Transformative Driving Forces in Organic Food Systems: A Roadmap toward the Sustainable Development Goals

A broad understanding of food systems includes a complex web of activities, outcomes and drivers, encompassing not only the food and agriculture sectors, but also the social norms and cultures in which those activities are embedded. The organic food and farming movement has lately been portrayed as a food system in its own right, since it contains all necessary sub-systems, consisting of food environments, distribution networks, processing, as well as production and supply, all of which are bounded by an organic guarantee system. What began as a counterculture has emerged as a theory of change, transporting a set of sustainability narratives that go far beyond the concerns of a mere land-use system. Interacting driving forces in food systems, resulting in cumulative driver effects and synergies induce non-linear processes in multiple directions. This dissertation critically reviews the discourse on driving forces in food systems and argues that mindset is the primary predictor for food system outcomes. While “yield per hectare” and “go big or go out” narratives are still driving the food system’s overall trajectory, transformative worldviews are beginning to transcend the Dominant Social Paradigm. In the epoch of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Anthropocene, a wholesome mindset matters more than ever.