Global food systems are deeply implicated in contemporary poly-crises, contributing to ecological degradation, climate change, declining public health, and persistent food insecurity. The mainstream development model—focused on intensification, global trade, and economic growth—has made food systems a major driver of these crises. According to the 2025 EAT Lancet report, food systems are responsible for breaching seven out of nine planetary boundaries, while over 2.3 billion people experience moderate to severe food insecurity. They generate over a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, contribute to biodiversity loss, and impose societal costs estimated at USD 12.7 trillion annually, far exceeding the roughly USD 670 billion in subsidies the industrial food system receives each year. Continuing on this trajectory threatens progress toward multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including those on hunger, health, inequality, gender equality, sustainable consumption, and climate action.
Given these challenges, there is an urgent imperative to transform food systems. Experts argue that business-as-usual must be critically reassessed, including the global financial architecture supporting agriculture. Highly concentrated economies, unsustainable debt, and structural inequalities have obstructed equitable and resilient food systems, undermining the right to food and the achievement of SDGs.
Public Development Banks (PDBs) are influential actors in global development finance, providing concessional loans, grants, technical assistance, and policy advice to strengthen institutions and build capacity. There are over 500 PDBs globally, operating at local, national, regional, and international levels, with mandates to promote social and economic development while reducing poverty. However, PDBs have faced criticism for prioritizing production growth and profit over ecological sustainability and community well-being. Investments in large-scale monocultures, intensive livestock systems, and export-oriented agriculture have reinforced structural inequities, exacerbating environmental degradation, food insecurity, and social inequality.
Agroecology offers a framework for transforming food systems by integrating social, ecological, and economic concerns. It emphasizes the role of farmers and civil society in building sustainable, resilient systems while promoting endogenous development. Globally recognized principles of agroecology are increasingly being adopted in science, social movements, and policy, including through National Agroecology Plans and UN resolutions. Some PDBs, such as IFAD and Agence Française de Développement, have begun to recognize agroecology’s potential, and platforms like Agri-PDB are building capacity to support agroecological investments. Philanthropic, policy, and grassroots actors are also working to redirect finance toward agroecology, demonstrating the growing momentum for change.
PDBs have a critical opportunity to expand their role by aligning financing with agroecological principles, supporting resilience, equity, and sustainability in food systems. Achieving this requires rethinking investment models, redirecting funds away from industrial agriculture, and strengthening support for smallholder farmers and Indigenous communities. Internally, PDBs must adopt robust monitoring, evaluation, and accountability systems based on agroecological principles, and implement transparent grievance and conflict-resolution mechanisms. Without these reforms, PDBs risk perpetuating unsustainable systems and worsening climate, hunger, and inequality crises.
The report concludes that while challenges are significant, the growing recognition of industrial agriculture’s limitations, civil society advocacy, and alternative financing models present a critical opportunity for PDBs to become genuine enablers of agroecological and socially just food systems. Sustained political will, institutional transformation, and courageous shifts in priorities and metrics will be essential for this transition.
