scientific or technological knowledge and solutions (Béné 2022).

In addition, when food systems are mainly understood in relation to supply and value chains, solutions proposed tend to rely on spatial aspects, especially pushing to reduce the distance between direct producers and consumers, or in the role of the industry and their marketing strategies in shaping demand and supply. Similarly, when food systems are referred to in vague terms, arguments tend to be focused on action on the side of consumers (e.g., food citizenship or literacy). In contrast, perspectives that adopt systemic approaches are sensitive to the multiple drivers of change and less inclined to suggest sectoral, linear, or singular solutions, but propositions still stress different areas of attention. In alignment with the background theories from which they evolve, contributions based on transitions theory mostly argue for technological or institutional, policy or market-based innovations that address production or consumption patterns, while views adopting transformations theory tend to be more inclined to propose social, organizational, or policy innovations with focus on the reduction of environmental impacts or better management of resources.

Still, in terms of the outcomes sought, most of the literature reviewed is concerned with healthy, nutritious, and appropriate diets, resilience to climate change or other crises, and general ecosystem and social stability (e.g., SDGs). The perspective that is closest to Dahlberg’s ideas is the one proposed by Roque et al. (2022) who propose that plant-based school meals could help foster key outcomes for a “systemic regeneration”: public health, social protection, economy, community welfare, and environment.

In terms of stakeholder participation, we found that the openness to integrate either very powerful (food conglomerates) or excluded actors (indigenous or rural communities) varies within a spectrum depending on the approaches. Recently, the literature discussing justice in the context of transformative processes (Tribaldos and Kortetmäki 2022) has helped problematize and expand the debate on how to ensure equitable participation, representation and decision making. This is in line with the recognition of unavoidable power asymmetries as well as the non-neutrality of academic research.

An important insight emerging from the literature confirms that although different narratives and theories of change co-exist in relation to problem understanding, priorities for action and strategies (Béné et al. 2019, Weber et al. 2020), the way in which change is typically understood refers to a significant shift away from the current industrial agri-food system or as Fanzo et al. (2020) states, a radical change in the status quo. This is in contrast with what Slater et al. (2022) found by reviewing major reports from international organizations (e.g., UN, IPES-Food, HLPE) in which transformation appears as a co-opted and fuzzy term that tends to suggest mere reforms or adaptations. Within the research literature, very few scholars speak of incremental or adaptive change (one exception is Groot-Kormelinck et al. 2022), and indeed recognize transitions and transformations as political processes (Leeuwis et al. 2021). This aligns with Béné (2022) understanding of the evolution of the discourse on food system transformation whereby the different terms adopted to qualify this change, as seen in our results, refer to the magnitude or scope of change, but have more recently shifted to also acknowledging its political (contested) and normative (intentional and goal-oriented) nature. Authors such as Friant (2016) and Corrado (2013; Spanish databases) explicitly mention the need to seek “alternatives to” the dominant system. This also shows an alignment with Dahlberg’s seminal conceptualization from the 1990s and though not yet explicitly stated, an orientation toward decolonization. Still, questions on decolonization within the food systems change literature landscape are mainly absent since Dahlberg’s publication, which could relate to the fact that most of the literature is strongly rooted in institutions from the Western developed world.

Terms can prove misleading or obscure if not defined or contextualized

Like Weber et al. (2020), we found that the terms transition and transformation are often used interchangeably when speaking of food systems change. In addition, they are not always explicitly linked to the theoretical traditions of either transitions in socio-technical systems or transformations in social-ecological systems. The fact that some authors use both terms may refer to an increasing overlap of these scholarly fields, but also to the adoption of these terms as trendy buzzwords. Our analysis took one step further to avoid a common bias in the literature that focuses on contributions made only in the English language. We included two Spanish-language based databases, which capture a vast geographical region where significant work is being produced. We were able to obtain important insights from the query results in Spanish, even though few publications matched our filtering criteria. We noticed two main trends: (1) the term transformation rarely appears in keywords or titles associated with food systems, and (2) the term transition is mainly adopted to speak of agroecological transitions, but again, not always explicitly linked to the food system as a unit of analysis in keywords or titles. This does not mean that literature is scarce, rather, other terms tend to be more popular such as alternative food networks or food sovereignty (Holt-Giménez and Shattuck 2009, Corrado 2013). The Spanish-based literature rarely cites transition/transformation theories from the two aforementioned epistemic communities existent in the English literature. The publications that do adopt the terms food system transition or transformation were typically also indexed in Scopus. It is important to note that the agroecological discourse has in effect taken strength from the 1970s and 1980s onward in Latin America (Altieri and Nicholls 2017), with many examples adopting a strong territorial and usually activist approach in opposition to extractive/colonialist models. It makes sense, therefore, that many contributions found in Spanish during the last three decades follow this perspective (e.g., Gliessman et al. 2007, López-García et al. 2018, Yacamán-Ochoa and García-Llorente 2020). Several of these contributions offer positions or insights from practice without proposing novel theoretical contributions explaining food system change. See for example, Galindo (2021) with a reflection on the opportunities and risks to situate agroecology at the center of the transformation of food systems (in the context of the 2021 UN Food System Summit) if misdirected or co-opted by industrial and private interests. De Molina et al. (2017) argues for politicizing food consumption (not just production) and building social alliances with capacity for change to ensure that agroecological innovations can catalyze transitions. At the same time, Holt-Giménez and Shattuck (2009) explain the role of agrofuels in driving a transition in food and energy systems alike, where the concentration of capital has significant negative social, environmental, and economic effects restructuring territories, policies, economies, and lives. In a similar theme, Jensen Castillo (2021) analyzes changes in production and commercialization of food in Chile based on market variation and land use change to understand the implications for food security or in the context of crises such as COVID-19. One contribution that resonates with Dahlberg’s original paper comes from Rastoin (2020), who attempts to outline potential future configurations of food systems based on the current most dichotomic trends (oligopoly vs. local networks, market vs. social-environmental values, quantity vs. quality). He concludes that the most likely outcome will be a combination of both while dependent on collective action toward a responsible and humanist view of food that values biological and psychological health and overall well-being.

