Every school child learns that there are three things that all human life needs to survive: air, water, and food. But food does so much more than fuel our bodies. Food is a repository and celebration of our cultures and identities. It is medicine. It connects us to each other and to the wider world. Food brings us pleasure. It’s an expression of love.

Today’s global food systems are “a wonder of technological and logistical brilliance.” They feed more people than ever, supplying a greater variety of food more cheaply and faster than ever. But the way we eat today comes with serious costs to our environment, our health, our economies, and our cultures.

Whether viewed through the lens of climate change and the environment, public health, economic opportunity, or social and racial equity, it is clear that food systems transformation is urgent.

The world’s food systems account for an estimated one-third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and are a primary driver of biodiversity loss and land degradation. The agricultural sector consumes close to 70% of the planet’s fresh water and is the leading source of water, air, and soil pollution in many countries.

Meanwhile, between 720-811 million people in the world—38 million of them in the U.S.—faced hunger in 2020, while global food insecurity is forecast to rise in 2022 due in part to rising food prices. Diet-related health problems are on the rise; to give but one example, in 2019 37.3 million Americans, or 11.3% of the population, had diabetes.

Two-thirds of people living in extreme poverty are agricultural workers and their families. Here at home, 86% of the 21.5 million food chain workers in the U.S. earn poverty-level wages, many in jobs that lack benefits such as paid sick leave and family leave. Many in our agricultural labor force, particularly those without legal citizenship, are subject to grueling and dangerous labor conditions, with little recourse to the basic rights so hard won in past labor struggles.

The driving forces behind these statistics are complex and interconnected. Industrialized agriculture—the backbone of the high-yield model in the U.S. and other production powerhouses like China and Brazil—is highly dependent on fossil fuels, chemical inputs, and low-wage labor. Increased consumption of meat and processed foods has accelerated the conversion of ecosystems like tropical forests into industrial-scale farm and ranchland, stripping them of their important role in mitigating climate change, preserving biodiversity, and providing sustainable livelihoods. Consolidation of farmland is reducing opportunities for new farmers—especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers—to enter the field, while corporatization means that a small number of large corporations wield influence over government rules and the marketplace.

As our global population continues to grow, productivity and efficiency will always be important. But productivity can not be the sole measure of value in our food systems. In this theme, Battery Powered will dive into the question of:

What will it take to shift food systems towards greater sustainability, security, and equity?

We envision a future of food that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and pressures on our land, supports biodiversity, is resilient to shocks and stresses, provides economic opportunity and access to healthy food for all, and upholds human dignity.

To achieve these goals, we need a profusion of mutually reinforcing solutions at all scales, across all sectors and geographies, and at all points in the system of how our food is produced, processed, transported, sold, and consumed. And we need the enabling environment for those solutions to flourish: research on systems-based approaches that uplift ecological, health, social, and economic goals. Government policies and public sector finance that recognize the true cost of food and that incentivize, accelerate, and amplify food systems transformations. Alignment of investors, multilateral, and philanthropic funders for greater impact.

So what is Battery Powered’s place in this vast universe? With our limited but meaningful funds, we have chosen to focus on opportunities in the United States and especially in California. Our home state is, after all, a global powerhouse in agriculture and a hub of food innovation, a place where solutions create local impact while advancing more systemic shifts. Further, we have chosen to focus on the following three “pillars”, and on approaches within them where shovel-ready opportunities abound or where philanthropy can leverage resources to spur transformational action:

Production. Transforming how we produce our food. We’ll explore how regenerative agriculture reestablishes relationships between humans, crops, animals, soil, and ecosystems; and how alternative proteins mitigate the negative impacts of our growing demand for meat.	Distribution. Transforming how we get food from farm to fork. We’ll explore how local and regional food systems bolster food security while providing environmental and economic benefits; and the power of procurement to influence large-scale shifts in the system.	Access. Moving the system towards justice and equity. We’ll explore why access to land and access to healthy, affordable foods are key to more equitable food systems for all.

We gratefully acknowledge the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, from whose mission statement we drew our guiding question. The Alliance’s guiding principles and reports informed our thinking for this theme, as did the HEAL Food Alliance, among many others.