Food is a basic human right, yet 673 million people around the world still go to bed hungry each night. At the same time, food systems are under unprecedented pressure from climate change, conflict, economic inequality, and population growth. To end global hunger, the world must look beyond short-term fixes and embrace long-term solutions. This is where sustainable food systems come in.
A sustainable food system is one that provides enough nutritious food for everyone, without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. It balances environmental protection, social equity, and economic viability. In short, sustainable food systems ensure that people can eat well while the planet can thrive.
To achieve our vision of a world free from hunger, it is essential to understand what sustainable food systems are, why they matter, and how they can be built.
Food Systems Explained
A food system is a network of activities, resources, policies, and people involved in food creation and use. It encompasses every step from farm to fork:
- Production – how food is grown, raised, or caught.
- Processing – how raw ingredients are turned into consumable products.
- Distribution – how food reaches markets, shops, and households.
- Consumption – the cultural, social, and economic choices around what people eat.
- Waste management – how uneaten or spoiled food is handled.
These steps are interconnected. A farmer’s decision about what to plant can be shaped by global trade rules. A retailer’s sourcing practices can influence what consumers buy. A household’s food waste affects landfill emissions. Together, these elements form a system that has enormous impacts on health, livelihoods, and the environment. Everyone has a role to play in shaping that system.
Why Sustainable Food Systems Are Critical for Ending Hunger
A sustainable food system is one that is environmentally friendly, equitable, and economically viable. With these three priorities, we can ensure that people and the planet are thriving together. Sustainable food systems are critical for ending hunger because they:
- Tackle root causes of hunger: they address deeper issues of poverty, inequality, and broken systems by creating fairer markets, improving livelihoods for small farmers, and reducing the barriers that prevent vulnerable communities from accessing nutritious meals.
- Reduce food waste: minimizing waste is emphasized at every stage of the food system, meaning more food reaches people in need and fewer resources are squandered.
- Improve nutrition and health: nutritious, culturally appropriate, and accessible foods are prioritized with crop diversification and local food production.
- Protect against climate change: climate change is one of the greatest threats to food security, and food systems contribute largely to the problem through greenhouse emissions. Sustainable food systems minimize harm and bolster food security for the long term.
Strengthen resilience to shocks: sustainable food systems are diverse, decentralized, and adaptive, making them far more resilient in the face of disruptions like extreme weather events, pandemics, or conflicts.
How Action Against Hunger Helps Build Sustainable Food Systems
Ending hunger only starts with emergency food aid. For communities to build their self-sufficiency and resilience, long-term solutions are required. That is why we work with communities, governments, and partners worldwide to build sustainable food systems that protect lives today and secure food for tomorrow. Our approach includes:
Strengthening Local Food Production
We provide training and resources to smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and fishers so they can increase yields in environmentally responsible ways. From introducing drought-resistant seeds to promoting agroecology and climate-smart agriculture, we help communities grow diverse and nutritious foods despite climate and economic challenges.
How One Legume is Transforming Lives in Zambia
In Zambia, Action Against Hunger is training local farmers in cultivating cowpeas, a drought-resistant crop with enormous potential for fighting malnutrition in the region.
Empowering Women and Marginalized Groups
Women are central to food production and household nutrition, yet they often face barriers to land, credit, and decision-making. We champion gender equality by supporting women-led cooperatives, offering financial literacy training, and advocating for policies that expand women’s access to resources and markets.
A Mother’s New Start in South Sudan
With the right resources, women can forge a new life for themselves, uplifting their communities while they do. Aling, a widow, mother, and refugee in South Sudan, joined Action Against Hunger’s farming training with the hope of supporting her family. Now, she and other women in her community are thriving, without fear of their family’s futures.
Building Resilience to Climate Shocks
Through water management projects, soil restoration, and reforestation, we strengthen ecosystems that underpin food security. We also provide training in disaster risk reduction so communities can adapt to droughts, floods, and other climate-related threats that disrupt food systems.
Taking Anticipatory Action to Protect Food Systems in Bangladesh
Action Against Hunger is leveraging AI to predict cyclones and floods. Early warning messages are sent to local communities, so food can be harvested or secured before disaster strikes.
Improving Access to Markets and Livelihoods
We connect small-scale producers to local and regional markets, ensuring they can earn fair incomes and reinvest in their families and farms. By supporting community savings groups and offering livelihood grants, we reduce economic vulnerability and build long-term resilience.
A Community-Led Transformation in Kenya
In Isiolo, Kenya, Action Against Hunger is partnering with the local government to support a group of women farmers with scaling up production to bolster local food markets and livelihoods.
Reducing Food Waste
Post-harvest losses are minimized through improved storage, preservation, and processing techniques so families can keep more of what they grow. Food that cannot be consumed is given new value: transformed into organic fertilizer to enrich soils, repurposed as animal feed, or upcycled into products such as baskets. These efforts ensure that fewer resources are wasted, farmers earn more, and communities move closer to sustainable food security.
Boosting Soil Health with Compost in Bangladesh
Action Against Hunger is teaching farmers in Bangladesh how to make and use fertilizer with natural products like manure and compost. Not only can the fertilizer be made from locally available resources, it also has microbial benefits that boost the long-term fertility of the soil.
Promoting Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture
Food systems must go beyond simply producing enough calories to fill plates; they must also deliver the vitamins, minerals, and diversity needed to protect against malnutrition in all its forms. By supporting farmers in selecting nutrient-rich crops that are locally available and culturally appropriate, yet different from those already available, we help ensure that diets are balanced and sustainable.
How a 17-Year-Old Student is Transforming Food Security in Uganda
School nutrition clubs, like the ones Action Against Hunger starts in Uganda, help students learn about nutrition-sensitive agriculture so they can take an active role in shaping the food systems around them.
Advocating for Systemic Change
We engage with policymakers, donors, and international institutions to push for food systems that are inclusive, equitable, and sustainable. Our advocacy focuses on shifting policies away from harmful subsidies, scaling up climate financing for vulnerable farmers, and ensuring that nutrition is at the heart of global food agendas.
A National Nutrition Policy in South Sudan
South Sudan is currently facing high levels of hunger, with 2.3 million children under the age of five being at risk of acute malnutrition. But a recent milestone is making systemic change that will help combat the problem. A national nutrition policy was adopted with the help of Action Against Hunger’s expertise in nutrition and health.
Building Food Systems for a Hunger-Free Future
Ending global hunger requires more than producing more food. It demands transforming the way we produce, distribute, and consume it. Sustainable food systems offer a roadmap: they nourish people, sustain the planet, and create fair opportunities for those who grow our food.
Everybody, from farmers to consumers to government officials, has a role to play. By working together to build systems that are resilient, equitable, and environmentally sound, we can create a future where no one goes hungry and where food becomes a source of health, dignity, and hope for all.
For Action. Against Hunger.
Together we’re creating a better way to deal with hunger. For everyone. For good.
