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Fruit and vegetable supply in the United Kingdom has increasingly been characterized by reduced domestic production of fruit and vegetables and increased reliance on imports from climate-vulnerable countries. With increasing climate change, this may impact availability, price and consumption of fruit and vegetables in the UK, with health consequences, particularly for older people and low-income households.
Understanding major sources of uncertainty in yield change facilitates adaptation strategies for cropping systems. Using eight crop models, 32 global climate models and two climate downscaling methods, it is shown that their relative contribution to uncertainty in climate–crop modelling depends on location.
A key climate change adaptation goal in agriculture is to reduce drought sensitivity of crop yields. A comparison of two empirical strategies applied to US maize for detecting changes in drought sensitivity reveals the advantages of utilizing within-country spatial variability in drought exposure, driven primarily by differences in soil water-storage capacity.
Seeds, flour and food products derived from two near-identical pea genotypes (BC1/19RR and BC1/19rr) were utilized in a series of in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo studies to explore the contribution of starch structure, food matrix and intestinal environment to postprandial glycaemia.
Polypropylene-based food containers are utilized widely, but their potential to degrade and produce microplastics is poorly understood. Here, microplastics released from formula preparation procedures in polypropylene feeding bottles are quantified, demonstrating the potential for global infant exposure to microplastics.
Palm oil has certain functional advantages as an ingredient in food products, including textual and sensory properties, and as a trans fat replacement. A well-established technique, enzymatic glycerolysis, is used here to structure liquid cottonseed and peanut oils into solid fats without altering fatty acid composition, which may advance the structure, nutrition and sustainability of commercial products
An integrated subnational environmental and nutritional optimization approach indicates that, with a transition from current production and consumption patterns, India has the capacity to achieve national food self-sufficiency goals while reducing regional cropland use, water demand and GHG emissions.
Nitrogen use has increased food security in China but also poses environmental problems. Agricultural nitrogen management strategies are identified for China that will improve food security and public health while addressing multiple environmental challenges.
Aquaculture production systems in Bangladesh were configured to optimize the supply of micronutrients while minimizing environmental impacts. Increased production of small indigenous species enabled nutrient densities of farmed fish to match those of wild-caught fish, and systems that co-produce fish and rice had the lowest environmental burdens.
Associations, cooperatives, women’s groups and other farmers’ organizations are generally considered beneficial to smallholders, but more evidence on their broader impact is needed. This scoping review, focused on sub-Saharan Africa and India, draws on the findings of 239 studies to elicit the contributions of farmers’ organizations to production, income, empowerment, food security and the environment.
Youth engagement in agriculture in low- and middle-income countries offers social and economic opportunities, and supports food security. Agriculture skills training is key for youth engagement, yet programmes are not well evaluated for effectiveness in employment outcomes.
To achieve sustainable food production in China in 2030, strategies such as optimizing fertilizer application, improving production efficiency, reducing food loss and waste and shifting dietary patterns must be combined inter-regionally, and food production reallocated from northern to southern China. Levers and barriers to strategy implementation are discussed here.
The yield variability of 18 crops, representing 70% of global crop area and two-thirds of global calorific intake, is assessed here at the country level for the impacts of weather (temperature and precipitation) and farm management practices (pesticide and fertilizer application, and irrigation).
The online food delivery and takeaway market is growing in China, serving 406 million customers with 10.0 billion orders in 2018. Here, data from an online food delivery platform, life-cycle environmental impacts of packaging and tableware waste generated across 353 cities in China, and scenarios for paper alternatives and tableware sharing are presented.
High-resolution meta-analysis of cheese microbiomes and corresponding volatilomes provide technological and ecological insights for improving cheese production.
The primary source of human exposure to the highly toxic heavy metal cadmium (Cd) is diet. This study identified a gene encoding a P-type heavy metal ATPase 3 (HvHMA3) that is responsible for Cd accumulation in barley grain. A Sukkula-like transposable element was found to play an important role in upregulating the expression of HvHMA3, thereby decreasing Cd accumulation in the grain.
Industrial insect production is expanding, particularly in regions where insects are not traditionally consumed, but food safety standards remain to be established. Here, potential microbiological contaminants from unprocessed insects are investigated, demonstrating a high risk for foodborne illnesses originating from bacterial spores, but low risk from viruses.
Principles of conservation agriculture are widely promoted for sustainable agricultural intensification, but their effects on crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa are poorly understood. A meta-analysis covering 16 countries quantifies such effects and reveals the conditions under which they are maximized.
Livestock greenhouse gas emissions are key to the sustainability of food systems. A spatially explicit analysis of global livestock supply chains shows large variability of nitrogen use efficiency across species, systems, production intensities and the origin and management of animal feed.
Urinary metabolic phenotyping of 1,848 adults in the United States shows that 46 structurally identified metabolites were influenced by intakes of 67 nutrients, and accurately predicted healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns. These urinary biomarkers are diet-derived, stable, measurable and associated with disease risk, thereby representing an advance on traditional ways of obtaining information about dietary patterns.