Foresight4Food is organizing its 4th Global Workshop in June titled “Reframing Food Futures: Making Foresight Transformative”. To raise the tip of the curtain on this exciting event, we have asked Mohammad Monirul Hassan, Foresight4Food Country Facilitator and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) Advisor, to share some of his thoughts and expectations. Here is what he has to say:

Bangladesh has made significant progress in food security and nutritional status over the past decade, with a growth rate of food production much higher than population growth. The country’s food grain production self-sufficiency has been sustainable and stable, and access to food has improved over time. However, the country still faces challenges in ensuring food and nutrition security for its growing population of around 170 million, projected to reach over 186 million by 2030.

The recent COVID pandemic and the subsequent Russian-Ukraine war have put enormous pressure on the food supply in the country, as Bangladesh is a net food importing country. We have achieved self-sufficiency in rice and some other products; however, the country is still dependent on wheat imports, edible oil, lentils, pulses, and spices. Due to the depreciation of Bangladesh’s Taka against the US Dollar, import costs have increased significantly which impacted the price of commodities both in the food and non-food sectors. The lower-income households are struggling to meet daily needs due to income losses and price hikes.

As a Bangladeshi citizen and a food systems practitioner, a thought that concerns me is that the emerging negative trends and uncertainties like climate change, population growth, income inequality, agricultural labor scarcity, and barriers to access to safe and nutritious food may push back the decade-long achievement of the food and nutrition security of the country in the long run.

Climate change adaptation is the key priority in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change impacts. Developing climate-resilient technologies that exhibit tolerance to drought, flood, heat, cold weather, and salinity can help mitigate production losses caused by the frequent occurrence of extreme weather patterns anticipated due to climate change. Alongside conventional staple crops like rice, wheat, and maize, more focus is given to advancing technologies for protein-rich crops such as pulses and beans, as well as vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables. Enhanced breeds of cattle and poultry that possess the ability to endure harsh climatic conditions are being developed.

The focus is given to enhancing productivity through advances in crop, livestock, and fisheries management, either individually or in combination with genetic enhancements. Improved management methods in agriculture can enhance profitability for producers while also promoting sustainability by optimizing the use of inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and water, and lowering the environmental impact of farming. To improve the food and nutritional situation, more emphasis needs to be placed on coordination, enhancing partnership and policy coherence, and strengthening implementation means.

Food system transformation is high on the political agenda in Bangladesh with the formulation of the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy 2020, its Plan of Action (PoA) 2021-2030, National Agricultural Policy 2018, and Bangladesh’s contribution to the UN Food System Summit 2021 and the UNFSS +2 Stock Taking Moments (STM). Bangladesh has outlined its “Making Vision 2041: A Reality-Perspective Plan of Bangladesh 2041”, Dhaka Food Agenda 2041, Smart Bangladesh Vision 2041, and the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, which depict the country’s aspiration and preparation towards a developed nation.

To support that, the Foresight for Food Systems Transformation (FoSTr) program is providing a flexible decision-support facility to support Bangladesh with evidence-based foresight and scenario analysis that goes along the country’s vision to work towards sustainable food systems in Bangladesh.
 
As part of reporting to UNFSS STM+4 (2025) and fulfilling the Honorable Prime Minister’s commitment to UNFSS, foresight analysis of the food systems will complement the data, research, risk analysis, and scenarios development for the future food systems and provide necessary guidance for food systems transformation.

For this year’s Global Foresight4Food Workshop, the theme is “Reframing Food Futures: Making Foresight Transformative”. What I seek from this workshop is an opportunity for cross-country learning about using foresight tools, their drawbacks, and ways for improvement for better foresight analysis, as well as areas of collaboration, partnerships, and future investments for the country’s food systems transformation. I also think this will be a wonderful opportunity to showcase how Bangladesh is transforming its food systems with its various challenges.

From a personal point of view, I expect that the learning and insight of the workshop will help me understand the food systems transformation agenda in Bangladesh. It will also help me in policy advocacy in prioritizing areas and activities that build sustainable and resilient food systems.

Another aspect of the Foresight4Food Global Workshop that I hope for is that it will create space for highly interactive dialogue, igniting creativity and sparking actionable progress on the foresight agenda, offering cutting-edge updates on foresight practice and applying foresight to country realities.

