Feeding the future? Corporate takeover of food systems

This is the first in a three-part article examining how the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) and related processes, including the upcoming UN Summit of the Future, preserve and deepen corporate control over food and agriculture–and why rural peoples are pushing back. 

Acknowledging that the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs are “badly off track,” the United Nations (UN) promises a “fundamental rethink” of global systems in a high-level Summit of the Future (SOTF) to be convened in New York from 22 to 23 September. By supposedly reinvigorating multilateral governance, the SOTF aims “to forge a new international consensus” on how to salvage the SDGs amid slow and even deteriorating progress marked by rising levels of poverty and hunger and the growing intensity of environmental crises and wars.

The goal of Zero Hunger (SDG 2) has been particularly off-track, with hunger and food insecurity deteriorating. Based on official figures, about 733.4 million people faced hunger in 2023, 162.4 million more than the number of hungry in 2015 when the world adopted the SDGs. By the 2030 Zero Hunger deadline, it is estimated that 582 million people will still be chronically undernourished. In Africa, hunger has steadily risen for the past decade and a half, with 298.4 million hungry people in 2023 – a whopping 106.3 million rise since 2015. In Asia, hunger levels have also been on the uptick since 2015, with a 48.2 million increase in the number of hungry people to an estimated 384.5 million today. The highest levels of hunger are recorded in rural and semi-rural areas in the Global South. Meanwhile, 2.33 billion people (28.9% of the global population) were food insecure in 2023 – more than four times the number in 2015.

What makes these trends even more appalling is that amid deteriorating hunger and food insecurity, the world today is producing more food than ever, with the production of primary crops increasing by 54% and meat by 53% from 2000 to 2021. This underscores an irony unchanged since the UN and its members forged the 2030 Agenda: the majority of people who feed the world—small farmers, farmworkers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, and other rural peoples—remain the world’s hungriest.

Other SDGs related to environmental sustainability and heavily impacting food and agriculture have also seen deteriorating progress. The UN’s Sustainable Development Report 2024 described global progress on Climate Action (SDG 13) as “stagnating and facing significant challenges” and on Life on Land (SDG 15) “as stagnating and facing major challenges.” Again, poor rural communities from the Global South bear the disproportionate impacts of ecological and climate catastrophes. For instance, floods increase the income disparity between poor and non-poor households in rural areas by around USD 21 billion annually, while heat stress contributes to an additional gap of over USD 20 billion each year.

Clearly, the most urgent and existential global crises are nowhere near being resolved by actions taken by international institutions and governments under the name of “sustainable development.” World leaders claim to be on top of these crises by appearing to reinvent the ways in which they respond. But a closer look at their latest, supposedly future-proof development agenda—including “making food systems work for the people and the planet”—reveals that it safeguards and props up the same system that has kept eliminating world hunger and genuine sustainable development a pipe dream.

‘Transformation’ for whom?

In 2021, the UN kickstarted a radical-sounding “food systems transformation” approach to addressing chronic problems and inequities in food and agriculture. However, civil society and people’s movements quickly unmasked the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) as a mechanism that further entrenches corporate control over food systems through a “multistakeholder” governance structure that gives corporate entities much greater influence on policy framing and decision-making. Indeed, the UNFSS, which saw the prominent involvement of big corporations, as well as leadership by known advocates of the Green Revolution (e.g. AGRA’s Agnes Kalibata), has resulted in outcomes that reinforce the dominance of corporate food systems. Centred on the private sector’s role in solving the food, biodiversity, and climate crises, the UNFSS’ “inclusive multistakeholder governance” and “whole-of-society approach” is a remake of greenwashing efforts through global governance mechanisms.

During the UNFSS+2 Stocktaking Moment in July 2023, the UN Secretary-General’s Call to Action said as much. Recognising their “centrality for food systems,” “promoting increased engagement of businesses, including through public-private partnerships,” is one of the six priority areas of action identified by the UNFSS Coordination Hub, a body led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to oversee UNFSS processes.

