The role of public-private partnerships in improving global food security

Global food security is at a tipping point. After decades of both absolute and relative improvement in food security worldwide, climate change, market disruptions and declining productivity have reversed the trend. After four decades of improving food security, both more people and a larger portion of the global population are hungry today than in 2015. In response, researchers and their funders, governments, industries and interest groups are urging renewed collaboration and partnerships to recover and return to accelerate food production and to improve food distribution. Recently some public academics and civil society organizations are opposing these public-private partnerships (P3s). The article reviews the context, discusses the logic for P3s and explores the range of P3s that have been used and their impacts on the global agri-food system. We conclude that rather than reversing direction, the use of both strategic and tactical partnerships should be accelerated in order to improve global food security.