I recently spent some time with the new Resilient Food Systems Index from Economist Impact, supported by Cargill. It is thoughtful, well-constructed and asks an important question at exactly the right time: not simply whether the world can produce enough food, but whether our food systems can continue to function when placed under pressure.
It marks a shift in the focus and stands out as different to other industry reports…for me at least.
For years, conversations around food have often centred on efficiency, yield, affordability and scale. Those things still matter, of course, but recent years have reminded us that efficiency alone is not the same as resilience. Weather shocks, geopolitical tension, rising costs, labour shortages, input volatility and changing regulations have all shown how quickly a finely tuned system can become a fragile one.
The report recognises this well. Its central message is that many of the ingredients for resilience already exist. We have innovation. We have finance. We have policy levers. We have better data than ever before. The challenge is connecting these moving parts and making them work together in a more joined-up way. Possibly that is the new goal for efficiency rather than measured in yield….to steal a phrase from the tech industry – working smarter not harder.
And Yet….
Reading it with a mind towards our own work with farmers, growers and food businesses, it also felt like there was another conversation sitting just beneath the surface. Not a contradiction to the report, but perhaps a layer that is harder to capture in an index.
Because resilience, when discussed at a system level, can sound shared and evenly distributed. In practice, it often is not.
When conditions become more difficult, the strain tends to show up first on farm. A poor season, rising fertiliser costs, volatile markets, delayed policy decisions, new assurance demands, shifting retailer requirements or pressure to invest in environmental outcomes with uncertain return are not abstract forces. They are experienced directly by farming businesses, making decisions in real time, often with tight margins and long planning horizons.
In many ways, farmers have become the shock absorbers of the wider food system.
They carry weather risk. They absorb market movement. They respond to policy change. They are asked to adapt production methods, meet new standards, invest in sustainability and remain commercially viable, often all at once. And while the wider system depends on that resilience, the rewards for providing it do not always flow back in equal measure.
This is where another important question begins to emerge.
The report rightly talks about improving connections to markets, strengthening infrastructure and ensuring that productivity gains are not lost between field and fork. Those are essential themes. But access to markets is not quite the same thing as fairness within them.
We regularly hear from farmers who are willing to change, willing to invest and willing to respond to new expectations, but less certain that the commercial model around them recognises the cost of doing so and that the system is equipped to have the investment recognised in time.
They may improve productivity without improving profitability.
They may invest in sustainable practices without clear reward.
They may take on more risk so that others further down the chain can maintain continuity and confidence.
A system can still function like that for a time. It can even look efficient from the outside. But over time it creates a different kind of fragility. If those at the start of the chain are under sustained pressure, resilience starts to become performative language rather than practical reality.
That is why I keep returning to one broader question: do we need system optimisation, or do we need overhaul?
There is no doubt that optimisation is needed. Better infrastructure, smarter logistics, clearer policy, improved data flows and joined-up decision-making would all make a tangible difference. We should not underestimate how much progress can come from simply making the current system work better – marginal gains and all that – 1% better in every direction adds up to a bigger sum.
But if risk remains concentrated in one part of the chain while value accumulates elsewhere, then optimisation may only take us so far. It may produce a more efficient version of the same imbalance.
What we see in our research is not a sector unwilling to move forward. Quite the opposite. Many farmers are already exploring regenerative practices, new technologies, diversified income streams, environmental delivery models and more efficient ways of producing food. The issue is rarely the appetite for change.
More often, it is confidence.
Confidence that policy will remain stable long enough to justify investment. Confidence that markets will reward the outcomes being asked for. Confidence that if they shoulder more risk, they will share in the return.
Without that confidence, resilience becomes something farmers are expected to provide – another thing on the list somewhere between biodiversity improvement and net zero – rather than something the wider system helps to build.
None of this detracts from the value of the Index. It is useful because it gives us a framework, language and evidence base for an issue that deserves serious attention. But perhaps its greatest value is also in prompting the questions it cannot fully answer.
Not just how do we build a more resilient food system.
But who is carrying that resilience today?
Who benefits when it works?
And how should value be distributed if we want it to last?
If we can ask those questions honestly, then perhaps we are talking about real change. If not, we may simply be nibbling around the edges. If anyone wants to talk about the balance of fairness in the system and how we can measure it in a meaningful way, I am always up for a coffee – virtual or in person.