2021 offers a unique opportunity for galvanising action to improve nutrition and make food systems more sustainable, resilient and equitable. With the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) and the Nutrition for Growth Summit (N4G), the year features two summits that can contribute to these goals.

While the N4G Summit is to be held in December, the past months above all featured the UN Food Systems Summit and its accompanying events. It has raised great expectations, with game-changing solutions to be outlined which are to enable the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and, with them, a world without hunger in harmony with nature. All this is to be accomplished on the basis of a radical transformation of our food systems – food systems whose fragility has been painfully and all the more clearly demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and which are today being referred to by many as “broken”.

But what are our present food systems actually suffering from? How must they be redesigned to really bear the attribute “sustainable”? And once we have understood in which direction transformation has to head – how can it be practically implemented? And how do food systems, nutrition and the SDGs actually relate to each other?

As can be expected, opinions on these issues diverge considerably. The discussions accompanying the Summit process have been accordingly controversial. With this edition, we asked our authors from science, politics and civil society to present their perspectives and proposals for solutions.

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