Representing the food system within the food policy councils

Food Policy Councils (FPCs) have emerged as critical spaces for rethinking the food system from the ground up. However, they face a fundamental challenge: how to ensure that their composition truly reflects the complexity and diversity of the food system. This requires going beyond sectoral silos—e.g., agriculture, health, food assistance—to embrace a systemic perspective that accounts for the interconnections between production, distribution, consumption, waste, and care.

Many FPCs are caught in a structural tension. On the one hand, limited participation—dominated by public authorities or a single set of actors—risks reproducing partial or siloed approaches. On the other hand, broad but fragmented participation can dilute decision-making capacity, hinder accountability, and prevent systemic change. It also means that if the FPC's composition merely reflects the status quo, the resulting policies will only reinforce the existing food system. Similarly, if the council's composition over-represents certain transformative niches, the resulting policies might appear unfeasible to policymakers or lose touch with the broader needs of the city.

This session explores how FPCs operating in different contexts—urban and rural, Global North and South, grassroots-led and institutionally embedded—navigate this tension. We ask: 

• How are members selected, and how does this process dynamically shape both policy outcomes and the potential for food system transformation?

• How do FPCs negotiate the tension between accurately representing the food system as it is and taking timely action to transform it?

Grounded in case studies and research, the session invites participants to reflect on deeper political and ethical questions that underpin the role of FPCs in shaping food systems: Whose knowledge counts? Who decides? And what kind of food systems are we

building when we choose who is at the table—and who is not?