Perspectives in 2021

Building productive relationships between farmers and scientists is critical to developing new innovation pathways to solve the challenges of contemporary agriculture. On-farm experimentation (OFE) is an effective approach that brings agricultural stakeholders to support farmers’ own management decisions for agricultural innovation, with digitalization playing a key role in motivating and enabling OFE.

Addressing trade-offs between the environment, health and inclusion in the quest for sustainable food systems requires integrated and coherent policies. This Perspective proposes a food systems transformation framework that brings these elements together and enables the design of concrete development pathways for food sustainability.

Global redistribution of accumulated nutrients could enhance food security and counteract degradative Earth system processes. Such a redress of unequal nutrient use may be enabled by a ‘one Earth currency’ allowing accumulated rights to nutrients to be traded.

Corporate reporting tools should incorporate equity considerations if they are to cover the true costs of operating in the food system. Looking at natural, social and human capital costs, this study proposes integrated metrics to account for the impact of economic activities across socio-economic, gender, racial, generational and risk-bearing domains.

Natural biomass cycling and avoidance of biomass overharvest are the basis of a sustainable food system. This study proposes five guiding principles for biomass use based on the concepts of ecology and circularity, as well as leverage points for their implementation.

Continuous and chronic exposure to mixtures of multiple chemicals, particularly from food, medicine and cleaning products, are of concern. A proactive combinatorial approach to identify, assess and regulate the likelihood of exposure and potential health effects is presented.

Metrics and methodologies to characterize food environments of school-age children and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries are explored here, with a view to inform priorities and actions for policy towards healthy, nutritious diets.

Corporate concentration and power can shape markets, technology and innovation agendas, and policy and governance frameworks. Issues, implications and mitigating measures to take in food systems are discussed here using the agricultural inputs industry as an example.

Conventional farming systems are susceptible to various sources of stress, but microalgae, mycoprotein and mealworm can offer healthy and more sustainable diets. This study highlights what makes future foods farming systems resilient and how to unlock their potential.

A framework based on circular economy and business model canvas principles is used to explore pathways towards future seafood sector resilience, elucidating how seafood business models currently operate and highlighting business practices that could increase sustainability.