Policy & Governance for Food System Transition: Aligning Health, Climate & Markets | MLS26

*What if the food that is best for human health, planetary health, and farmers is not what our markets and policies are designed to reward?* Food systems sit at the intersection of some of the defining challenges of our time: nutrition and chronic disease, climate change, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, food security, farmer livelihoods, and economic resilience. Yet the policies, markets, and incentives shaping those systems often address these challenges separately. In this panel from the *Milan Longevity Summit 2026*, *Martin W. Bloem, Dan Kittredge, and Johan Swinnen* join moderator *Christine Gould* to explore what it will take to align health, environmental, agricultural, and economic priorities in the transition towards better food systems. The conversation brings together three complementary perspectives. From *public health and nutrition*, how can food systems deliver diets that support healthier lives and reduce the burden of diet-related disease? From *agriculture and nutrient density*, can we better understand and measure the relationship between how food is grown, the health of the soil, and the nutritional quality of what ultimately reaches our plates? And from *economics and global food policy*, how can governments, markets, trade, investment, and incentives enable rather than obstruct the transition? The panel explores why changing individual behaviour is not enough when the wider system continues to reward different outcomes. It asks how policy and markets can create the conditions for farmers and businesses to transition, while ensuring that healthier and more sustainable food remains accessible and affordable. *Participants:* • Martin W. Bloem – Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Senior Advisor, Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute • Dan Kittredge – Founder & Executive Director, Bionutrient Institute • Johan Swinnen – Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) • Moderated by Christine Gould – Chief Executive Officer, GIGA Futures Ultimately, food system transition is not simply an agricultural, environmental, or health challenge. *It is a systems challenge — and progress depends on aligning the policies, incentives, evidence, and markets that determine what we grow, what we eat, and what we value.* The Milan Longevity Summit brings together global leaders across science, policy, business, technology and society to explore longevity through a *One Health* perspective — connecting the health of people with the health of our societies, economies, and planet. *Learn more about the Milan Longevity Summit:* https://www.milanlongevitysummit.org/it/speakers26 #MilanLongevitySummit #FoodSystems #OneHealth #FoodPolicy #RegenerativeAgriculture #Nutrition #PlanetaryHealth #FoodSecurity #SustainableAgriculture #FutureOfFood