In the face of the food security crisis, the nutrition crisis, and the climate change crisis, it is more or less agreed among the international community that the current food and agriculture system is problematic and needs to be transformed and made sustainable. However, there are major discrepancies and conflicts over how, by whom and in which direction the system should be transformed. Even the basic policy concepts of “food security” and “sustainability” are variously defined and used as a tool of discursive power. Relying on critical political economy and critical discourse analysis, this article analyses the trends and problems of hegemonic institutions of and discourses on global food and agricultural governance, and explores the possibilities for counter-hegemonic practices by paying attention to the challenge of food sovereignty and agroecology and the role of the Committee on World Food Security （CFS） at the global level, and the challenge of city-region food systems transformation and the role of Food Policy Councils （FPCs） at the local and regional level. The article concludes with providing some implications on the way critical agrifood policy research should function and the role critical agrifood policy researchers should play in the space of discursive politics of policies in this era of multifaceted crises. A key is re-politicising the recent trend of depoliticised governance.

This paper attempts to compare agri-environmental policies between Japan and the European Union from a perspective of environmental policy integration. Political leadership is not demonstrated on this issue. Conservationists are not involved in the policy-making process in this field. Most citizens are unaware of negative environmental impacts of agriculture. These factors hinder the development of agri-environmental policies in Japan. There are also the following drawbacks: the concept of multifunctionality fails to account for environmental burdens from agriculture; the reference level is ambiguous; and agri-environmental programs are limited to farming practice and exclude measures against infrastructure. Another challenge is to integrate environmental concern under the low food self-sufficiency and the decline in food production.

Amidst societal challenges such as sustainable development and decarbonization, new measures are being sought in food and agriculture policy. Expectations for innovation tend to be an important pillar in envisioning such policy developments. This paper undertakes a review of trends in technological development and government R&D strategies in the food and agriculture sectors, including international comparisons. It then considers the kinds of innovation necessary to promote a transition toward resolving issues such as decarbonization, drawing on recent discussions of the “sociology of expectations” and “socio-technical regimes.” Particular attention is given to the multifaceted development of innovation in recent years and the interconnections among regimes, and to clarifying the pertinent issues and future challenges in policy responses to these problems.