The industrial food system has produced food at odds with social justice and planetary boundaries. It has shaped an unequal system driving unhealthy and wasteful consumption, ruining the physical health and welfare of the world’s population, animals and ecosystems, and the climate. 

In the Philippine and other Global South contexts, a just transition in food systems is also an opportunity to re-shape the intensive and corporate-led food systems into equitable, humane, and sustainable food production and consumption–a sustainable food system that works for people, animals, and the planet.

Transforming the food systems in the Philippines requires embracing the principle of just transition to protect, first and foremost, the security of livelihood of farmers, fisherfolk, and livestock producers. Ultimately, these agricultural workers cannot practice agroecology or sustainably produce food if they possess no power to decide how, when, and what to produce—there can be no agroecology if farmers have no land, or if fisherfolk lose the sea where they fish. It is critical to embed the Just Transition principle in the transformation of our food system to ensure that farmers, fisherfolk, and livestock producers have agency over their future and are in the leadership position of crafting policy solutions.

Shifting the agri-aquatic food system, hence, means democratizing governance and decision-making; empowering local communities and basic sectors to be stewards of natural resources, while ensuring they have access to nutritious food and are able to exercise choice over what they eat and how and where it is produced.

In 2024, the Just Food Transition Network published a global roadmap that demonstrates pathways to shift to a climate-resilient food system that is equitable, humane and sustainable, as well as locally and democratically-governed, while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and food insecurity. It outlines three key levers of change to transform the food system:

1. Strengthen food system governance: We must challenge the dominance of multinational corporations over the food system and put policies in place to foster transparency and hold them accountable for their social and environmental impacts. At the same time, we should protect and elevate traditional and local food systems, where producers and consumers themselves are part of decision-making processes.
2. Promote agroecological practices: A just transition necessitates the embracing of agroecology to promote human rights, protect the environment and animals, ensuring food sovereignty meets food security needs while providing dignified and sustainable livelihoods. 
3. Shift towards diets within planetary and social boundaries: Filipinos’ health will benefit from the shift to plant-rich diets; there is greater burden to shift food consumption, however, for countries with high per capita consumption of animal products to stay within planetary and social boundaries. This shift not only benefits public health and the environment but also frees up land and resources to support diversified agroecological production systems.

As we are forced to reckon with the socio-ecological impacts of this system, this paper outlines a localised roadmap for the Philippines’ transition to equitable, humane, and sustainable food systems while putting primacy on social justice and the welfare of the country’s small food producers, who are also the sector most susceptible to poverty and food insecurity, and while diving into the critical nexus between food, energy, and biodiversity.

Read the paper below: