LocationsThe first Global Conscious Food Systems Summit in Paro, Bhutan
Food Summit Puts Human Values and Culture at the Heart of Global Systems Change
October 13, 2026
What if food systems transformation starts from within, in the values and relationships we bring to the table? It is an unusual question to ask at a summit about food systems. Yet it was precisely the question posed to nearly 400 participants from more than 60 countries who gathered in Paro, Bhutan, for the first Global Conscious Food Systems Summit in September 2026. As former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told participants at the Summit, “inner and cultural transformation—a conscious shift in our mindsets, values, and worldviews—must be recognized as a fundamental enabler of sustainable development, alongside policy, finance, and technology.”
Hosted by the Royal Government of Bhutan, the Conscious Food Systems Alliance (CoFSA) and UNDP, the Summit explored how human values, mindsets and relationships can influence policy, finance and institutions in responding to the climate crisis, using food as an entry point for wider systems change[1]. This four-day gathering brought together political leaders, farmers, Indigenous peoples, scientists, policymakers, entrepreneurs and young people to advance a new paradigm in food systems transformation: one that recognises culture, values, spirituality, happiness, and inner development as catalysts for systemic change.
The stakes are high. Agricultural production has expanded dramatically over recent decades, yet hundreds of millions of people still go hungry. A third of the food produced globally is wasted. Farmers who feed the world often struggle to secure a dignified living from it. Biodiversity is declining, climate pressures are intensifying, and young people are leaving agriculture behind.
"Behind our systems are people making decisions, and those decisions are shaped not only by what we know and what we can do, they are shaped by what we value. This is where consciousness enters the conversation,"said Prime Minister of Bhutan Dasho Tshering Tobgay. "It asks us not only what we can produce, but also how we should produce it. Who benefits? At what cost? And what kind of future are we creating in the process?"
Spiritual leader and humanitarian Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, known as Amma, brought the same idea down to the level of the individual. "The world will become good only if the minds of individuals become good," she said. "Along with the understanding of the outer world, it is essential that we also come to know our inner world."
Putting conscious ways of working into practice
The Summit was designed to be lived as much as discussed. Alongside plenaries and technical sessions, participants stepped into Bhutanese farms and landscapes through immersive field visits, gathered in sharing circles and collective sense-making spaces, and explored meditation and constellations as ways of deepening reflection. Live cooking, theatre, food mandalas, music and art invited other forms of creativity and expression, while rituals, ceremonies and Indigenous and Bhutanese traditions created moments to honour our relationships with food, nature and one another.
Underlying this approach was a simple recognition: we are part of the food systems we seek to transform. How we listen, relate, make decisions, exercise power and imagine possibilities shape the systems we create. The Summit therefore engaged the wider human capacities that change calls for: to listen deeply, reflect, connect, create, collaborate and imagine. These experiences were an effort to bring more of ourselves—and more of our collective capacities—into the work of systems change.
Perhaps the most tangible outcome took shape in the relationships formed across the week. Actors who rarely share a conversation sparked new collaborations, ideas for joint initiatives and experimentation began to emerge, and participants spoke of renewed hope, inspiration and a deeper sense of human connection. Spaces for listening, reflection and healing helped people meet beyond institutional roles and sectoral boundaries. This is also at the heart of CoFSA's work: not simply building a network but nurturing a community of people and organisations willing to explore different ways of relating, leading and working together—and translating that inner and collective shift into action for food systems transformation.
The Summit also marked the release of the new Conscious Food Systems Framework, distilling more than five years of co-creation and movement-building across CoFSA's global community into a shared vision, principles for conscious ways of working, lessons learned and case studies from more than 50 initiatives worldwide. The work behind it is already tangible. CoFSA now connects more than 900 members and 8,000 supporters, more than 300 people have taken part in its Conscious Food Systems Leadership Programme, and six conscious food interventions have been tested on the ground across four continents.
Why Bhutan?
Bhutan has been living through its philosophy of Gross National Happiness and offered the Summit its central provocation: that economic progress, environmental stewardship, culture and human wellbeing were never meant to be pursued separately.
Few places make the case for this work as concretely as Bhutan itself, a country of just over 800,000 people, where roughly two in five work in agriculture, most on farms smaller than a hectare. Addressing the Summit, Bhutan's Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Lyonpo Younten Phuntsho, spoke to the daily realities behind those numbers: labour shortages, human-wildlife conflict, high transport costs and a changing climate. “Bhutan may never be the world's largest producer. But we aspire to become one of the world's most trusted producers,” said the Minister. “Our advantage is not volume, but authenticity (…) Lasting prosperity is not created through competition alone. It is created through cooperation.”
During the Summit, participants had the chance to engage in deep reflection circles and explored what this cooperation looks like in practice, across regenerative farming, governance, finance, farmer wellbeing and Indigenous and faith traditions. In closing his keynote, the Minister offered a line that captured the week as well as any communiqué could: “Happiness and harvest must grow from the same soil,” he said.
What comes next
The Framework's next phase turns from vision to application. Practical guidance is being developed for governments, businesses and practitioners, alongside plans to expand CoFSA's community of practice through national and regional networks. Andrew Bovarnick, UNDP's Global Head of Food Systems, said the organisation looks forward to seeing the Framework applied by countries, building evidence of what it means in practice, and to continuing its collaboration with Bhutan to connect that work with Gross National Happiness.
The collective work of the Summit also continues. A Global Call to Action, drawing on the insights, exchanges and aspirations that emerged in Bhutan, will be released in the coming weeks. It will carry the Summit’s energy forward and invite people and organisations everywhere to turn consciousness, human values and inner capacities into courageous action for healthier, regenerative and more equitable food systems. For nearly 400 people who spent four days in Paro exploring where food systems transformation begins, the work now continues in their own countries, communities and institutions.