A rapid growth of the field needs awareness of potential biases and inequalities

Based on the statistical insights, our results confirm insights from Weber et al. (2020) on the rapid rise in publications (mainly since 2015). This is aligned with an increasing popularity of the arguments connecting climate change and food systems that gained visibility at the UN COP21 and was captured in the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC 2015) as well as a myriad of interrelated negative food system outcome impacts made visible after the 2007–2008 world economic crisis and noticeable impacts on climate change. By looking at the overall literature landscape, most of the literature debating food system transitions and transformations is generated from the Global North. Even though co-authorship with Global South researchers is noticeable, our results align with Fanzo et al. (2020) on the low representation of scholars from Low- and Middle-income Countries, and especially, Least Developed ones. Although the authorship distribution refers to institutions and not to the country of origin of either authors or research projects, more attention needs to be paid to the barriers preventing a better representation and therefore a reduction of multiple potential biases and inequities (epistemic injustices). Although country representation is not a direct proxy for understanding how much research is produced within a particular country, the stark differences suggest many barriers may be co-existent. One likely challenge (among others) is limited accessibility to funds to carry out or lead research, and to publish results because of journals’ high publication fees. As authors rooted in Global South institutions ourselves, this is a familiar phenomenon, which results in negotiations as to which institutional affiliation should lead. Another important consideration is that language may represent a significant barrier, suggesting that more efforts are needed to foreground research insights published in languages other than English.

After three decades, theory has evolved but some themes deserve more attention

Looking at the evolution of the debate and main themes, especially in comparison with Dahlberg’s 1994 proposition for agri-food transitions, additional insights can be highlighted. First, it took about 20 years for significant contributions to appear in the literature landscape after Dahlberg, the first publication that connects transition theories applied to food systems as a unit of analysis. This trend began in the second decade (2005–2014) and continues until the present with different highlights on tools, a focus promoting changes at the level of niches, regimes, or the interaction of both. The promotion of agroecology and an interest in food sovereignty remains a prominent discourse from the second decade and until the present. This is seen as a model that is in direct opposition to the corporate agri-food business model and promises increased agency and new values as originally conceptualized by Dahlberg. In the third decade (2015 onward), a new theme enters the landscape and refers to aligning strategies and outcomes to meet the SDGs. In addition, a few key important trends emerge more recently: first, the importance of adopting both systemic and transdisciplinary approaches, the importance and role that participatory platforms or processes aiming to generate practice and governance change can have (e.g., multi-stakeholder platforms, living labs), and the urgency to adopt more inclusive approaches, especially to integrate often excluded voices and knowledge systems (e.g., via the term just transitions). In addition to this, it is also recognized that differences between contextual features and needs should be better understood and accounted for. This orientation relates directly to Dahlberg’s call for decolonizing food systems and focusing on health or cultural aspects as important assessment criteria for restructuring (other than economic gain). Importantly, the decolonial and inclusive/participatory discourse took almost 30 years to start galvanizing. One contrast found with Dahlberg’s position is a more expansive goal in relation to the type of risks and challenges to tackle. In his view, climate change was the most prominent threat, but the literature landscape is now more sensitive to the interrelated and multifaceted nature of challenges that relate to the food system (from livelihoods, to food security, to biodiversity, etc.), which suggests that more attention is being paid to the different types of outcomes that food systems may support.

