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Localised food systems provide the foundations of people’s nutrition, incomes, economies, ecologies and culture throughout the world. In this way food is primarily sold, processed, resold and consumed locally, with many people deriving their incomes and livelihoods through work and activities at different points of the food chain, from seed to plate. These local food systems provide a livelihood for more than 2.5 billion small-scale farmers, pastoralists, forest dwellers and artisanal fisherfolk worldwide.

However, despite their current role in and future potential for meeting human needs and sustaining diverse ecologies, local food systems—and the organisations that govern them—are threatened by two main processes. The first is the global restructuring of agri-food systems, with a few transnational corporations gaining monopoly control over different links in the food chain. This process is undermining local people’s …