Food systems must evolve in every continent and in every country; for the sake of the climate, of fragile ecosystems, and for increasing numbers of malnourished people. The question is; how to shift such an established, entrenched system?

For over a decade, we’ve been working with private-sector, governmental, civil society and international partners, on transformative initiatives to strengthen agricultural and food systems, including:

• Strengthening the capability for leading food-systems change – by co-creating the African Food Fellowship
• Designing and incubating Generation Africa – a continent-wide movement to support agricultural entrepreneurship
• Ensuring the voice of SMEs inform the Global Food System Summit – through a global consultation, survey and showcasing of innovation
• Helping design strategies for shifting food systems – with the World Economic Forum and its private sector partners
• Developing sustainable food and nature strategies – for Africa’s food system and the Central African Cocoa economy

Our work is underpinned by a track record spanning food systems, agricultural and inclusive development, poverty graduation and social protection. Our clients have included AGRA, IDRC, USAID, the World Economic Forum, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Yara and Econet.

How to unlock a food systems transition in Africa? Technical solutions exist to sustainably raise yields, sequester soil carbon and many more. And pioneer farmers and pastoralists are making this work commercially. The puzzle is how to now transition entire food systems to favour such practices so that positive practices scale up.

Evidence and technical expertise will not cajole the system into changing. Instead, leadership is needed to create an enabling environment from which change emerges. Year on year, we must nurture a movement, forge new coalitions, create incentives, experiment and learn, and sell the opportunity far and wide.

When seeking system change on complex problems, the Systemcraft framework invites exploration of five dimensions (see figure) through which to build the collective and adaptive effort required for impact at scale. It prompts key insights as we ask, “what can we each do next?” in order to transition food systems.

Change the incentives: It is farmers and pastoralists making decisions about what and how they make food available and who must adopt new practices. So they must be at the heart of any systemic transition. The practices they employ result from a web of incentives, ranging from subsidies to consumer expectations, the agronomic paradigm (norms and risk aversion) and supply chain structures.

A tipping point for change will only occur when such incentives instead favour practices for regenerative, nutritious and inclusive agriculture, while also bringing focus to the myriad actors bringing foods from farms to consumers. Ultimately, farms must be more profitable when they sequester carbon or choose to grow nutrient-dense crops.

At that point, the most successful farmers will be those who innovate the best mix of practices for their specific ecological and market context. This rewiring of incentives must reward agriculture that delivers public goods, rather than hiding externalities such as trees cut down, water contaminated, or carbon emitted as happens currently.

There are countless levers for shifting incentives: subsidy reform; carbon markets; stronger ESG investment, lower insurance premiums; product certification; peer to peer social influencing. Some can be advanced globally, but many will need national efforts.

Organise for collaboration: The current system is maintained by all its constituents – consumers, buyers, input providers, policymakers and scientists, with farmers and pastoralists at the centre. A critical mass of these will need to collaborate differently to reform the food system even though it is largely working for them in its current form.

Sufficient change in Africa will likely come from more and better-connected ‘systems oriented’ local and national African leaders and institutions who can rally farmers, communities and whole societies behind a shared vision and strategy of implementation for an inclusive and regenerative future for national food systems.

African leaders from the private, public and civic spheres that comprise much of Africa’s food systems are major catalysts capable of shaping the ambition, agendas, market dynamics and wider context for how food systems currently operate, as well as their future trajectory.

Resistance to change will come in silent and explicit forms, often with legitimate concerns. A food systems movement will need to anchor itself in well-resourced, trusted backbone organisations at the national level, networked together to enable learning and advocacy at national, continental and global levels.

Set the direction: Structural inertia makes system change hard. It is more likely when collaborators unify their efforts behind a specific agenda. Agri-food transformation brings an existing national and continental agenda with clear and measurable goals.

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) provides an important infrastructure for collaboration in Africa among many stakeholders with broad goals and specific measures for achievement every two years, though it must evolve to capture all dimensions of food systems and it is yet to reach its full potential (see below).

Harness collective intelligence: Changing our food system is full of risks and opportunities. There will be unintended consequences. Perhaps, for example, introducing rotational grazing forces some crop harvests to be grown on new land. Equally, innovations will emerge that deserve wide-scale adoption.

Evidence and practice must dance together. A food systems movement must actively facilitate learning and communication across stakeholders and geographies to ensure positive net impacts for farmers, society and our ecosystem.

Make it matter: The effects of the food system on nature and on human health and well-being matter. But the current trajectory of the food system indicates it doesn’t matter enough to the people that need to make the changes.

Food systems can be replaced as a political priority as communications technology, industry, urban issues and geo-political concerns take increasing precedence. For ordinary people, their health can be a persistent long term concern that rarely comes into focus with day to day food choices. The potential of the food system for increasing nutritious foods and providing rewarding employment and growth whilst off-setting expensive imports must matter more.

Above all, through advocacy, scorecards, popular mobilisation in coalition, the food system can be made to matter more to those that need to do the changing, notably consumers, government officials, business leaders, farmers.

Core to every effort is supporting people on the front-line of decisions in the food system (like farmers and SMEs) should be the focus for efforts that change practices. For instance, transitioning the food system requires a fundamental mindset shift to farming as ecological stewardship, in which food is grown in ways conducive to nature.