Sustainability and Resilience of Agri-Food Value Chains in Times of Multiple Crises

The DFG Priority Programme 2575 (SPP 2575) investigates how agri-food chains can become both sustainable and resilient in an era of multiple crises. Environmental change, geopolitical polarisation and war, as well as the continuing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, have exposed the vulnerability of food supply systems. At the same time, strategies intended to strengthen resilience may create new social, economic or environmental trade-offs.

SPP 2575 therefore develops a joint and critical understanding of the relationship between sustainability and resilience in agri-food chains. It brings together twelve research projects, a coordination project and an associated project across a wide range of topics—from food redistribution, fertilizers and food waste to plantation labour, lead-firm strategies, sustainability norms and global production networks for cocoa, spices, palm oil, bananas and coffee.

The programme combines qualitative and quantitative research, whole-chain perspectives and interdisciplinary collaboration. Its research focuses particularly on the relations between sustainability and resilience, their possible synergies and frictions, unequal effects within chains and regions, externalities, changing risks and uncertainties, and perspectives that question whose resilience and sustainability are being strengthened.

Research is conducted in and across Germany, Poland, India and Tanzania, while selected projects also consider the wider international connections of agri-food chains. Through comparative empirical research and dialogue across disciplines, SPP 2575 aims to contribute to more sustainable, equitable and crisis-resilient food systems.

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).