The workshop will contribute to understanding how other countries are transforming their food systems, what works and what doesn’t, what matters most, and what supports are required, etc. The workshop will be a great opportunity where you’ll be able to build networks, partnerships, investment opportunities, and investment progress tracking and implementation. Moreover, the workshop will help governments reframe some of the initiatives and prioritize them based on the political economy contexts.

All in all, it will be truly exciting to see energetic participation from food systems researchers, practitioners, and government and private sector representatives gathered under one roof to talk about making foresight transformative.

By Bram Peters – Food Systems Programme Facilitator, Foresight4Food

In the north of Kenya, on the border with Ethiopia, the landscape is expansive and dry. Pastoralism is the main source of livelihood, but to the west of this landscape is Lake Turkana, one of the largest saline desert lakes of the world. Here communities engage, some productively and others reluctantly and out of desperation, in fishing.

In March 2024, the Foresight4Food FoSTr team traveled to the fascinating Kenyan county of Marsabit to facilitate a multi-stakeholder forum to support the co-creation of the new ‘Sustainably Unlocking the Economic Potential of Lake Turkana’ programme.

In Marsabit, stakeholders from around the Turkana Lake, including fishers, traders, service providers, county government technical officers, and non-governmental organizations, came together to analyze the context and co-create future scenarios and intervention areas for a new WFP and UNESCO programme, funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Together with the World Food Programme and the World Food Programme Innovation team, the FoSTr team held a highly interactive and productive three-day workshop. As most stakeholders mainly spoke Kiswahili, we switched to short presentations with much emphasis on interactive group work. On the first day, the workshop focused on contextual understanding of the Lake Turkana food system as well as the Marsabit county livelihoods, using the Rich Picture mapping exercise. Participants together drew the food system, the geography of the lake, but also the stakeholders, activities, key relations and dynamics.

On the second day, the groups presented their deep knowledge of the context to each other and elaborated on this. Workshop participants tackled key trends shaping the food and livelihoods system: groups discussed how various themes (for example: lake water levels, fish stocks to income sources, conflict, and education) changed over time and what they expect to happen 10 years into the future. Important in this discussion is their analysis of what driving issues would influence change in the future.

5 scenarios were created for the future regarding the fisheries sector and supporting livelihoods, as well as an in-depth discussion on key entry points for intervention in the system. These scenarios had names that described these futures succinctly:

Different stakeholders participating in the workshop had different opinions on the likelihood of certain scenarios emerging. Some imagined the situation worsening, while a few viewed the future more positively. These reflections clearly showed a combination of outlook of participants as well as the signals they interpret from the current situation and the trends seen now. Interestingly, none of the stakeholders felt the ‘Paradiso’ scenario was likely, showing that the programme needs to be modest in its systemic ambitions, but also be ready to do things very differently. These scenarios showed what could become a very relevant frame of reference to the stakeholders as well as the programme implementors.

On the last day of the workshop, participants explored a common vision for the future, and how the food system is currently working. This led stakeholders to have a first try at exploring what is needed to change that system toward the common vision.

At the end of the workshop, I felt highly positive about these fruitful discussions that enabled participants to think about what might happen to the Marsabit food system in the years to come, and what factors would influence these changes. In addition to that, the insights gathered through the multi-stakeholder forum are expected to not only support the inception phase of the programme but will also support multi-stakeholder engagement throughout the programme.

The Foresight4Food FoSTr team will continue to support the World Food Programme team in realizing the ‘Sustainably Unlocking the Economic Potential of Lake Turkana’ programme inception phase. A follow-up workshop will take place in Turkana County from March 25 to 28, with stakeholders from that side of Lake Turkana.

By Jim Woodhill, Foresight4Food Initiative Lead

Last month (November 2023) I had the wonderful experience of engaging with over fifty young leaders from across Africa, joined by colleagues from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Jordan. We had all gathered in Naivasha, Kenya, to explore how skills in facilitating foresight can be used to help bring about food systems transformation.

The fascinating work these young leaders are involved in and their deep interest in understanding how to be more effective change-makers was truly inspiring. It was encouraging to see how valuable they found the foresight for the food systems change framework and the associated set of participatory tools for engaging stakeholders.

