Reviews & Analysis

A farmer’s decision whether to use fertilizer is complicated in rainfed areas because the resulting yield gains vary greatly depending on rainfall, temperatures, soil conditions and many other factors. Farmers on about 25% of sub-Saharan Africa’s rainfed maize-growing land face an unacceptably high likelihood that this productivity-enhancing input will not pay off.

Substituting animal-source foods with novel and future foods in our daily diets is essential to mitigate global environmental change. An integrated statistical approach and optimization model support a shift to alternative, more sustainable diets.

Tillage intensity is increasing across the US corn–soybean cropping systems due to increased weed resistance. The more intensive tillage regimes are likely to have negative impacts on greenhouse gas emissions from soils.

Technologies from synthetic biology can be applied to traditional practices in winemaking. Possibilities beyond natural microbial communities exist to improve predictive capabilities for the winemaker vintage to vintage, and introduce new characteristics to wine.

An analysis of historical Escherichia coli samples from livestock reveals how antimicrobial resistance can spread — and how understanding the biology underlying its spread can inform effective policy actions.

Trade-offs between land-based climate change mitigation efforts and food security are common to most decarbonization scenarios. Accounting for climate impacts and inclusive policy design can reverse this trend.

Chemical and pathogenic hazards in aquaculture supply chains threaten the provision of safe aquatic food. The Seafood Risk Tool is an integrated, semi-quantitative system that develops bespoke supply chain and risk management strategies.

Relocating livestock closer to croplands could increase opportunities for manure recycling and reduce the need for synthetic fertilizer — facilitating nitrogen pollution abatement and reducing the impacts of nitrogen pollution on human health.

Systems used to categorize processed foods display variation in the impact of highly processed food on risk factors for non-communicable disease. Clarity is needed on the contribution of nutrients, additives and sensory properties of foods categorized as highly processed to health and disease.

Animal-derived serum use in culture media is a financial, ethical and sustainability challenge for scaling up cultured meat production. Now, an omics approach has identified key cellular signals that allow myocytes to develop in the absence of animal serum.

Feeding animals with low-opportunity-cost biomass — a principle of circular agriculture — may upgrade the role of cattle and pigs in sustainable and healthy food systems, as represented by the EAT–Lancet dietary recommendations.