Table 3.

Leverage points identified by participating stakeholders during a GMB workshop to develop a shared understanding of system dynamics driving nutrition security in the face of climate change in Puerto Rico, held in San Juan, PR, on March 2023. The core modelling team organised each leverage point by effectiveness level according to ‘where to intervene on the systems’ (Malhi et al. 2009; Meadows 1999)^(43,44)

Effectiveness level (ranked from least to most effective according to Meadows, 1999)	Leverage points	What is currently happening?	Where are the opportunities for action?	Exemplary discussion quote(s)
Level 6: Information flow across subsystems	Educational curricula for schoolchildren. Feasible Large Reach	Various efforts, funded by private foundations and/or federal government programmes (i.e. farm to school, or nutrition or climate) but not the nexus of climate, food and nutrition.	Synergise and coordinate efforts across sectors. Long-term goal: new generation that appreciates producing, consuming local foods that are healthy for themselves and the planet.	‘Youth don’t know what yautía is. They don’t know what a malanga is. White yautía… they cannot buy the products we’re growing if they don’t know what they are’
Level 6: Information flow within and across subsystems	Marketing and promotion to consumers. Feasible Potential large reach	Various – in an uncoordinated fashion touting eco-friendly or local.	Coordination, data about the convergence of regenerative agriculture and local products regarding each product, use of social media. In the long run, this is intended to increase demand.	‘Lack of knowledge about the products and local brands. […]There is a short-term solution: a promotional campaign’.
Level 6: Information flow across subsystems	Narratives to inspire an influence on public policy. Somewhat feasible. Reach: Unclear	Already happening in some areas.	Bolster and create content of the narratives across sectors Create a strategic policy plan proposal.	‘One part of this [GMB] initiative that is important, is thinking about how to create a narrative that reaches that person who is creating public policy. And at the same time create more democratic content that inspires people to demand that public policy… It’s an interdisciplinary strategy… We are not only thinking about content but also in action’
Level 6: System structure (collaboration)	Amplify and coordinate strategically the efforts and results in this topic of nutrition, food production and climate. Easy to do. Medium reach.	Currently limited to personal connections	Development of a food council to exchange data and information	‘The disposition of many sectors to work exists… there are many initiatives… There has to be more cohesion between initiatives, for example, here they are represented’
Level 5: Structural elements and system rules within a system	Invest in and protect local farming. Hard to do. Reach: large.	Extremely limited investment in local agriculture.	Taxes to protect against imports, especially in line with seasonal local products. Advocacy for local production (perhaps through a food council)	‘If you invest in the farmer… imported food is cheaper than local food[…] participation in NAP [Nutrition Assistance Program], the farmer’s income counts, and they can only be on the payroll for 6 months. So NAP is a disincentive to work in agriculture as well […]And the other is the economic situation. If you pay me $9 an hour as a farmer, or $8·50. They don’t qualify for health insurance… or they tell them ‘payment in cash’, and the farmer cannot demand their worker’s rights… it’s like a cycle’
Level 5: Structural elements and system rules within a system	Increase labour force for local food production. Hard to do. Medium reach.	Currently, there are financial incentives to import labour for agriculture.	Eventually, prepare for the demand in local products by raising against the negative stigma of working in local agriculture and farming.	‘Instead of importing seeds, I’d import labor. […] you need labor. You have the seeds, but you don’t have who to help to move the oxen’
Level 1: Paradigm	Hard to do.	Emerging but limited.	Value the local farmer.	‘Well, I think that the negative perception of being a farmer is about social status. A lot of people say that working in agriculture is like moving backward; like going back to 1940’ Emerging: [Discussing the new trends in young people farming] ‘Farming is not a hobby. And the farmer must comply with a series of practices: production, preparation of soil, marketing, safety of products, and the preparation of products. Here, things are done because farms are inherited and because [that is how] it was done that way and [now] that is the practice, but there is no culture’
Level 1: Paradigm	Hard to do.	Emerging but limited.	Value traditional local foods for the diet.	‘There is a social component with the imported diet, not local’
Level 1: Paradigm	Hard to do.	Emerging but limited.	Value and invest in ecology.	‘I think that today, there are a lot of people who are environmentally conscious. More than one thinks…’

GMB, group model building.