Promoting Sustainable Food Provision; the Role of Networks in Global Food Governance

Food provision in contemporary societies is transforming due to challenges of globalization, sustainability and equity. The interactions between civil society organizations, governments, the food industry, consumers and producers constitute dynamic fields of environmental change in global food provision. Promoting equitable and sustainable food provision in a globalizing world requires well-informed insights in these social dynamics involved because global food governance involves a complex array of different public and private actors. Today we are faced with a fragmented, differentiated, hybrid and contested constellation of global food governance arrangements and therefore we need a network rather than a formalized perspective on food governance. Such a network perspective can serve as the start of a new research agenda for the study of global sustainable food governance.