As the food crisis increases, citizens are showing more leadership than the government

Rich Wilson is the CEO of the Iswe Foundation and founder of the Global Citizens’ Assembly.

The numbers are solid. According to the 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, 266 million people in 47 countries experienced high levels of food insecurity last year, almost double the number recorded a decade ago.

Meanwhile, disruptions to oil, gas and fertilizer flows in the Strait of Hormuz caused a 46% increase in urea prices in the month earlier this year, sending agricultural price indices up 8% and raising the specter of a global affordability crisis.

This is not a blip. A new foundation. The EAT-Lancet Commission concluded that food systems now account for 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions and are the single largest contributor to the climate crisis. The science has been clear for years.

Rich Wilson is the CEO of the Iswe Foundation and founder of the Global Citizens’ Assembly.

The numbers are solid. According to the 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, 266 million people in 47 countries experienced high levels of food insecurity last year, almost double the number recorded a decade ago.

Meanwhile, disruptions to oil, gas and fertilizer flows in the Strait of Hormuz caused a 46% increase in urea prices in the month earlier this year, sending agricultural price indices up 8% and raising the specter of a global affordability crisis.

This is not a blip. A new foundation. The EAT-Lancet Commission concluded that food systems now account for 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions and are the single largest contributor to the climate crisis. The science has been clear for years.

Now some of the solutions to the problem are being accepted by the public.

Earlier this year, people from more than 60 countries and regions, who were not selected based on interest, but by lottery, spent 7 weeks examining food and climate evidence for the latest World Citizens’ Assembly. They heard from scientists, farmers and industry. They worked for 42 hours of structured negotiations, dealing with difficult trade-offs.

They were not asked to support a predetermined conclusion. They were asked an open question: what changes, if any, should we make in the way we grow, share and eat food, so that everyone has enough to feed themselves while dealing with the causes and impacts of climate change?

The bottom line of factory farming

Their answer was clear. They voted to protect the forests. They voted to reduce the production of animal feed in factories. They voted for supply chain reform and corporate accountability, clearly rejecting the idea that the burden of change should fall on individual consumers. All of their 22 Calls to Action were passed with more than 85% support, by a large number of people randomly selected from all regions of the world, by consensus.

Consider what the meeting was asked to decide. Industrial animal food production is the main cause of deforestation in the tropics. Protecting more land such as forests and ecosystems means less land is available to expand industrial production. That’s a real trade-off, with real, real-life consequences. Politicians have spent years avoiding it.

These randomly selected people looked at the evidence, consulted across time zones and cultures, and chose the woods, with 64% strongly in favor and another 20% in favor. People from domesticated communities voted for change. Not because they were told. Because thinking led them there.

We now estimate that there have been over 7,000 citizen participation programs around the world in the past decade. They are organized because, as our report 2025: People Leading shows, people are now consistently and significantly ahead of politicians on issues ranging from climate change to AI governance.

People know better

What research has consistently done is that ordinary people, given the right evidence and time, produce recommendations that are more effective and consistent with public values ​​than those from elected legislators. The gap in global governance is no longer primarily between science and society. It is between citizens and their political leaders.

That gap is more important than procedural reasons. If policy treats people as passive recipients rather than active participants, it leaves out the actors on whose behavior, trust and consent the change depends. Institutions that only talk to other institutions, and only negotiate with government actors and lobbying companies in the industry, miss the trust and power of the people they should be working for.

Governments, stop thinking about themselves, are not moving enough to disprove that argument. At COP30 in Belém last November, countries failed to agree on a roadmap for ending fossil fuels, and even full implementation of all national climate action plans still leaves the world on track for 2.3 to 2.8C warming.

Citizens track at COP

But the Brazilian presidency holds something important. Among the most important outcomes of the conference was the official launch of the Citizens’ Channel within the UNFCCC process, a mechanism to link the world’s participation platform to climate negotiations between governments. Türkiye and Australia, which held the presidency of COP31 in Antalya in November, now have the opportunity to strengthen and institutionalize what Brazil started.

In Guatemala, indigenous women are building climate resilience through old and new farming methods

The question before us is no longer whether citizens can contribute to solving these problems. All over the world, in local food networks, social gatherings and participatory planning processes, already, they quietly produce more ambitious and legitimate solutions than those from official diplomatic channels.

What is needed now is the political courage to connect people to power. Not to consult with citizens and submit results. Not inviting them to watch while the real decisions are being made elsewhere. But recognizing the public as participants in perhaps the most important management challenge of our time.