Participants all came with projects from their own countries where they are keen to use foresight and systems thinking to help facilitate change in food systems by bringing together different stakeholders. The participants were from diverse backgrounds representing policy, the private sector, NGOs, and academia.

A Guiding Framework: During the workshop we introduced participants to an overall guiding framework for facilitating foresight for food systems change.  A range of participatory tools were used for systems analysis, development of future scenarios and exploring systemic interventions. To bring reality into the workshop, the Kenya horticulture sector was used as a case study for the foresight analysis. Participants spent a day visiting horticulture farms, packing and processing facilities and the local market. They explored with local stakeholders how they saw the future for the horticulture sector and the issues that “keep them awake at night”.

Visualising the system: The workshop was highly interactive with participants practicing in the facilitation of a range of participatory tools which can be used to bring stakeholders into dialogue around systems change. One of my favourite participatory tools “rich picturing”, which enables a diverse group of stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of a system by drawing it, was found by participants to be especially powerful.

Data-driven dialogue: To go deeper into the systems analysis it is valuable for stakeholders to explore the available data on key drivers and trends. Over 100 graphs visualizing key data points related to the Kenya horticulture sector and food systems at national, continental, and global scales were collated and posted around the walls. The participants then explored this data in groups of three and discussed its implications and how it perhaps challenged their existing assumptions.

Exploring the future using scenarios: Central to the foresight approach is developing a range of different plausible future scenarios (generally with a 10 to 30-year horizon) for how the system might evolve given critical uncertainties. Workshop participants did this for the horticulture sector, looking at factors such as how diets might change in the future, regional and global trading relations, severity of climate change, and the enabling policy environment for small-scale producers and the small- and medium-scale enterprises (SME) sector. The scenarios help to identify future risks and opportunities for different stakeholder groups and society at large. They also help to unlock creative thinking about how to “nudge” systems towards more desirable futures and away from less desirable ones.

The deeper issues of systems change: It is easy to talk about systems change. In reality trying to change systems bumps into all the difficult issues of vested interests, power relations, ideologies, and deeply held cultural beliefs. On top of this human and natural systems are complex and adaptive and behave in self-organising, dynamic, and often unpredictable ways. It doesn’t mean you can’t intervene to try and bring positive change. But it does mean that top-down, linear, and mechanistic models of change generally don’t work. The workshop engaged participants in deep and challenging discussions about what it means to be a leader of systems change. This included the need to be adaptive, how to create alliances for disrupting existing power relations, the importance of building relations between diverse stakeholders, and the importance of patience. Systems change often requires taking time to build the foundations for change without being able to know when circumstances might suddenly unlock opportunities for big steps forward.

Identifying directions for change and intervention options: Developing directions and pathways for systems change is the most difficult and challenging part of the foresight for systems change process. It is highly context-specific and requires a deep insight into the political economy of the situation. Cause and effect mapping, theory of change thinking, and causal loop analysis can all help in identifying opportunities for intervening which could help to drive systems change in desired directions. Bringing change will often require an integrated approach to technological, institutional and political innovation. During the workshop causal loop diagrams were used to explore possible entry points for shifting horticulture systems in ways that could improve health, livelihoods and the environment.

New friends, new networks and big ambitions: After an intense week of learning and sharing participants left inspired to apply the foresight approach back in their own work environment. New friends were made and there were clear calls to find mechanisms to support ongoing networking and peer support.

Many thanks to the facilitation and support team who made a fantastic week possible, Gosia McFarlane, Marie Parramon-Gurney, Kristin Muthui, Bram Peters, Joost Guijt, Riti Herman Mostert, and Abdulrazak Ibrahim. The event was made possible by support from the Mastercard Foundation.

More information about the Foresight4Food Framework of Foresight for Food Systems Change can be found on our website, and an updated approach paper will be published in January 2024.

By Amina Maharjan

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 is becoming ever more challenging in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), as the region grapples with the many complex and interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, food and water insecurity, and growing economic inequality, among others. We do not need a crystal ball to help us see what the future climate could hold in store for the people and environment of this region. It is already experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change, with new temperature and precipitation records continually being surpassed. More severe and frequent extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, and avalanches are becoming the norm. For the HKH, elevation-dependent heating means that even a temperature increase of 1.5°C is too hot for the sustainable wellbeing of the region’s people and ecosystems.

