Can SDG Education Confront the Power Structures Behind Climate and Hunger?

A new review in publsihed in the MDPI journal Land argues that sustainability education is failing to confront one of the most important realities behind today's hunger, land and climate crises: power. The study examines how Global North agricultural dominance, trade rules, subsidies, corporate control over seeds, climate finance politics and historical patterns of dispossession shape vulnerability in the Global South. It finds that while SDGs 2, 13 and 15 are increasingly present in education, they are often taught as technical or humanitarian goals rather than as interconnected political challenges.

Authored by Tolulope Ayodeji Olatoye, Raymond Nkwenti Fru and Anathi Magadlela of Sol Plaatje University in South Africa, the study asks how sustainability curricula can be redesigned to address the Global North agricultural power and Global South vulnerability. Using a systematic literature review of 61 studies, the authors identify three core patterns: structural agricultural power that deepens Global South vulnerability; a pedagogical gap in how sustainability curricula handle geopolitics; and emerging teaching strategies such as decolonial case studies, negotiation simulations and geospatial systems mapping.

The Crisis Is Not Just Ecological; It Is Political

The study insists that the land–food–climate crisis cannot be understood through science and technology alone. Food systems are ecological, but they are also political. Land is a natural resource, but it is also an arena of ownership, dispossession, investment and conflict. Climate vulnerability is shaped by geography, but also by debt, trade dependency, weak adaptation finance and historical inequality.

The authors use Political Ecology Theory to argue that vulnerability should not be treated as a passive condition of the Global South. Instead, it should be examined as something produced by political and economic choices over time. This includes the legacy of colonial land arrangements, structural adjustment policies that weakened public agricultural support, global trade frameworks that constrained policy space, and agricultural subsidies in wealthier economies that can distort markets for poorer producers.

If food insecurity is seen primarily as a production problem, the answer becomes higher yields, improved seeds and better logistics. If it is also seen as a governance problem, the agenda expands to include trade justice, farmer sovereignty, land rights, climate finance, technology ownership and stronger public institutions.

The study does not dismiss the role of innovation or technical solutions. Rather, it warns that technical responses can become inadequate or even harmful when they ignore the power structures in which they operate. Climate-smart agriculture, digital farming and productivity-enhancing technologies may bring benefits, but they can also deepen dependency if patents, data ownership and market control remain concentrated in the hands of powerful actors.

SDG Classrooms Are Missing the Hard Questions

A major finding of the review is that sustainability curricula often include the SDGs without fully confronting the political realities behind them. SDG 2 may be taught through food security, nutrition and agricultural productivity. SDG 13 may be taught through emissions, climate science and adaptation. SDG 15 may be taught through conservation and land management. However, these goals are too often presented as separate, technical or humanitarian challenges rather than interconnected struggles over power, resources and justice, creating what the authors describe as a pedagogical gap.

Learners may understand the mechanics of climate change or the importance of sustainable agriculture, yet remain poorly equipped to ask why some countries and communities are more exposed to climate shocks than others. They may learn that food insecurity is rising, but not how trade dependency, debt, subsidy regimes or land dispossession shape the ability of communities to withstand shocks.

The risk is not only academic. Today's students include tomorrow's policymakers, development professionals, business leaders, investors and civil society actors. If their training does not help them trace the links between policy decisions and unequal outcomes, they may reproduce the same narrow solutions that have failed to transform food and climate systems.

The paper is particularly relevant for the Global South, where climate exposure often intersects with fragile livelihoods, food import dependency, contested land governance and limited fiscal space. But it is equally relevant for the Global North, where learners may be taught to become responsible consumers without understanding how their economies, institutions and supply chains are embedded in wider systems of inequality.

From Passive Learning to Geopolitical Literacy

The study identifies emerging teaching strategies that could make sustainability education more politically literate and more useful for real-world decision-making. These include decolonial case studies, scenario-based simulations and transdisciplinary mapping.

Decolonial case studies can help students examine concrete examples of land grabs, food sovereignty struggles, seed patent disputes or export-oriented agriculture. Instead of treating these issues as abstract development challenges, learners can trace how decisions made in one part of the world affect farmers, consumers and ecosystems elsewhere.

Scenario-based simulations offer another route. A classroom exercise modeled on climate finance negotiations, WTO trade disputes or food security debates can force learners to confront unequal bargaining power. Students representing countries with different emissions histories, economic capacities and climate risks must navigate the same tensions that shape real multilateral negotiations. This kind of learning turns climate debt, adaptation finance and development rights from abstract concepts into lived political dilemmas.

The third pathway is transdisciplinary systems mapping. By combining geospatial tools with political economy, students can overlay climate risk, land ownership, export-crop production, food import dependency and infrastructure access. Such mapping can make visible what conventional sustainability lessons often conceal: vulnerability is not randomly distributed. It follows patterns shaped by ownership, governance, markets and history.

These methods move education from a pedagogy of information to a pedagogy of interrogation. The goal is not to tell students what to think. It is to train them to ask better questions: who controls the land, who sets the rules, who benefits from current arrangements, who bears the risk and whose knowledge is excluded?

Why This Matters for Policy, Development and the Global South

Sustainability curricula should not merely mention SDGs; they should connect food, land and climate to power, governance and equity. Teacher training must also evolve, because educators need the confidence and tools to handle difficult conversations about inequality, historical responsibility and contested development pathways.

SDG education should move beyond awareness-building. Programmes on climate resilience, food systems and land governance should include political economy literacy, especially in regions where communities face overlapping climate, market and debt pressures.

The study raises a different but increasingly urgent issue for businesses and investors. Agribusiness, food technology, climate finance and land-based investment are all under growing scrutiny. Companies that ignore land rights, farmer autonomy, data sovereignty or local knowledge may face reputational, regulatory and operational risks. A more politically literate workforce could help identify these risks earlier and design more equitable models of innovation.

The review has limitations. It is a synthesis of existing literature, not a direct global audit of classrooms. It relies on English-language scholarship, which may underrepresent knowledge produced in local languages and community settings. The paper also shows that many proposed teaching strategies still need stronger empirical evaluation. More research is needed to test whether simulations, mapping and decolonial case studies actually improve students' ability to analyze policy, power and justice.

On the whole, the world does not need sustainability education that simply teaches students to recognize crises. It needs education that helps them understand how crises are produced, sustained and contested. Hunger, climate vulnerability and land degradation are not only failures of management. They are also failures of governance, fairness and imagination.