Relating planetary diets to everyday governance: Lessons from youth-vendor interactions in Ethiopia
In the streets of Addis Ababa or Butajira, food environments are filled with youth purchasing affordable snacks from small, informal vendors on the sidewalk. These vendors, just a few steps away from school gates or public transport hubs sell fried biscuits, chips, and other snacks that are easy to share with friends. You see young people often standing in groups after class; some pooling their pocket money to buy enough for everyone, ensuring no one is left out. Socializing and reinforcing friendships through sharing is a daily affair where big, individual meals are not always feasible, and where material scarcity is quite evident.
- Ethiopia
- food systems
Relating planetary diets to everyday governance: Lessons from youth-vendor interactions in Ethiopia
In the streets of Addis Ababa or Butajira, food environments are filled with youth purchasing affordable snacks from small, informal vendors on the sidewalk. These vendors, just a few steps away from school gates or public transport hubs sell fried biscuits, chips, and other snacks that are easy to share with friends. You see young people often standing in groups after class; some pooling their pocket money to buy enough for everyone, ensuring no one is left out. Socializing and reinforcing friendships through sharing is a daily affair where big, individual meals are not always feasible, and where material scarcity is quite evident.
These dynamic food environments, alive with informal exchanges and social negotiations, are the reality for many youth in Ethiopia, where roughly 60% of the population is under the age of 25. This youthful majority is growing up in fast-changing, resource-constrained environments where food is not only something to be consumed but also to be negotiated and shared. Youth are the future of food systems; they will comprise the majority of adult workers and consumers in the years to come. Gearing up before this future arrives, they are already practicing forms of agency and adaptation together with vendors that keep food systems functioning in their environments.
Global frameworks such as the EAT-Lancet 2025 Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food System set out high-level aspirations for healthy and sustainable diets, but their translation to the ground depend on how food practices are carried out in everyday life. This science-led collaboration envisions how humanity can eat sustainably within planetary boundaries; something that can only be realized if the lived experiences of those who sustain food are accounted for. Justice, in this sense, is about acknowledging the everyday governance of food-scarce environments, and especially ensuring that the planetary conversation includes youth as future beneficiaries but also present stakeholders. This raises the question of how food environments are being assessed and whose practices and interactions are made visible in these assessments.