POLICY REPORT
The Elephant at the Table is structured to do exactly what its title implies: put power front and center. The report begins by redefining power as not an abstract concept, but rather as actual control over land, labor, markets, and the narratives that influence food systems and our future.
It then identifies the core inequities entrenched in these systems: unequal access to resources, exclusions in governance, corporate market dominance, and the steady erosion of labor protections. Seven thematic deep dives then explore spaces that are often overlooked or sidelined, such as agroecology, seed sovereignty, fisheries, biodiversity, nutrition, informal markets, and governance itself. Each section explains how power plays out on the ground and where concrete policy shifts could begin to address these imbalances. The report concludes with a call to transition from technical solutions to structural change – one that redistributes power, rebalances decision-making processes, and opens food systems to democratic futures. After all, transformation without power shifts isn’t transformation at all.
INTRODUCTION
To truly transform food systems, we must confront what holds them in place: power. Not as an abstract force, but as concrete control over land, markets, labor, taste, and narratives. This report begins with common sense assumptions that should not be controversial: food systems must feed everyone, not only those that can afford it; they must regenerate ecosystems, not deplete them; and they must provide decent livelihoods to those who nourish us, not consign them to hunger and exploitation.
But the fact that we are not meeting these goals is not due to technical failures. Power inequities are at the root of hunger and malnutrition, the destruction of ecosystems and climate change, and deep social inequalities. Yet power is also the hardest barrier to address, because it is both historically entrenched and actively reinforced by today’s economic and political systems—systems that have evolved to extract value for the benefit of a few, while externalizing costs onto the many (Sen, 1981; Patel & Moore, 2017; Clapp, et al., 2025).
Confronting power is thus urgent and essential for transforming food systems. This report presents a set of public policy recommendations to rebalance power in food systems. This rebalancing means, for example, redistributing the control, ownership, and management of land and water resources; redirecting public investment toward territorial systems and biodiversity; protecting and promoting traditional and informal food markets; and dismantling the institutional protections that uphold corporate concentration—whether through trade rules, subsidies, weak antitrust regulations and enforcement, or other mechanisms.
We present seven briefs on different domains—agroecology, fisheries and aquaculture, neglected and underutilized species, supply chains, nutrition, seeds, and governance—but all share the same premise: transformation is only possible when power shifts. The selection of topics addressed in this report is not exhaustive; it focuses on illustrative domains, while acknowledging that other areas of the food system would also benefit from a similar power-focused analysis and recommendations.