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Millions of jobs in food production are disappearing — a change in mindset would help to keep them

Halting the loss of jobs and knowledge from small-scale producers requires investing in rural sustainability, addressing poverty and inequity and ensuring the economic gains stay local. The benefits would be shared globally.
  1. Eduardo S. Brondizio

    1. Eduardo S. Brondizio is distinguished professor of anthropology and (together with his co-authors) a member of the Sustainable Food Systems Science project at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

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  2. Stacey A. Giroux

    1. Stacey A. Giroux is associate research scientist at the Ostrom Workshop and in the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

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  3. Julia C. D. Valliant

    1. Julia C. D. Valliant is a research scientist at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

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  4. Jordan Blekking

    1. Jordan Blekking is a research scientist at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

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  5. Stephanie Dickinson

    1. Stephanie Dickinson is executive director of the Biostatistics Consulting Center in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

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  6. Beate Henschel

    1. Beate Henschel is a biostatistician at the Biostatistics Consulting Center in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

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A fisherman wearing a hat pulls a large pirarucu from the water and on to his boat

Community-based management of the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas) fishery in Amazonia has saved the species from the brink of extinction. Credit: Ricardo Oliveira/AFP via Getty

Making progress on internationally agreed goals for sustainable development, climate change and biodiversity will require major changes to how the world’s food is produced and distributed1. In 2021, the World Bank estimated that current food systems account for US$12 trillion in hidden social, economic and environmental costs2.

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Nature 620, 33-36 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02447-2

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Supplementary Information

  1. Analysis methods and supplemental figures-v2

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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