The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) has adopted a set of 10 principles to guide the transition to sustainable food systems. The panel is a new initiative that brings together experts from different disciplines to support, inform and advise the policy debate on how to reform food systems across the world. “The shift to sustainable food systems is urgently needed. But this urgency must not lead us to rush headlong into solutions that resolve one problem while worsening another,” said the panel’s co-chairs Olivier De Schutter, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and Olivia Yambi, a nutritionist and former UNICEF representative to Kenya. IPES-Food has identified five principles to shape sustainable food systems of the future as well as five principles for the types of knowledge and analysis that are required to support this transition. First, food systems need to become sustainable in all dimensions, including environmental, health, social, cultural and economic dimensions. Sustainable systems should deliver diets that are nutritious, affordable and culturally acceptable and provide food security for all people, including future generation. Second, food systems must be diverse, multifunctional and resilient. This requires a change of course in agriculture and full support for agroecology in order to sustain yields and agro-ecosystems in the longer-term. This needs to be complemented by diversity in supply chains and markets. Third, decision-making in food systems must be democratised in ways that empower disadvantaged actors and help to realise the human rights of all, including the right to food. Fourth, social and technological innovation is to play an important role in the transformation of food distribution and retail practices, as well as modes of production. Fifth, new indicators of progress must be developed in order to capture the benefits of equitable, resilient, diverse, nutrient-rich food systems. The experts also underline the important role of knowledge in transforming food systems. “The knowledge that is brought to bear can sustain existing power dynamics, or help to reverse them,” IPES said. To shape the food systems of the future, knowledge and analysis is needed that is holistic, power-sensitive, transdisciplinary, critically engaged and independent. (ab)