A revision of the theoretical contributions suggest that change is understood and explained in different ways based on the different angles of focus proposed by the most prominent theories and frameworks. The focus of interventions proposed, the types of outcomes promoted, and the agents of change vary as already reported (Béné et al. 2019, Stefanovic et al. 2020). The question on how to provoke this change is answered in different ways, either bottom-up, top-down, or a combination of both. A common agreement found is the need for systemic approaches (Hubeau et al. 2017, Bui et al. 2019, Stefanovic et al. 2020, Weber et al. 2020, Herens et al. 2022). In addition, the theories proposed and the tools advanced also suggest the engagement of different actors within the food system: from mostly aimed at researchers, planners, or policy makers, to others that aim to integrate all societal sectors and even marginalized voices (Pereira et al. 2020, Argumedo et al. 2021, Herens et al. 2022). Recent scholarship is very strong about the need for transdisciplinary and participatory processes (Fanzo et al. 2020, Den Boer et al. 2021) that can be inclusive and empowering (e.g., able to change power dynamics). This focus on a justice-lens is confirmed in the most recent contributions (see Tribaldos and Kortetmäki 2022; Tschersich and Kok 2022). In this context, governance change emerges as a prominent area and avenue for change advocated in the literature, which is confirmed in Béné (2022) and Huttunen et al. (2022). Importantly, governance includes the interaction of actors at both the territorial (civil society, indigenous communities, etc.) and policy/planning levels (national government, local urban planning, etc.) and involves, in the process, a change in values. This perspective highlights how food governance change implies a series of planned and concerted actions that although impossible to fully control their outcomes, can be intentionally (normatively) steered, that is, designed for (Leeuwis et al. 2021, Béné 2022). Indeed, our results show that many frameworks have emerged that can serve practitioners as researchers analyze, make sense of, categorize, or understand various facets within the complexity of food systems. This landscape suggests that where theories are not necessarily strictly opposing, they may be explaining different components of the system and, as in other fields, that better integration and dialogue rather than competition may be beneficial. It is possible, however, that language may be a barrier to further integration. For example, in their review, Weber et al. (2020) adopt the term “deep change” as a way to bypass the transformation/transition dichotomy.

Advancing a definition

An important takeaway from the review is the lack of definitions on food system transition or transformation, which is highlighted in the cases where the terms are adopted in more general ways without any explicit definition (e.g., Sumner 2015, Argumedo et al. 2021). Although Béné (2022) is one of the few scholars to outline the evolution and clarify what is meant by food system transformation in the academic discourse, there is still a prominent absence of explicit definitions. To address this challenge and help practitioners engage with a landscape marked by a diverse constellation of perspectives and terms, we attempt to outline a preliminary definition in the context of scholarly research. Food system transformations refer to significant re-configurations of the assemblage of food system activities, actors, outcomes, and relationships (dynamics) to move away from the current globalized industrial model and ensure sustainable, resilient, and just models of production and consumption. These transformative processes demand the collective and inclusive re-designing (from re-imagining to re-governing) of food system components through platforms where governance, practices, power, and value-change can be debated and enacted at multiple scales. Food system re-design should therefore be seen as an ethico-political process that needs to be collectively stewarded and nurtured in an adaptive, engaged, and creative way. This also means that strategies (pathways) and tools need to respond to and resonate with current contextual needs and features, while also being future-proof and proactive (anticipatory).

This definition, which is more explicit about the transformational aspiration (why, what, and how to change) to shift away from the status quo (transform rather than reform) and encompasses a cultural and political, and not just a mere technical challenge, is in line with the gaps noticed by Slater et al. (2022). In this way, a common and clearer understanding of the scholarly field gives research a better chance to inform systemic change and escalate from local to international recommendations without being diluted or subverted.

CONCLUSION

Our semi-systematic review aimed to offer an overview and synthesis of the scholarly field focused on understanding and supporting food system change, with the main focus on the associated terms of transitions and transformations. This work has outlined and characterized the research literature landscape in the past three decades. We contribute to this field by expanding and complementing recently published reviews that attend to the increased interest and calls for food systems transformation. By looking at the literature, we have been able to outline a series of insights, including the diverse use of these terms, their differing theoretical contributions and frameworks, the most prominent themes, and their evolution. In addition, the data analysis has shown a series of nuances based on different regions and languages, for example, that the associated literature being produced and published in Spanish tends to adopt other terms to refer to somewhat similar research. Although results support and expand previous work in most cases, we acknowledge some limitations. For example, given the differences in how research databases work, the Scopus search string had to be manually replicated for the Spanish-based databases, which made the process prone to errors and more labor intensive. Our filtering criteria for each layer of analysis was focused on identifying theoretical contributions with a particular focus on food systems as a unit of analysis that adopts systems-based approaches, and papers were filtered by titles and keywords only. This means that this constitutes a section of a likely larger literature landscape that may have escaped this criteria (for example, case studies were removed from the last subset even though some case-study articles may still have included theoretical contributions). In spite of this, we believe this synthesis can offer an important starting point that can help clarify and navigate an often fuzzy and very diverse field.

An important contribution of this work includes the advancement of a preliminary definition of food system transformations. This helps to enhance the transparency about assumptions and implicit theories of change (to avoid the term being co-opted or emptied of meaning). As such it does not presuppose a singular and restrictive way to describe or theorize food system change (indeed, multiple theories are necessary and will likely need to co-exist), rather, it seeks to offer a way to describe the general orientation of the types of change that is referred to, if we are to enable just, appropriate, and sustainable food systems and ensure healthy flourishing of life on Earth. We hope these insights can serve as signposts to allow fellow researchers and practitioners to build upon them to expand this rapidly evolving and urgently needed work.

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