In the UN Secretary-General’s progress report to the High-Level Political Forum on progress since UNFSS+2, it appears that multistakeholder mechanisms—which effectively involve the private sector in governance—are already set up in 70% of countries that have modified their governance processes to incorporate a food systems approach or so-called “pathways.” Furthermore, 36% of countries have “developed investment strategies to attract both public and private financial resources,” and 37% have specifically allocated public funds to “support activities related to food systems transformation.”

Undoubtedly, significant public resources are being put into efforts to transform food systems. But who is steering these efforts—and towards what vision of transformation?

Coalitions of Action: Business as usual

A major mechanism through which the UNFSS operates is through the 28 so-called Coalitions of Action. Tasked with championing solutions to specific issues related to food systems, the Coalitions claim to bring together experts to “ensure countries get the political and technical support they require” in a range of areas, including “advocacy, data and analytics, thought leadership, finance, capacity building, and the development of indicators.” The UNFFS Hub plays the crucial role of connecting coalitions with countries where they are expected to engage “in country-level transformation efforts,” including through country pilots. National focal points for coalitions can be appointed within UN agencies.

The UNFSS boasts of inclusivity due to the Coalitions’ multistakeholder nature. In reality, this has compromised the independence normally expected from formations borne out of multilateral efforts and which hold significant influence over UN Member States. While Coalitions claim to “challenge business as usual,” many of them are led by big corporations and corporate-led or influenced institutions—in other words, those responsible for current unjust, unhealthy, and unsustainable food systems and stand to gain most from business as usual.

The following are some examples:

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a leading organisation of two UNFSS coalitions focusing on data and digital innovation: Better Data Better Decisions for Nature-Positive Production and the Global Coalition for Data and Digital Innovation. Technology giant Google and Bayer Foundation are also founding members of the latter.

• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a consortium of more than 200 big corporations, co-leads a coalition on the True Value of Food Initiative, and is a part of other coalition leads such as the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).

• Pesticide and fertiliser companies BASF, Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, Yara, and Nutrien, as well as food and beverage giants PepsiCo and Nestle, are part of the Coalition for Soil Health.

• The Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef[—which includes in its leadership the world’s largest agribusiness firm, Cargill, and fast food conglomerates MacDonald’s and Burger King—co-lead the coalition on pastoralism.

• The Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) co-leads the coalition on halting deforestation. Its president is Kalibata, and AGRA (formerly known as the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa) is among its core partners.

• The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) co-leads coalitions on healthy diets for children, inclusive urban systems, and zero hunger. GAIN is heavily supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Rockefeller Foundation and USAID; food giant Unilever is also among its donors. GAIN works with 600 companies worldwide (e.g., GlaxoSmithKline, Hershey’s, Indofood and Ajinomoto) to “promote private-sector investments that aim to improve the poor’s access to a diverse, affordable, nutritious diets,” mainly through large-scale food fortification and biofortified crops. Biofortification has been criticised as limiting nutritional diversity by promoting dependence on just a few commercial crops to the exclusion of indigenous and traditional varieties. GAIN also partners with AGRA to “mobilise investment opportunities” by establishing matchmaking platforms for agribusinesses and investors.” 

• The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the world’s largest group of agricultural research centres, is in seven coalitions. Established in the 1970s to consolidate research institutions to promote the Green Revolution, CGIAR has been at the forefront of proprietary seed development, including biotechnology. The Gates Foundation heavily funds it and lists Syngenta Foundation as one of its donors.

