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Food systems boundaries are currently poorly defined

Nature Food (2025)Cite this article

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Recent efforts to understand how food systems affect planetary health are both timely and essential, and have already produced important scientific insights1,2. At the same time, as the number of published food system analyses grow, there are some emerging framings that would benefit from greater conceptual clarity to ensure that insights are interpreted consistently and applied effectively across research and policy.

For instance, the planetary boundaries are global, biophysical thresholds designed to demarcate a safe operating space for humanity3. By contrast, ‘food system boundaries’, as proposed in recent work1,2, are scenario-based allocations or budgets, set by modelling assumptions often from process-based integrated assessment models (IAMs) or from literature synthesis. For IAMs specifically, these allocations reflect what is deemed feasible under modelled constraints that often represent an outcome predicated on layers of obscured assumptions, not what is biophysically ‘safe’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Paul Behrens

  2. Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Paul Behrens

  3. Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Joseph Poore

Authors
  1. Paul Behrens
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  2. Joseph Poore
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Correspondence to Paul Behrens or Joseph Poore.

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Competing interests

J.P. undertakes freelance consulting work conducting and reviewing life cycle assessments (LCAs) and advising on LCA methods. P.B. declares no competing interests.

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Behrens, P., Poore, J. Food systems boundaries are currently poorly defined. Nat Food (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01263-3

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