Transformative Governance for Sustainable Food Systems: Why the Local Level Is Key

Transforming food systems is one of the most urgent challenges of our time. Food systems shape not only what we eat, but also biodiversity, public health, social equity, and climate resilience. At the Conference on Transformative Governance for Food Systems and Biodiversity in Copenhagen on December 3, 2025, Prof.dr Jacqueline Broerse delivered a keynote highlighting a crucial insight: real transformation happens when governance efforts deliberately connect top-down and bottom-up approaches and start at the local level¹. Food system change usually follows two main routes. The first is top-down transformation, driven by EU or national policies. These policies aim to change structures, rules, incentives, and institutions with the expectation that practices and cultural norms will follow. Such policies often encounter resistance. Citizens, farmers, and other stakeholders may feel sidelined or overwhelmed, and policy measures may fail to connect with everyday realities.

The second route is bottom-up transformation, where innovative practices emerge through local pilots and experiments. These initiatives change what people do on the ground, assuming that successful practices will eventually influence structures and policies. Yet many promising local innovations struggle to scale up because they lack institutional support or alignment with higher-level policies. The key message is clear: transformative governance must intentionally connect both routes, while paying explicit attention to not only structures and practices, but also culture (values and norms) through meaningful engagement.

A comprehensive model for transformative governance centres on science–policy–society interfaces, based on a quadruple helix approach, such as strong Food Policy Networks. These networks bring together public authorities, civil society, the private sector, and research and education institutions. Their role is to identify food system challenges, coordinate initiatives, engage citizens, and translate knowledge into policy. Living Labs play a central role in this model. Through co-creation, experimentation, and action-learning cycles, Living Labs test real-life interventions on farms, in city-regions and neighbourhoods. The evidence generated feeds directly into integrated food policies that aim to support successful interventions and take away barriers to scaling.

The Amsterdam Living Lab (part of the FoodCLIC² project) provides a powerful example. Lessons from the Living Lab interventions from community gardens, food distribution and neighbourhood cooking initiatives to sustainable procurement and community-supported agriculture inform the city’s Food Strategy 2.0, which is shifting its approach from siloed policy domains toward an integrated place-based focus on food environments. At the same time, eleven municipalities in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area share experiences through a community of practice, strengthening vertical links to regional and national levels. The main lesson from this work is that transformative governance is neither linear nor simple. In connecting bottom-up and top-down, integration across sectors and governance levels, continuous reflexive action learning, and strong capacities for engagement are key. When done well, local action becomes the engine that drives food system transformation, benefiting people, planet, and biodiversity alike.

This article was written by Prof.dr. Jacqueline Broerse from FoodCLIC partner and coordinator Athena Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Curious to know more? Check the recording here: Video recordings from the conference – University of Copenhagen - Video recording Opening session: Shaping a resilient and competitive future for agriculture, food systems, and biodiversity - Minute 62-77

Publishing date: 18 February 2026