If ‘business as usual’ and current emission trends continue, the HKH is on course to experience irreversible changes in its natural and social systems. Without enough food, water, or energy, life would be challenging for the millions of people who call the HKH home, and for some, it would simply be unliveable. It is vital that we start thinking about what kind of future we want to create and how we can act when the worst-case scenario thresholds are crossed. We need to plan for an uncertain future and be better prepared for these worst-case scenarios.

In order to brainstorm together on these shared uncertainties, over 40 participants representing 25 organizations from six countries in the region – Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan – and beyond – Austria, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States of America – came together for a consultative workshop on ‘Foresight and Scenario Development for Anticipatory Adaptation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya’ on 19–20 September 2023, organized by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, Nepal. The participants included representatives from governments, international organizations, NGOs, think tanks, universities, and research institutions.

Over the two days, the participants engaged in a horizontal scanning exercise to look at potential changes/disruptors in the HKH region in the future. The group also looked at building capacity for foresight and futures thinking at different scales of planning – from national to local levels.

Foresight and scenarios are tools that can help us reimagine plural futures. They help us think about the future in systematic, rigorous, and inclusive ways. It involves identifying potential future trends and challenges in order to develop strategies to address them. This approach has not been used widely in this region, but that needs to change as we prepare for an uncertain future.

This gathering was the beginning of a process to encourage futures thinking in the region. Overall, there was consensus on the need for futures thinking across sectors and scales and a commitment to continue collaboration. As a participant from Bangladesh highlighted “We cannot only depend on the past (and historic trends) to plan our future under the rapid change and uncertainty that we are witnessing in the region. It is critically important to envision futures at different scales and with diverse stakeholders to drive our actions now.” Without foresight and scenarios thinking, no organisation or community can remain future fit.

Such planning is especially crucial for a region as vulnerable as the HKH – subject not only to the extremities of its geography and topography, but also because of its varied social, demographic, political and economic conditions. Just one major weather event can set communities back 20 years in development. We must think creatively and long-term about how to address the major challenges, and we must do it now.

by Bram Peters

The UN Food System Summit +2 StockTakingMoment is behind us. It was attended by more than 155 National Food Systems Convenors were in place and 107 countries shared their national food system transformation pathways accounts. 3300 participants, including delegations from 182 countries, 21 world leaders, and 126 ministers (particularly from the Global South) joined.

What highlights and insights remain from the 3-day event in Rome? Joining on behalf of Foresight4Food, I felt it was a mixed bag, with both positives and negatives. Below are some insights, facts, backdrop, and other observations:

First off, a few facts were shared which really hit home:

According to Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary General of the UN, we are in the worst possible shape to reach the SDGs. Almost all indicators are lagging behind.

Some geopolitical and climate change-related dynamics in the backdrop:

Key takeaways:

Other observations:

Side-event on multi-stakeholder collaboration

At the Stock Take Moment, Foresight4Food was able to contribute to a side event called ‘Multi-stakeholder collaboration for food systems transformation: From concepts to Action ‘. This side event (see here the recording), organised together with UNDP, UNEP, FAO, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Netherlands Food Partnership focused on the need to bring people together to bring change. How to ensure inclusion, tackle power differences, and create a shared language to help with the national pathways? There is such a diversity of food system stakeholders. In a diverse panel with representatives from Vietnam, South Sudan, Nigeria, Switzerland, and Kenya, the question asked was: ‘How’ do we do a multi-stakeholder collaboration?

Key experiences shared included how the Vietnamese government went down to the local level to collect insights, conveners who actively consulted the grassroots level in South Sudan, iterative rounds of consultations at different levels and regions in Nigeria, and how a citizen’s assembly was established in Switzerland to advise on food systems.

Wangeci Gitata-Kiriga, representing Foresight4Food Initiative, shared how in Kenya, Foresight4Food combines a participatory process with an evidence-based understanding of the current food system and the possible future of the food system. Using participatory visual approaches such as Rich Picturing, stakeholders exchange perspectives, talk openly about power, and start developing a shared language on uncertainties and possible futures of the food system.

