Time for a vision exam: diagnosing problems in the pursuit of equitably transformative resilience in food systems

Journal article

Amid intensifying climate change, biodiversity collapse, political instability, and widening inequality, the urgency to reimagine food systems is greater than ever. This commentary builds on the concept of Equitably Transformative Resilience (ETR), first proposed in the 2025 High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) report Building Resilient Food Systems (HLPE, 2025). As elaborated in the report, conventional approaches to resilience emphasize “bouncing back,” through privileging risk management and return to its prior state, reinforcing the very structures that generated vulnerability. These framings obscure ecological fragility and entrenched inequities, leaving communities and ecosystems unable to achieve genuine resilience. Drawing on the HLPE report and the wider literature, we use the metaphor of a vision exam to identify six common ways that dominant resilience framings are distorted in relation to food systems: (1) tunnel vision (siloed thinking), (2) bifocalism (separating ecological and social dimensions), (3 and 4) temporal myopias (ignoring historical injustices and short-termism), (5) spatial myopia (overlooking cross-scale dynamics), and (6) overlooking intersectionality. Correcting these distortions illuminates pathways toward ETR.

Authors: Anderson, CR; Ferrando, T; Blay-Palmer, A; Espinosa-García, FJ; Cabral, L

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Journal: Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 457-476
• Publication date: 2025-12-08
• DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2025.2588252
• EISSN: 2168-3573
• ISSN: 2168-3565
• Language: English
• Keywords: resilience; equity; food sovereignty; human rights; transformation