Reviews & Analysis

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  • Circularity principles and tipping the ratio of animal- to plant-based proteins towards plant-based diets could largely reduce greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change impacts in the EU28, while avoiding micronutrient losses associated with lower animal-based protein intake.

    • Jon Sampedro
    News & Views
  • Dietary patterns make a substantial contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Research is needed to investigate whether these dietary pattern-level GHG emission contributions can be disaggregated into food product-specific GHG emissions estimates and used to encourage citizens to switch from high- to low-emitting foods.

    • Mark Lawrence
    News & Views
  • A sweet gel from the endocarp of cocoa pods and the concentrated juice of the cocoa fruit pulp can replace sugar in a chocolate recipe, reducing the environmental impact associated with its production and improving the nutritional value of chocolate.

    • Alejandro G. Marangoni
    News & Views
  • Food systems are responsible for around one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and dish-level emissions are detailed end-use representatives of demand-side emissions. Low-carbon food consumption strategies are therefore linked to the Paris Agreement targets and might determine their achievement.

    • Xiao-Bing Zhang
    • Ugur Soytas
    News & Views
  • With centralized production, the price of ammonia-based fertilizers is affected by the volatility of the fossil fuel market, complex supply chains and long-distance transportation costs. Now, an analysis of the cost-competitiveness of decentralized low-carbon ammonia production suggests that a substantial fraction of the global ammonia demand could be cost-competitively supplied by small-scale technologies by 2030.

    Research Briefing
  • We provide evidence that intensive industrialization over the past century, particularly of the livestock trade, has facilitated host jumps and accumulation of antimicrobial resistance genes in Salmonella enterica, leading to the global transmission of this pathogen from Europe and the USA during the height of pork production.

    Research Briefing
  • Linking spatially explicit inter-city nitrogen pollution transfer embedded in food trade to urbanization pathways and historic agricultural production trends reveals evidence of a ’pollution haven’ phenomenon in China’s Greater Bay Area, exacerbated by impeded agricultural development in less-urbanized surrounding cities.

    • Erik Mathijs
    • Erika De Keyser
    • Kato Van Ruymbeke
    News & Views
  • Society must revisit the currently dominant agricultural production model based on land expansion and intensification. Greenhouse cultivation represents a promising alternative, particularly in the Global South.

    • Jay Ram Lamichhane
    News & Views
  • Estimates of the nutritional value of recreational inland fisheries highlight their importance for aquatic food access and vulnerability to climate change. Yet, communicating the importance of data-poor natural resource sectors remains challenging, particularly when defining sustainable development priorities.

    • Abigail Bennett
    • Jerrold L. Belant
    News & Views
  • The intensification of livestock farming and related global trade are increasingly linked to the expansion of endemic bacterial pathogens, including zoonotic transfers to people. To preserve food security and public health, it is imperative to find measures that counter this trend.

    • Lucy A. Weinert
    • A. W. (Dan) Tucker
    News & Views
  • Management practices including augmenting the ratio of organic to chemical fertilizers, implementing deep application techniques and reintegrating straw into fields can bolster food production while optimizing resource use efficiency and abating nitrogen pollution in China.

    • Yulong Yin
    • Zhenling Cui
    News & Views
  • Matching phosphorus fertilizer applications to optimal thresholds required by crops mitigates the exhaustion of phosphorus resources and promotes agricultural sustainability.

    • Qiumeng Zhong
    • Sai Liang
    News & Views
  • We found trade-offs among the environmental and animal welfare impacts of pig farms — those that had low greenhouse gas emissions typically had low land use but poor animal welfare and high antimicrobial use. Some farms performed well in all four impacts, but these farms were not consistently associated with any particular farm or label type.

    Research Briefing
  • Cropland fragmentation poses a significant threat to agricultural sustainability in China. Rational crop layout is required for different ecological regions to manage the fragmented croplands.

    • Xiaolong Wang
    News & Views
  • Wild forage fish can provide nutrients essential for human health, yet some nutrients may be lost when forage fish are used as aquafeeds. Reallocating a third of food-grade forage fish towards direct human consumption can optimize seafood systems to deliver dietary nutrients for feed and food at different scales.

    • Richard S. Cottrell
    News & Views
  • Returning agricultural organic residues to the soil is imperative for food security and carbon neutrality. We scaled up field findings using machine learning and found that the co-benefits of improved rice yield and reduced net carbon emissions can be realized with integrated management of organic residues and water worldwide.

    Research Briefing