The session concluded with the observation that we need to understand ‘transformation’ better, that this requires a huge effort, and needs inclusiveness and diversity. We have a broad range of tools at our disposal that we can use. It is also not about the powerful vs the powerless, but rather also about breaking barriers, creating and maintaining an equal playing field, and involving the unexpected and unusual players.

See the website NFP Connects of the Netherlands Food Partnership for a more detailed summary.

By Zoë Barois

To support the lasting and valuable development of any multi-stakeholder network, it is important to explore its perceived values and positioning from the perspective of various key and transdisciplinary stakeholders. In line with this concept, five members from the Advanced Masters International Development (AMID) Programme at Radboud University including Emma John, Guusje Dijkstra, Meg van Grinsven, Nadia Rinaldi, and Zoë Barois, collaborated to explore stakeholder perceptions on the perceived values of the Foresight4Food Initiative and the risks it faces when participating in multi-stakeholder networks.

The team conducted seven interviews with foresight experts and practitioners from private, governmental, research, and multilateral organizations, in addition to experts in multi-stakeholder partnerships. Some interesting findings came up in the interviews that led to the development of several guidelines.

The interview participants appreciated that the Foresight4Food Initiative connects stakeholders to (new) players in the field and enables their work to be critically examined by specialists. Being able to harness expertise in the field of foresight and apply this to food system transformation was highlighted to facilitate a deeper understanding of the suitability of foresight tools in diverse contexts.

Additionally, the interviewees highlighted Foresight4Food’s unique value is that it is one of the few initiatives working on food system transformation on a global level, as opposed to most initiatives that focus on national or regional scopes.

Foresight4Food’s deliberate focus on the processes (rather than the product) of forecasting future scenarios was emphasized as a value in itself as it is a strategic tool for food systems transformation.

An interviewee highlighted the benefit of Foresight4Food’s open-access resource platform and their ability to provide a neutral meeting space that facilitates cross-learning and a deeper understanding of foresight and food system trends among stakeholders.

“…we see it [Foresight4Food] as a great forum to exchange learning, for example, we just took the exploratory scenario planning process and customized it for use with multi-stakeholder partnerships… this is a tool that already existed that we kind of adapted and would love to share how that works so other people can pick that up…’’ – Foresight Practitioner

During the multi-stakeholder interviews, several thematic risks emerged relating to Foresight4Food’s durability and positionality within the active foresight landscape.

The long-term thinking required to envision the outcomes of Foresight4Food poses challenges in terms of sustainability as this makes it difficult for organizations to invest in the initiative due to investors’ often short-term vision and the need to “show results as quickly as possible” – Foresight Expert — a common challenge faced by many organizations in the development sector.

In relation to Foresight4Food’s positionality, the initiative faces the risk of being duplicated by similar organizations and, consequently, being “squeezed out by the big players if they feel that we are an irritant on the side of what they consider to be their patch” – Foresight Expert

Lastly, Foresight4Food faces the risk of not being “democratised enough and sublevel enough” to truly get involved with the root causes of the food system issues. This stems from the current engagement of true experts in the field and thus emerges as an ‘’elite network’’  initiated by two high-profile universities. This lack of inclusivity is further emphasized by interviewees “not capable of being inclusive we are going to fail giving to those that actually can benefit the most from our work”  – Foresight expert

Subsequently, one of the main challenges of F4F is effective outreach and engagement with stakeholders.

Taking into account Foresight4Food’s vision and the thematic risks which emerged from the multi-stakeholder interviews, several guidelines were generated aiming to support the sustainable and valuable development of Foresight4Food’s multi-stakeholder network.

Enhancing F4F’s positionality is crucial for the initiative to find its niche. Therefore, the following guidelines are suggested:

To ensure Foresight4Food’s sustainability and longevity, Foresight4Food must become more attractive to investors:

To make F4F more inclusive, the following recommendations are provided:

Foresight4Food Initiative is striving to develop and strengthen its network among foresight practitioners and different stakeholders. However, it gets challenging for any organization to work in a multi-stakeholder environment. Therefore, an exploratory look at the perceived values and positionality becomes imperative.

