Food Systems Summit puts consciousness on global policy map

Nearly 400 participants from about 65 countries — including political leaders, Indigenous Peoples, farmers, scientists, businesses, young people and development practitioners — got together for the Global Conscious Food Systems Summit in Bhutan in early September. The aim was to explore whether changing how people think, relate, exercise power and make decisions can unlock different responses to an interconnected polycrisis spanning climate change, food insecurity, inequality, conflict and ecological degradation.

One central proposition that emerged from the Summit was that transforming systems requires looking not only at what decisions are made, but at the values, relationships and ways of thinking that shape how and why they are made. Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon placed that shift within the sustainable development agenda, maintaining: “The lesson is clear: inner and cultural transformation – a conscious shift in our mindsets, values and worldviews – must be recognised as a fundamental enabler of sustainable development, alongside policy finance and technology.”

Change is not happening fast enough

Carlos Watson, Director of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub and the Food and Agriculture Organization Office of the SDGs, warned that, despite progress since the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, change was still not happening fast enough and that food systems risked being reduced to a technical or technocratic issue. The Conscious Food Systems Alliance (CoFSA) and its members could contribute to the acceleration needed towards 2030, he maintained, pointing to future opportunities including the UNFSS+6 Stocktake and the 2027 SDG Summit.

Bhutanese monks welcoming summit participants to share conscious food and living experience
during the pre-summit field trips.
Photo: GCFSS

Drawing on Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness approach, the Summit explored how development can serve human wellbeing while supporting livelihoods, protecting soil, water and biodiversity, and building resilient economies. The gathering concluded that science and technology remain essential, however participants called for Indigenous and traditional knowledge, lived experience, cultural values and local realities to contribute alongside scientific evidence.

"People and nature are one"

Moko Morris, a Māori food sovereignty advocate from Aotearoa New Zealand, said: “Conscious ways of working require us to heal from past trauma and lead from a deeper place. Leadership is in every single one of us. We might do it differently, but we are required to lead in a holistic way in connection with the ecosystem.”

Business leaders also challenged conventional ideas of value. For example, Dilhan Fernando, CEO of Dilmah Tea, noted: “People and nature are one; if a business creates value for nature and people it has the right to create economic value for itself. If it doesn’t fulfil that condition, it is extracting value. That’s no different to colonialism.”

From Bhutan to implementation

The Summit launched the Conscious Food Systems Framework, consolidating more than five years of global co-creation and over 50 examples of practice into a foundation for the next phase of the work. At the country level, the next phase is to begin testing what conscious food systems approaches look like in practice and building evidence around their application.

(CoFSA/sri)

More information:

• Link to Summit website
• The Summit’s recording on Youtube
• Link to website of the Conscious Food Systems Framework
• Link to website of Centre for the Ecology of human transformation

Further reading:

Rural 21 issue no 3/2023: "Joining forces for food system transformation"

Rural 21 issue no 3/2021: "Food systems, nutrition and the SDGs"