Introduction
For multiple reasons, youth is an important demographic in development. First and foremost, today's youth generation is the largest in history, and the global population of young people is concentrated in low- and middle-income countries located in South and East Asia and Africa (The World Bank, 2006; IFAD, 2019). The interests and needs of this youth generation are important, not only because they are many, but because they will need–indeed, they are entitled to expect–decent work and livelihoods, as well as long and healthy lives; yet, to achieve this objective for so many people will be challenging in an era of ecological stress. From a development perspective, today's youth generation is on the front line: it will have to cope with the effects of environmental and climate change, which are likely to accelerate and intensify during their lifetimes and those of their children. The unfolding life histories of this generation and their offspring will both track and strongly influence the evolution of economic, social and political developments over the coming decades. Their lives will reflect humanity's success or failure in moving toward more ecologically sustainable and socially equitable development.
In this paper, we focus on youth in food systems. Our aim is to understand better how development researchers and policy makers might address dimensions of policy and practice relating to food systems that are specific to youth, or that may affect youth in particular ways. We bring together separate bodies of literature on youth and on food systems, in order to initiate a dialogue between them.