Foresight4Food, under its FoSTr programme is working in five countries across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, conducting foresight orientation, stocktaking, capacity building, and exploring ways to transform the country’s food systems. Thus, making it the right time to explore sustainable positioning from a stakeholder’s perspective.

In October 2022, Foresight4food hosted a CFS side event on “Foresight and Future Scenarios for Food Systems Transformation – Building Resilience and Fostering Adaptation to Protect Against Future Crises”. The event was held jointly with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the CFS High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE – FSN).  
 
The event highlighted the importance of taking longer-term perspectives on food systems transformation through the use foresight and scenario analysis. The work of the Foresight4Food Initiative was outlined and a new programme “Foresight for Food System Transformation – (FoSTr)” was launched.
 
Patrick Caron, International Director at Montpellier University of Excellence / CIRAD opened the event and highlighted the potential of foresight for supporting food systems transformation. He emphasised that foresight is not about trying to predict the future but rather to prepare for a range of different future scenarios and to understand the implications of these for different stakeholder interests. Patrick introduced the work of Foresight4Food, which is promoting and supporting the use of foresight and scenario approaches for food systems analysis and transformation.
 
The event was moderated by Jim Woodhill, Lead of the Foresight4Food Initiative. He introduced the building blocks of an approach to foresight for food system transformation which has been developed by Foresight4Food. Central to this approach is identifying key trends and critical uncertainties which may influence the future of the entire food system. He indicated how Foresight4Food has been developing and how its overall approach is being tested through work in Africa and Asia.  This contributes to the Foresight4Food objectives of supporting a community of practice, a brokering foresight work and developing a deeper understanding of foresight methodology and tools.

Abdurazak Ibrahim, Cluster Lead, Institutional Capacity and Future Scenarios, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) introduced the work of the African Foresight Academy in institutional capacity building for foresight and scenarios. He outlined the objectives of Academy and introduced current initiatives. This includes running an AgMOOC on foresight for which 300 people have enrolled and which has been produced in partnership with Foresight4Food.
 
Akiko Suwa-Eisenmann, a member of the HLPE-FSN, discussed the most recently presented HLPE-FSN report no. 17 on “Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition” which focuses on enhancing data for effective, inclusive and evidence-informed decision making. Akiko emphasised that the current food crisis further illustrates that it is critical to have reliable and up-to-date data on food and nutrition security. Challenges to be faced include enhancing data literacy, dealing with the complexity of food systems across scales, filling critical data gaps, and synthesising and presenting data so it is useful for decision making. Akiko noted that “foresight needs to be data informed and that means not only data collection and analysis but also translating data into insights, and dissemination for making decisions, and that foresight is key in these processes of bringing data to the public debate”. She also highlighted the value of linking the work of the HLPE and that of Foresight4Food.

Sara Savastano, the Director of IFAD’s Research and Impact Assessment Division, discussed the need to understand how food systems work in the selected countries where FoSTr will operate. She noted the importance of foresight as a key contributor for designing effective investment projects which tackle the longer-term challenges of building resilience into food systems.
 
Ravi Khetarpal, Executive Secretary of Asia Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI), and Chair of the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR) underlined the continued importance of the agri-food sector for security and development across the Asia Pacific. He emphasised the critical need for multi-stakeholder platforms at national and local levels to help drive the needed innovation for transforming food systems.  He saw foresight and the Foresight4Food initiative as a valuable contribution to such processes and welcomed its work in the region. To achieve sustainable and resilience food systems he called for more evidence-based policy making, which relies on good data and the type of integrated qualitative and quantitative analysis which can be offered by foresight.
 
Sara Mbago-Bhunu, the Director of IFAD’s East and Southern Africa Division, highlighted the current crises across the region being driven by increasing energy and food prices, along with climate impacts.  She welcomed the FoSTr initiative and noted the critical need to transform food systems for long-term resilience while also tackling the humanitarian relief demands in the short-term. She emphasised the historical link between high food prices and social unrest and reminded the audience of the huge shortfall in investment funds for the agri-food sector. She hoped that “the FoSTr program as you have described here can do the modelling and forecasting to build up capacities in this space for informed policy making to invest in sustainable and circular management [of food systems]”.

