Food systems should be sustainable

By Kelsey Farish on Unsplash

For the right to food to be realized, food systems need to be sustainable. This means the way we grow, harvest, produce, consume, and dispose of food should protect the long-term availability and accessibility of food for both present and future generations.

In order to be sustainable, food systems must take into account environmental health and the preservation of natural resources. This includes how food is produced, how it travels from field or sea to plate, and how it contributes to our public health. The current food system, which supports large-scale industrial agriculture and food production, perpetuates environmental harm through mass production techniques dependent on fertilizer and pesticide use and monocropping, which leads to soil depletion and long-term biodiversity loss. These production methods treat food as a commodity – something to be bought and sold with the primary purpose of generating capital for a few corporations. 

Extractive techniques that focus on over-production also fail to respond to ending food insecurity in the United States by perpetuating the cycle of food waste that is redirected through charitable food distribution. Autonomous, small-scale, agroecological, and localized food systems are shown to be sustainable, both environmentally and socially. Reorganizing our food systems to protect the needs of current and future generations will require us to redirect investment from large-scale food and agriculture corporate entities towards regenerative and agroecological practices that support healthy soils, communities, and local economies. 

One example of a federally funded program that supported sustainable local food systems is the Local Food Purchasing Assistance program. Through this program local farmers were able to sell sustainably grown vegetables, fruits, meats and cheese at a fair price directly to public institutions such as schools or to charitable food distribution sites. The current administration has slashed that program, undermining efforts by states to use federal dollars to help local farmers become more profitable and local eaters to have access to affordable farm-fresh food.  Last week Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania announced that they were suing the Trump Administration for unlawfully terminating the LFPA program crippling the investments made in shoring up local food systems at a time when the need for nutritious food is at an all-time high.

New briefing report

Today we are launching a new report entitled “Food systems should be sustainable.” This is the second briefing report of our five-part “Right to Food in the United States” series. In this report, we discuss the lack of sustainability in our current food system, and set forth recommendations for how to move forward more sustainably. These recommendations were co-created with members of the Community of Practice. 

Our recommendations include: 

• Support, subsidize, and incentivize independent and small-scale  food producers that implement sustainable, regenerative, and agroecological practices. 

• Fund and support infrastructure for local, small-scale processing, especially for meat.

• Hold agricultural companies accountable for their role in accelerating climate change and their negative impacts on food production, access, equity, and sustainability.

• Develop and support integrated regional policy that recognizes the intersections of food, farming, conservation, healthy soils, land and water access, health, housing, healthcare, racial health, and economic disparities. 

• Protect the fishing, hunting, water, and land rights of Indigenous peoples. 

Next steps

Our new “Right to Food in the United States” briefings are designed to be used by advocates working to advance the right to food at all levels - in towns, cities, and states across the country. We encourage you to read and share them widely, and to contact us with any questions or ideas for how to use them in your own work. 

Visit our website to find out how you can get involved with this work. 

This post is part of a “Right to Food in the United States” series, where we are releasing a set of briefing reports that explore the progress the United States has made in advancing the right to food since 2020, when we underwent the most recent Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the United Nations Human Rights Council. For more information, please see our full report submitted on behalf of more than 35 organizations to the UN in April 2025 as part of the current UPR process.