Active US leadership

While many American transnational corporations (TNCs), foundations, and corporate-funded civil society are leading forces in these coalitions, the US government itself has also taken on an active role. The US government-led Coalition on Sustainable Productivity Growth for Food Security and Resource Conservation or SPG Coalition, for instance, includes many projects led or participated in by big corporations which essentially prop up global monopolies and corporate food chains, perpetuate existing unsustainable industrial agriculture practices, and promote techno-fixes that allow companies to greenwash climate action, often with public research funding. These include the following initiatives:

• Promotion of CropLife International’s “Sustainable Pesticide Management Framework” in Africa, Middle East, and Asia
• Training and livelihood projects by pesticide companies: FMC corporation’s “empowering smallholder farmers” in Asia introduces farmers in Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and the Philippines to “new mode-of-action pesticides”; BASF trains coffee farmers in Mexico on integrated pest management
• Genetically modified crops: Promotion of drought-tolerant wheat in Argentina, CropLife co-led research on herbicide-tolerant crops and carbon sequestration in Canada
• Increasing farmers’ access to chemical fertilisers, a major contributor to global GHG emissions, by increasing the role of the private sector (USAID’s Feed the Future in Nepal, TEAMS Program in Mozambique)
• US Dairy Net Zero Initiative partners with big commercial dairies and corporate entities like Nestlé and Starbucks for on-farm pilots focusing on techno-fixes with questionable impacts on methane emissions reduction, such as optimising feed and genetics
• Digital platforms and apps by pesticide companies, i.e., Syngenta’s Cropwise®, Bayer’s ForGround

Private capital for zero hunger?

The Zero Hunger Coalition is particularly revealing in how the UNFSS proposes to accelerate the achievement of SDG 2 by matching private sector investments with the needs of countries. Claiming to use “advanced evidence-synthesis and cost modelling,” the Coalition helps countries develop country-specific roadmaps to supposedly tackle hunger and malnutrition. These roadmaps provide the basis for investment opportunities, which the Coalition then facilitates by connecting countries to businesses participating in the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge.

Here are examples of some big food, agrochemical, and seed companies that have pledged millions of dollars to the initiative:

Company name	Total commitment (USD)	Countries/ region
Arla Foods Ingredients Group	478,684	Ethiopia, Pakistan
BASF	10,666,667	Ethiopia
Bayer	160,000,000	Africa, Asia, Latin America
East-West Seed	18,000,000	Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Myanmar, Nigeria, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda
FMC Corporation	30,456,000	Africa, Asia, Brazil, India, Kenya, Latin America
PepsiCo	100,000,000	Africa, Asia, Latin America, South Africa
Unilever	66,982,104	Africa, Asia, Latin America
Lifted from Zero Hunger List of Pledges

Overall, more than USD 600 million have been committed by more than 50 companies and corporate interest groups to the Zero Hunger Pledge. Many of these commitments are hardly philanthropic but rather are designed to either outright sell or help produce products for the company or develop such market linkages:

• Bayer committed to developing “climate-smart” vegetable seeds for smallholder farmers, while support for “sustainable practices in water-scarce regions” is linked to the promotion of its hybrid rice brand Arize.

• Arla Foods aims to repurpose the whey side-streams of local dairies in Pakistan into a “nutrient-rich” drink. In a country where the majority of people rely on locally produced fresh milk, Arla’s goal to “increase the accessibility of nutritious milk-based products” plays right into Pakistan’s new policies that facilitate corporate capture of the dairy industry and is a threat to the livelihoods and food security of millions of small dairy farmers.

•  Unilever claims to “help smallholder farmers improve their livelihoods” in Madagascar while ensuring a “secure and sustainable” source of natural vanilla for its Wall’s ice-cream brand.

The UN describes the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge as a “game-changing” solution to accelerate the achievement of SDG 2, as “governments cannot eradicate hunger alone and need more private sector involvement.” This not only completely abdicates the role of governments in addressing structural inequities that form the root causes of hunger. It also completely ignores the role of big corporations in driving global inequities: the destruction of local food and farming systems, plunder of natural resources, and labour exploitation of rural peoples, which have all led to the continued maldevelopment—hence rising poverty and hunger—in the Global South.

(To be continued)