Winnie Yegon, a Horticulture Fellow with the African Food Fellowship, and food systems expert with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) explained how training in food system foresight provided by the Followship Programme, has enabled new perspectives on how to bring about change in food systems. In particular, she noted the value of an integrating perspectives that brings stakeholders together to make sense of available data.
 
Herman Brouwer, Senior Advisor for Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration at the Centre for Development Innovation (CDI), Wageningen University and Research, highlighted two key implications from the discussion, on one hand the need for reliable data and on the other the need for processes which enable collective sense making. He noted that helping to bring enhanced literacy on data and foresight processes is a valuable contribution which can be made by Foresight4Food and the FoSTr Programme. In particular, he emphasised the need for collaboration between different stakeholder across the food system to enable change, and that foresight can make a valuable contribution to such collaborative processes by creating shared understanding of future risks and opportunities.

By Jim Woodhill, Lead Foresight4Food Initiative

A dramatic and rapid transformation of food systems is necessary to end poverty and hunger, protect the environment, improve rural livelihoods, and ensure resilience to future shocks. This transformation must include structural changes in how our political, economic, social and technological systems function. Such transformative change requires a long-term perspective and understanding of the risks and opportunities in different possible food system futures – the purpose of foresight.

Foresight offers one approach to support transformational change for a more equitable and sustainable global food system. It uses futures thinking and scenario analysis to help diverse food system actors (e.g., rural farmers, food manufacturers, small agri-food businesses, governments) imagine, together, how the future might unfold. Considering future scenarios enables possible risks and vulnerabilities to be understood and mitigated. It also enables opportunities for positive food systems transformation to be identified and explored. 

Foresight analysis helps to create understanding about how key trends and critical uncertainties (e.g., changing diets, climate impacts, demand for certain foods) could impact food systems. It supports preparedness for different possible futures.

Food systems are extremely complex, with all of the activities of food systems from production to consumption affecting global health and nutrition, environmental sustainability, and livelihoods and employment. Globally, agri-food work is the largest economic sector, employing over a quarter of the world’s workers. The scale alone of global food systems makes achieving change complicated and slow. Fear of the unknown, combined with vested interests of powerful food systems players, can bring resistance to innovation and change. This results in a lack of effective responses to already pressing issues. The challenge Is compounded by the difficulties of creating sufficient collective understanding and commitment among the highly diverse groups involved in food systems.

However, while change often seems slow and difficult, stuck or even regressing, there are endless positive examples of individuals, communities, groups and organisations working for more sustainable and equitable food systems. Especially when the life force of food is involved, people are deeply capable of innovation, creativity, social organisation and activism.

While foresight and scenario analysis is no panacea to the complex and overlapping issues within our food systems, it offers two critical contributions:

The Foresight4Food Initiative has developed a framework and process to guide foresight and scenario analysis for food systems change. The framework (Figure 1) links a participatory process of stakeholder engagement with a strong scientific evidence base and the use of computer-based modelling and visualisation. The approach starts by understanding how food system actors “see” the food system – their actions, values and interests – and their motivation for engaging in foresight. It maps out and examines how social, technical, economic, environmental and political (STEEP) factors interact within food systems, and how food systems are influenced by the power dynamics between actors.

A food systems framing is critical to identify and assess key drivers, trends and uncertainties, to develop alternative future scenarios (Figure 2). The approach creates dialogue between stakeholders about their assumptions on how the future food system may unfold and what this implies for their visions and aspirations. The discussions that ensue provide a foundation for exploring what directions for food systems change would be in the collective interest and how trade-offs or synergies between the specific interests of different groups can be best managed. 

Central to this approach is the development and analysis of future food system scenarios, based on data about key trends and critical uncertainties. This is often the most challenging yet insightful part of the process. It takes various actors ‘outside the box’ to imagine how the future of food systems could be fundamentally different, with what implications.

A simple way to develop scenarios is to identify two independent critical uncertainties that then create a matrix of four different scenarios (Figure 3). For example, critical uncertainties in food systems could be dietary changes, climate impacts on agricultural production, malnutrition levels, market and trade functioning, and many others. Scenario story lines are then developed that outline what each of these four futures would be like, based on the two chosen uncertainties. ‘Back casting’ is used to look backwards from an imagined future scenario to construct the possible events and decisions that could have led to such a future.

