The coronavirus pandemic has upended local, national, and global food systems, and put the Sustainable Development Goals further out of reach. But lessons from the world’s response to the pandemic can help address future shocks and contribute to food system change. In the 2021 Global Food Policy Report, IFPRI researchers and other food policy experts explore the impacts of the pandemic and government policy responses, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged, and consider what this means for transforming our food systems to be healthy, resilient, efficient, sustainable, and inclusive. Chapters in the report look at balancing health and economic policies, promoting healthy diets and nutrition, strengthening social protection policies and inclusion, integrating natural resource protection into food sector policies, and enhancing the contribution of the private sector. Regional sections look at the diverse experiences around the world, and a special section on finance looks at innovative ways of funding food system transformation. Critical questions addressed include: – Who felt the greatest impact from falling incomes and food system disruptions caused by the pandemic? – How can countries find an effective balance among health, economic, and social policies in the face of crisis? – How did lockdowns affect diet quality and quantity in rural and urban areas? – Do national social protection systems such as cash transfers have the capacity to protect poor and vulnerable groups in a global crisis? – Can better integration of agricultural and ecosystem polices help prevent the next pandemic? – How did companies accelerate ongoing trends in digitalization and integration to keep food supply chains moving? – What different challenges did the pandemic spark in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how did these regions respond?

Since its first edition in 2010, the OECD Development Centre’s Perspectives on Global Development report has tracked development trends and policy priorities in developing countries. This new report examines the phenomenon of discontent. Between the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, discontent surged around the world. It was especially evident in middle-income countries and was often most acute amongst the middle classes that have emerged in developing countries over recent decades. The report explores the economic, political and sociological drivers of discontent and argues that building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic in developing countries will require approaches that simultaneously improve citizens’ well-being, promote productive transformation and strengthen social cohesion. The report concludes by examining the international dimension of discontent and demonstrates how weaknesses and imbalances in the present multilateral system are eroding humankind’s capacity for collective action in the face of global threats, notably the climate crisis. The rise in discontent has exposed failings in prevailing economic, social and political models at all levels: addressing discontent means fixing these systems, and doing so in an inclusive and sustainable manner.

Sustainable food production needs to increase if it is to meet the rising and evolving food demands caused by growing populations, increasing incomes and urbanization. However, it faces numerous challenges. Competition for water resources is increasing – not only between people and the natural environment, but between cities and rural areas as well. Overuse of water due to wasteful irrigation management is worsening water scarcity. Climate change is bringing higher temperatures and changing precipitation patterns, as well as a higher likelihood of increased weather variability and extreme events. At the same time, agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, so sustainable agriculture intensification also needs to address climate change by reducing GHG emissions and sequestering carbon.

Creating a sustainable world will require significant change in the way our institutions function and act. What follows is one attempt to outline some lessons learned—in the form of five metaphors—that I have found useful in trying to foster institutional change in universities.

The metaphors grew out of a 12-year process—from 1999 to 2011—of trying to get the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) created at the University of British Columbia (UBC). CIRS was designed to be a living lab of sustainability and net positive in four environmental and three human ways (it eventually succeeded in five of these goals). Creating it proved much more challenging than expected. What became evident as we tried to get this building and its programs conceived, funded, approved, designed and implemented, is that there were many institutional road-blocks, grounded in the normal decision-making practices and institutional culture of the university, that worked against our efforts.

Three farm sector bills were passed by the Parliament of India in September, 2020 and turned into laws. These laws are named as
following:

1. The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion
   and Facilitation) Act, 2020.
2. Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement of
   Price Assurance and farm Services Act, 2020.
3. Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

The first law aims at creating an ecosystem for providing freedom to farmers and traders to trade with free choice. The second law aims at empowering the farmers to engage with the agri-business firms and other important players of agricultural value chains by providing a national framework for mutual agreements. The third law removes the basic food items from the list of essential commodities in order to reduce excessive regulatory restrictions on private business operations in agriculture.