Local sustainable diets as a driver of the transition to agroecological food systems

Abstract

In this paper, we propose the promotion of local sustainable diets as a process that can facilitate the transition of current industrialised food systems to agroecological food systems. First, we describe the problem, which can be synthesised by the following question: how to enhance the synergies between local diets, sustainable diets, and agroecology that we argue are the key drivers of the transition to agroecological food systems. To build our argument, we first provide a theoretical discussion regarding the concepts of sustainable diets, local diets, agroecology practice, agroecology transition, and sustainable food systems. This discussion allows us for the identification of joint and complementary characteristics. We then provide possible solutions based on existing global experiences, which we believe to drive the development of local and sustainable diets, agroecology, and food systems and taken together can aid the transition to agroecological food systems.