The framework integrates four elements:

Foresight4Food’s approach recognises that elements in the system (i.e., people and nature) interact in complex and adaptive ways; therefore, change in food systems does not occur in easily predicable or linear and hierarchically controlled ways. The complex nature of food systems deeply challenges reductionist mindsets that continue to dominate in public policy making and organisational management. Food systems thinking recognises that change happens through nudging systems, rapid experimentation and learning, and scaling niche innovations. It explores how locked in structures and power relations can be disrupted, yet recognises that building the foundations for desired change takes time, with the eventual outcomes and moments of change being uncertain.

Food systems transformation will require ongoing innovation and learning, with strong networks to obtain feedback and decentralised responsibilities for decision-making and action. Real changes in food systems will depend on shifting underlying structures related to power dynamics, relations between different actors, and the mental models of society, leaders and politicians. Foresight and scenario analysis can help to surface and examine these dimensions of change in a complex and adaptive food system. It is an approach to help generate the critical thinking, leadership and stakeholder engagement needed for food systems transformation. 

The Foresight4Food initiative aims to connect and inspire networks of foresight professionals around the world. In early July 2022, members of the Africa Foresight Academy participated in a foresight training at Oxford, provided by Foresight4Food researchers from the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI) in collaboration with Wageningen University & Research (WUR). The training was attended by five African researchers in person, while five others joined in online.

The Foresight4Food ‘seven steps’ approach to scenario and foresight analysis (see illustration below) was used to develop four scenarios for a more climate-resilient Ghana in 2040. Here’s a look at how these scenarios were developed using the Foresight4Food approach in the training session.

The scenario exercise started with scoping and delineating the focus of the scenario process Collectively, it was decided to focus the scenarios on the future of the Ghana food system in 2040, and the resilience of this system to external shocks related to climate change.

Participants were invited to draw a ‘rich picture’ of the Ghana food system to map out its most important features. These included small-scale yam and cocoa production in the south, maize and sorghum production in the north, fisheries along the coast and around Lake Volta along with the role of urban informal food markets, the lack of a large food processing sector, Covid-19’s impact on supply chains, growing security threats in the region, and the effect of the war in Ukraine on fuel prices and availability of fertilizers.

Building upon the key features of the Ghana food system from the ‘rich picture’ exercise, participants were then invited to identify the most important trends and uncertainties affecting the Ghana food system.

Highlighted key trends included fast population growth and urbanization, increasing use of technology, growing dependence on food imports and remittances, decreasing occurrence of crop diseases, growing youth unemployment, and the increase in fast food consumption.

Together, the participants also identified some important uncertainties regarding the future of the Ghana food system: the degree of extreme weather events, the implementation efficiency of climate resilience policies, and the vulnerability of households to climate change. Other uncertainties identified included future access to fertilizers, fluctuations in fuel prices, changes in trade regimes, levels of agricultural productivity, the expected value of the Ghanaian currency, the potential influence of future Covid outbreaks and the impact of developments in the general security of the region.

The participants then decided on two key uncertainties that would be critical in determining the future climate resilience of the Ghanaian food system. Based on these two key uncertainties, a matrix was created with each of the axes representing one uncertainty. Within this matrix, four scenarios were constructed, based on their position on both axes and with input from the other uncertainties that were identified.

With the four scenarios in place, participants were invited to give more colour to these four plausible futures by exploring the implications of each scenario for different stakeholder groups. One group explored the implications for rural farmers, while the other focused on urban consumers.

With the implications of each scenario explored in more detail, participants were asked to zoom out and think about the possible system changes that – in each scenario – could contribute to a more climate-resilient future of the Ghanaian food system. Suggestions included the stimulation of climate-smart agriculture practices, diversification of production and dietary patterns, strengthening regional trade, supporting home gardens and peri-urban agriculture and digitalization of supply chain management.

This three-day exercise with African foresight experts showed how the Foresight4Food approach can help structure a participatory foresight process that leads to engaging scenarios and actionable policy recommendations to shape the future of our food systems.