Articles

Population growth and associated increases in food and feed demand may drive cropland expansion at the expense of natural area and biodiversity, as well as higher greenhouse gas emissions. This study shows how a more efficient and better targeted use of phosphorus is key to avoiding such environmental problems.

Post-Brexit free-trade agreements could increase diet-related health risks—but tariff and subsidy reforms could mitigate these risks.

The current expansion of oil palm in India is occurring at the expense of biodiversity-rich landscapes. This study shows that on the national scale India has the potential to become self-sufficient in palm oil production without compromising either its biodiversity or its food security, while economic, social, political and nutritional factors will require attention at finer spatial scales.

A unidirectional light-extracting fluorescent film was designed for passive augmentation of photosynthesis and biomass production for leafy green lettuces grown indoors and in greenhouse facilities. The batch-processed films have a total light extraction efficiency of 89%, with a majority of the converted light directed towards lettuce crops. This film demonstrates application potential in greenhouses and other protected environments to increase crop production efficiency.

China’s feed imports have global sustainability implications. This study uses crop simulations based on current and attainable farmers’ yields to estimate the country’s potential to meet its own demand for maize and soy, as well as associated benefits for GHG emissions and nutrient use efficiency.

The distribution of consumer food expenditures across value-added activities on farms and in the post-farmgate value chain, although important, has been overlooked. Building on a global food dollar series, this study shows how the farm and post-farmgate shares of consumer food expenditures evolve in response to changing economic, demographic and agricultural conditions in different regions.

A quantitative analysis of human encroachment into wildlife habitats highlights that horseshoe bats occur in hotspots of forest fragmentation, livestock density and human populations—particularly in China—increasing the risk of SARS-related zoonotic pathogen spillover.

Rising temperatures are expected to have negative effects on agricultural production. Advanced crop and Earth system modelling indicate the degree to which technologies such as stratospheric aerosol injection, marine sky brightening and cirrus cloud thinning can help mitigate pressure on global crop yields.

Breeding crop cultivars with better environmental adaptability could support crop yield stability to mitigate the effects of climate change. Combining transcriptional dynamics of florigen genes and statistical models, the daylength-sensing-based environment adaptation simulator can forecast the latitude adaptability of rice cultivars and has application potential in other crops.

Increased landcover complexity can improve crop productivity at field scale, but less is known at broader landscape scales. A modelling study shows that increased landscape complexity is associated with higher yields of corn, soy and winter wheat in the United States from 2008 to 2018.

Organophosphate insecticides are highly toxic to pollinators. Bumblebees fed pollen patties contaminated with phosphotriesterase insecticide encapsulated in pollen-inspired microparticles demonstrated 100% survival.

The ability of organic agriculture to feed the world population remains contentious. A biophysical optimization model indicates the extent to which nitrogen availability could limit the expansion of organic production systems and what measures could alleviate this limitation.

The effects of previous and contemporaneous consumption of animal-sourced foods on stunting in children under two years in Nepal, Uganda and Bangladesh are studied here, with implications for contextualizing the interpretation of sustainable, healthy diets.

Optimization models using locally adapted constraints and trade-offs demonstrate that adult populations in urban Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, could benefit from increased legume consumption, while children would gain from increased animal protein intake. This approach could inform policy and dietary recommendations in low- and middle-income countries.

Increasing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture must be compensated by emissions reduction in other sectors if global emissions are to be capped. Using macroeconomic–climate modelling, this study quantifies such emission compensation efforts under different dietary choices.

Transition theory and the political economy of food regimes provide insights for transforming food systems. Recent historic case studies of scientific, technological, political and cultural innovations, including advances in tilapia farming and ultra-heat treatment of milk, provide lessons for future food system shifts.

Soybean and corn production in Brazil increased more than fourfold from 1980 to 2016, which was achieved by double cropping and cropland expansion. The contribution patterns of the two strategies were spatiotemporally specific, while double cropping shows increasing impacts over land expansion to the grain boom.

Environmental impacts of water use affect the sustainability of food production. The impacts of water use associated with self-selected diets in the United States are estimated here based on the types and quantities of foods in the diet, the irrigation water required to produce those foods and the relative scarcity of water in the regions where that irrigation occurs. Food substitutions offer opportunities to reduce these water impacts.

Substitution of food produce from declining wild fisheries with farmed species may exacerbate prevalent micronutrient deficiencies in regions such as the urban Peruvian Amazon, as well as negatively impact agricultural land use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Crop exposure to sunlight may be affected by air pollution, climate change and geoengineering. Empirical estimates of the effects of atmospheric opacity on sunlight reveal important changes in maize and soy yields in the United States, Europe, Brazil and China.