The evolutionary transformation of modern agri-food systems: emerging trends in consumption, production, and in the provision of public goods

Agriculture and more in general modern agri-food supply systems and networks arecalled to satisfy a number of consumers’needs and to create value to the benefit of thewhole society. In fact, they are expected to ensure enterprise profitability, supply chaincoordination, providing quality products, as well as enhancing health conditions, envir-onmental protection, and wider social values. At the same time, they have to tackleglobal drivers, which could produce both opportunities and negative impacts on localresources and development trends. Among these aspects, climate change and naturalresource conservation have influenced agricultural production methods and the trendtoward an increased environmental sustainability will continue producing a“transitiontowards greener rural economies”in the future (European Union2017).An improvement of the multifunctional role of agriculture will be driven by techno-logical transformations and innovations including the relationship between environ-mental resources management and agricultural activities.Moreover, food production and consumption are transforming rapidly. On the onehand, the aim of reaching both food security and safety are big global challenges; onthe other hand, food waste and losses are also phenomena that need to be addressedboth at local and global levels.Furthermore, the affirmation of conscious and responsible consumption models of-fers new opportunities for sustainability enhancement, both at local and global scale.In addition, it is necessary to take into consideration the role that agriculture can playwithin an alternative, not conventional linear economic model, such as a circulareconomy.The main issues raised by such an evolutionary scenario relate to the use of naturalresources, biodiversity conservation, food safety and quality enhancement, businessmodel innovation, sectoral and fiscal policies as well as private-public coordination strategies, supporting the development of agri-food systems, across the four main axesof sustainability, i.e., its economic, social, environmental and cultural dimensions(United Nations2014).