System Transformation Pathways Initiative

Overview

The Ivey Agri-food System Transformation Pathways Initiative is an impact-driven research program that is engaging key Canadian agri-food value chain actors to characterize a shared vision of a more sustainable, inclusive and resilient Canadian food system. Using community-based approaches, the project will define key pathways and action strategies that would accelerate transformation towards this desired future.

Why does this matter?

The Canadian agri-food system is one of the most economically productive in the world, generating 7% of Canada’s GDP, employing 2.3 million people and exporting nearly $99.1billion in agriculture and food products.

Yet, this economic success comes at enormous social and ecological costs. The agri-food system is responsible for more than 20% of Canada’s GHG emissions, is a major diver of biodiversity loss and source of pollution, and wastes approximately 50 billion dollars of food annually while 8.7 million Canadians live in insecure households. The system is increasingly vulnerable to the impact of environmental and political shocks such as climate change and trade wars. These system failures highlight a need for transformation.

How can we transform the system?

This is a big question. It is a question that no single actor or organization can answer on their own. Current incremental approaches to change will be insufficient to drive the scale and pace of change required. Therefore, there is a critical need to explore more transformational approaches that can accelerate change towards a more sustainable, inclusive and resilient agri-food system.

The Ivey Centre for Building Sustainable Value envisions a more regenerative economy that bridges the gap between sustainability and prosperity, and we are starting to action this vision within the context of the Canadian agri-food sector.

The BSV Centre’s faculty have substantial research expertise across the entire agri-food system, tackling sustainability challenges through a range of multi-disciplinary approaches. The BSV Centre has also established capabilities in system thinking and community development to help empower changemakers to drive change in systems.

The Agri-food System Transformation Pathways Initiative is deploying these capabilities to build momentum around the key pathways that can accelerate system transformation towards a desired future for the agri-food system.

We are focusing on the opportunity to leverage private sector expertise, innovation, and entrepreneurship to help shape transition pathways towards a desired future. Through a series of workshops in 2025, we are mobilizing a community of 8-10 leading businesses – including processors, retailers, and financial actors – that are focused on scaling the adoption of regenerative practices through agri-food value chains in Canada.

Tackling a complex system transformation challenge requires a systems approach. Together this community will engage with the challenge of shifting the value chain system, shaping structures and frameworks that incentivize and reward the transition to deliver regenerative outcomes. These workshops will use innovative system thinking tools to characterise barriers in the current system, identify the key leverage points for accelerating change, and then develop a portfolio of priority solutions to accelerate the adoption of regeneration in Canada.

Why is this initiative focusing on the role of the private sector?

Many argue that it is the power and influence of large businesses is a key driver of the current system problems. However, the private sector can also be a key driver of transformational change:

Business changemakers. Not all businesses are invested in maintaining the status quo. There are a growing number of businesses that understand the critical importance of the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive food system, and how this new system creates compelling opportunities to deliver simultaneous financial and societal value, while enhancing resilience.
Fundamental role of markets and private transactions. The food system is fundamentally structured around market transactions between private actors (e.g. farmers, entrepreneurs, corporations, households). Understanding and ultimately shifting the structures, incentives, financing and procurement relationships that govern these transactions represent critical levers for transitioning to a desired future system.
Expertise of Ivey. The business ‘architecture’ of the food system is where Ivey’s researchers have unique expertise and insights and where we can support and complement the work of other changemakers elsewhere in the system.

The company engagement will focus on impactful outcomes. We will work with these motivated firms to help shape strategies that they can take both individually (and collectively) to accelerate real progress, as well as elaborating a clear agenda for informing policy making and wider corporate action.