Global Perspectives Studies
The future of food and agriculture

FAO’s Global Perspectives Studies (GPS) investigate how food and agricultural systems may develop in the long-term future, within the broader economy-wide and social context.

GPS nurture debates and policy processes at all levels, aimed at moving food and agriculture towards social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Countries, regions and the global community benefit from periodic forward-looking global assessments based on alternative future scenarios for food and agriculture, and thematic studies of global relevance.

Will global food and agricultural systems sustainably satisfy food and non-food agricultural demand?

FAO’s Global Perspectives Studies provide possible answers to this recurring question regarding the future of food and agriculture:

  • “Business as usual” is no longer an option if food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture targets set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are to be met.
  • Food and agricultural systems face challenges that could jeopardize their future sustainability, such as satisfying increasing demand with tightening natural resources, adapting to and mitigating climate change, or tackling the concentration in fewer hands of capital-intensive, vertically integrated production processes (see The future of food and agriculture – Alternative pathways to 2050).
  • FAO foresight exercises provide strategic options to address current and future challenges facing food and agricultural systems and their governance.

The future of food and agriculture

The third issue in the series The future of food and agriculture – Drivers and triggers for transformation (FOFA-DTT), highlights how to trigger the transformation of agrifood systems towards a future of sustainability and resilience. It builds upon a Corporate Strategic Foresight exercise run at FAO in 2021–2022 and on the previous reports in the same series, notably: The future of food and agriculture – Alternative pathways to 2050, that portrays quantitative agrifood projections under alternative scenarios to 2050, and "The future of food and agriculture – Trends and challenges", that  analyses the challenges facing food and agriculture in the light of recent socio-economic and environmental trends.

This report inspires strategic thinking and actions to transform agrifood systems towards a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive future, by building on both previous reports in the same series as well as on a comprehensive corporate Overarching Strategic Foresight (OSF) exercise that also nurtured FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31. It analyses major drivers of agrifood systems and explores how their trends could determine alternative futures of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems. The fundamental message of this report is that it is still possible to push agrifood systems along a pattern of sustainability and resilience, if key “triggers” of transformation are properly activated. However, strategic policy options to activate them will have to “outsmart” vested interests, hidden agendas and conflicting objectives, and trade off short-term unsustainable achievements for longer-term sustainability, resilience, and inclusivity.