The environmental, social and economic impacts of feeding the Swiss population are immense, and largely fall outside of Swiss borders. New, harmonized and transdisciplinary methods are needed to track these multidimensional impacts to support new dialogues between science, society and policy in order to navigate the unavoidable ethical and political trade-offs caused by the “sustainability transition”.

The overall goal is to develop a new approach to co-create sustainable food system scenarios and policies that put ordinary citizens at the centre of decision making. To do this, we will study two examples of high-impact agricultural supply chains (cocoa from Ecuador and oil/nut crops from Spain). In each, we will (i) assess the values that producers hold for local agro-ecosystems, (ii) include these values in a new, comprehensive sustainability assessment approach, and (iii) map the structure and dynamics of these supply chains to identify potentials for improvement and transformation. In parallel, we will (iv) develop a model of the entire Swiss agri-food system to support participatory scenario exploration. The food system model and in-depth supply chain results will support deliberation workshops with diverse Swiss citizens to co-create visions of sustainable food futures, and formulate the policies needed to implement them.

Our project will deliver high-impact research outputs and policy recommendations for the future governance of the Swiss agri-food system. These will be particularly relevant, legitimate and effective due to our participatory and democratic approach, which comes at a time when Swiss democratic institutions grapple with key sustainability policies, such as in meeting climate targets, governing global supply chains and greening agriculture