What if we scaled distribution, not just production?
In the past years, it has become increasingly clear that the promise of industrialization – to create products and services that serve people around the world – has not fully delivered for everyone. In agri-food systems, we have scaled production and global distribution of food products, yet access to a healthy diet remains out of reach for many. Despite overall economic growth, the percentage of people who can afford a healthy diet has decreased in recent years (FAO, 2025).
This makes us question the current “success” of our agri-food systems. Are we truly feeding everyone? Or are we primarily scaling products and services without sufficiently scaling equitable access to them? Inclusion has often been described as incorporating the needs and perspectives of groups with different characteristics (e.g., geography, gender, age, income, etc.). But inclusion is not only about representation. It is also about power. The image accompanying this post – a “wheel of power and privilege” – illustrates how access to resources and influence varies across dimensions such as wealth, education, language, race, gender, and ability. These differences shape who participates in innovation processes, who benefits from them, and who may be unintentionally excluded.
In earlier work (McGuire et al., 2024), we assessed social inclusion gaps in agri-food innovations and identified several recurring challenges:
- insufficient acknowledgement of complex power relations and political structures in the system;
- lack of diverse perspectives, leading to invisibility of negative social outcomes for vulnerable groups;
- geographical and representational disconnection between innovations and communities;
- prioritization of innovations shaped by systemic biases; and
- lack of clear structures, resources, and operational guidance for applying equity frameworks in diverse contexts.
Based on this assessment, we proposed a set of Equity Principles for Social Transformation, which we are now testing in practice around the world:
- Recognize Agriculture Research for Development (AR4D) Power Dynamics. By recognizing the degrees of power among those participating in agri-food innovation, we can better understand who is making decisions and who could better represent minority needs.
- Define Goals and Anti-Goals – and for whom. By articulating both intended and unintended changes across groups, places, and timeframes, we can better direct innovation toward widely desired outcomes.
- Build Horizontal Partnerships. By promoting more equal relationships in collaboration, we can increase trust, mutual respect, and shared responsibility in innovation processes.
- Acknowledge Social Differences among Users and Non-Users. By recognizing differences in people’s abilities, resources, and barriers, we can design complementary innovations or bundles that increase accessibility.
- Innovate and Curate Responsibly. By anticipating negative social and environmental effects, we can reduce risks in specific contexts.
- Assess Impact and Reflect. By monitoring effects over time, we can continue learning and improve consistency in our work.
- Develop Inclusive Systems Capacity. By understanding structural and operational capacities in places where innovations are introduced, we can better adapt processes and outcomes to diverse communities.
These principles are guiding our work. At the same time, we are encountering clear inclusion challenges. Inclusion is often framed as an “ethical” decision rather than an “effective” one. Some actors are more interested in scaling agri-food products to increase benefits than in scaling equitable distribution.
This raises an important question: how can we co-create innovations with those who are not necessarily aligned around the goal of an agri-food system that feeds everyone? Are we missing a principle or a process to engage those who do not prioritize equity, without requiring full agreement from the start? Or is part of the challenge about creating the space to decide with equity, and intentionally scale distribution rather than only products and services?
What do you think about these Equity Principles for Social Transformation? Are they applicable in your context? We welcome your reflections as we continue learning together.
References for further interest:
- FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2025. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 – Addressing high food price inflation for food security and nutrition. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6008en
- McGuire, E., Al-Zu’bi, M., Boa-Alvarado, M., Luu, T. T. G., Sylvester, J. M., & Leñero, E. M. V. (2024). Equity principles: Using social theory for more effective social transformation in agricultural research for development. Agricultural Systems, 218, 103999. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2024.103999
- Stilgoe, J., Owen, R., & Macnaghten, P. (2013). Developing a framework for responsible innovation. Research Policy, 42(9), 1568–1580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2013.05.008