As the 21st century unfolds, the world’s food systems stand at a critical juncture. What we eat, how it’s grown, and how it reaches our plates have implications beyond personal health— they shape livelihoods, ecosystems, and the planet’s future. To make sense of this complexity, 25 authors co-created five radical visions for the future of Food Systems in this Policy Brief. The basis of their chapters was a workshop that was implemented in March 2025 on the same topic as this Policy Brief. The event and subsequent publication of results are part of foraus’ Global Labs series, which aims to connect students from Geneva and beyond with the International Geneva ecosystem, to foster innovative policy ideas. Through an exchange with professionals and by co-writing a policy brief, each Global Lab strives to strengthen students’ set of hard skills (e.g. policy writing), soft skills (e.g. public speaking), and personal networks, while providing key multilateral fora with youth’s inputs.

Authors: Nazanin Asbaghipour, Ebrima Barrow, Ruth Bandomah, Ana Chamon, Triana Gil, Mariana Hervigo, Giulia Azzarello, Jean-Pierre Desarzens, Suban Biixi, Romberg Gondim, Mitsuki Ishii, Rebecca Kübler, Margaux Serratore, Kuei-Jr Liao, Antonia Massocco, Anna-Kristiina Pae, Pilar Alejandra Paradiso, Angelina Pavlenko, Andrea Peroziello, Ankita Sharma, Yuhui Song, Shilpa Ann Thomas, Yating Wang, Carolyn Wu

Biodiversity is in a desolate state. In their first report released in May 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) finds that biodiversity is declining at rates faster than at any time in human history, threatening ecosystem functions critical to human survival and wellbeing. While the report is novel in terms of its scope and multilateral backing, the overall trends were long known, yet largely outside of the awareness of society. That’s why, in autumn 2018, foraus set out to crowdsource innovative ideas on how to tackle the biodiversity crisis through a newly developed online policy innovation tool: Policy Kitchen. Together with experts, foraus defined three challenges with a link to foreign policy, in which action is particularly needed: How to square biodiversity conservation and economic development? How to make trade more biodiversity-friendly? And how to improve global governance around biodiversity conservation? foraus discussed these questions with over 100 participants from various backgrounds. The process resulted in 43 ideas on biodiversity conservation, four of which were developed further and are presented in this publication.