Can We Eat Our Way Out of Polycrisis?

The author argues that food system transformation represents one of the most connected and pliable nexus interventions available for navigating today’s polycrisis, drawing on historical research into the Black Death era — a polycrisis-like period in which climate instability, food system disruptions, conflict, and disease formed a vicious spiral — to demonstrate that ostensibly localised shifts in food production can generate cascading effects across economic, political, and social systems. The hyper-industrialised, extractive character of contemporary food production is implicated in nearly all of the ills brought by the modern polycrisis, driving breaches of planetary boundaries, fuelling food insecurity and affordability crises, and eroding the social cohesion that is a critical ingredient for navigating difficult challenges. The author calls for a shift away from siloed, supply-side optimisation toward cross-cutting, demand-side solutions that move food systems from an extractive to a regenerative model, highlighting the Canadian Centre for Food & Ecology’s Greater Tkaronto Bioregion Regenerator Pilot as exactly the kind of community-centred initiative capable of building social cohesion and laying the groundwork for the regenerative practices that history shows are necessary to reverse a polycrisis.