Designing More Diverse and Resilient Food Systems for the Future

Dear Colleagues,

Current food systems rooted in input intensive farming and specialization and in socio-economic inequities along the supply chain have large detrimental effects on both society and the environment, resulting in the loss of ecosystem services and decreasing livelihood opportunities in rural areas. The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food systems identified the increasing lack of diversity in farming and food systems as one of the greatest threats to their long-term sustainability. Designing more diverse and resilient agri-food system for the future is one of the crucial and global themes that has emerged from the growing awareness of the unsustainable nature of existing patterns of food production and consumption.

Diversity in all its dimensions characterizes environmental sustainability, ecosystem resilience and a nutritionally adequate diet. For instance, agricultural biological diversity provides a wide range of ecosystem services to society by sustaining crop evolution that generates the broad genetic variation necessary for crops to adapt to agro-ecological changes, thus assuring the resilience of food systems in the face of climate change. Moreover, resilient food systems need to be designed taking into consideration farmers’ and consumers’ preferences, market incentives, institutions and social organizations.

The Topical Collection aims to include both empirical research articles and conceptual pieces covering (but not limited to) all stages of the agri-food system, from production to distribution, marketing and consumption, that may contribute to the transition towards a more diverse and resilient food system.

Prof. Dr. Francesco Caracciolo
Dr. Elisabetta Gotor
Collection Editors

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