COVID-19 and locust swarms have threatened international agricultural supply chains. Here, the possible impacts on wheat, rice and maize trade are modelled, showing that trade restrictions could create food price spikes and localized food shortages.

Large-scale land transactions can promote agricultural intensification but may be accompanied by negative socioeconomic and environmental consequences. Estimated carbon emissions from converting transacted lands to large-scale farms can reach up to 2.26 Gt, with the majority emitting from Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Oceania; mitigation strategies are discussed.

Sudan faces population growth to 80 million people, rising temperatures and trebling in demand for wheat by 2050. Crop modelling under climate and socioeconomic scenarios indicates the regional rates of yield growth that must be achieved by breeding heat-tolerant varieties to adapt wheat production to climate change and increased demand.

System-level analysis on the effects of soil biodiversity on cropping system is lacking. Across conventionally managed European fields, the proportion of time with crop cover during the past ten-year rotation has a greater impact than crop diversity on soil microbial diversity, soil multifunctionality and crop yield.

Understanding the propagation or attenuation of environmental variability and shocks along food supply chains is key to food security. This scoping review identifies entry points for variability, the main factors for variability diffusion, research gaps in terms of food items and types of shock studied, and risk reduction responses at individual, company and governmental levels.

Chinese vegetable production accounts for 1.7% of the global harvest area of crops but uses 7.8% of the chemical fertilizer and produces 6.6% of the crop-sourced greenhouse gas emissions of the global agricultural sector. An innovative management programme offers opportunities for producing more vegetables with lower environmental impacts.

Without breakthroughs for adaptation, rising temperatures in the hottest wheat-producing environments, such as Sudan, could reduce domestic production, increase dependency on imports and threaten food security for millions.

A study of the grain trade during 2020 indicates that policies to protect supply chains must be enacted to avoid supply chain shocks such as COVID-19 and locust swarms exacerbating food insecurity in global regions that rely on food imports.