"Rethinking Food System Polycrises: Learning from the Past to Uncover Structural Causes and Reimagine Resilience in France and Wales"

Since the early 2020s, the global food system has entered a state of polycrisis, defined as "a time of great disagreement, confusion, or suffering caused by multiple interconnected problems occurring simultaneously" (Cambridge University). Despite the severity of this crisis, the literature on the food system's polycrisis is sparse. Most existing studies, such as Fanzo (2023), focus on measuring the effects of the crisis or proposing broad strategies, often lacking concrete examples or clarity on the scales at which solutions can be implemented. For instance, Favas et al. (2024) and Kuhlmann et al. (2024) suggest "adaptive governance" without specifying the application context, while Lawrence et al. (2024) emphasize understanding the crisis without offering practical guidance.

In response to this gap, we propose a deeper analysis of polycrises, with a focus on the farming and food systems. Our objective is to reconceptualize crises not as isolated, inevitable events, but as structural outcomes of political and systemic choices. By viewing crises as preventable through better management and decision-making, we argue that it is possible to mitigate their effects and reduce the emergence of new crises in the future.

This paper aims to demonstrate how an interdisciplinary analysis of the cascading effects of various disruptions can illuminate the root causes of the current polycrisis, particularly since the 2020s. We highlight the failure to learn from past crises and explore the opportunities for improved anticipation and resilience. By comparing the situations in France and Wales, we identify multiple structural causes and propose new frameworks for managing critical food system disruptions. Ultimately, we aim to answer the questions: "What do previous structural choices reveal?" and "How can we learn from the causes of the current situation to better anticipate future disruptions?"