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Food systems are complex and actions in one area are likely to have ripple effects in others. A newly proposed efficiency metric shows how well environmental resources used (and degraded) by food systems contribute to diet-related health outcomes.
An assessment of the supply chain reveals a rising trend in global food loss and waste, with uneven distribution across regions. Integrated interventions are necessary to reduce food waste and improve nutritional and environmental security.
The protein transition seeks to mitigate the adverse impacts of production and consumption of animal-sourced foods. Three diverse but partially overlapping narratives emerge from the scientific literature, addressing drivers of change, actionable pathways and visions for the future.
In vivo mercury demethylation by rice plants, involving neither light nor microorganisms, has major implications for human health and possibly even global mercury cycling.
We present an interdisciplinary conceptual framework of urban agriculture and synthesize its social–ecological effects across scales. Using those theoretical foundations, we proposed a multiphase developmental pathway for scaling up urban agriculture, including dynamics, processes, accelerators and feedback loops, which elucidated key considerations associated with achieving transformative change in urban regions.
Material flow and ecological network analysis of China’s coupled nitrogen and phosphorus flows shows trade-offs and synergies between food and energy systems.
Redesigning crop management practices for climate, crop and soil co-optimization has great potential to maintain high yields, mitigate social and environmental impacts, and support sustainable agricultural intensification.
The application of an integrated assessment framework in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa demonstrates how anticipatory governance and decision support tools can help inform policy-making at the national level in the face of looming climate and nutrition crises.
Biofortification was first proposed as a low-cost, sustainable technique to enhance the nutritional value of staple food crops. This Perspective argues that both the micronutrients and the types of crop biofortified need to expand under rapid dietary change and proposes strategies to integrate biofortification into the global food system.
