Reviews & Analysis

For the food system of China and its individual provinces to stay within downscaled planetary boundaries, sustainability strategies must combine demand, production, and redistribution interventions to meet targets for greenhouse gas emissions, water use, land use, and nutrient inputs.

Big data from major online food ordering platforms can facilitate a richer understanding of the environmental impact of current food delivery packaging waste, and scenarios for more sustainable alternatives.

Numerous pesticide reduction policies have been introduced in Europe. Shortcomings in current policies are discussed in this Perspective, and ten steps for guiding regulatory bodies towards implementing effective pesticide policies are presented.

Conceptual frameworks linking food security and agriculture are diverse in their perspectives, assumptions and applications. After reviewing 36 such frameworks, systems modelling conventions are applied to a broadly cited framework to demonstrate the utility of incorporating these tools into food security frameworks for the interdisciplinary food community.

Genomic technologies offer opportunities to monitor microbial strains and their metabolic features to reconstruct the history of cheese.

Barley grain can have high concentrations of the heavy metal cadmium. Identification of a gene controlling cadmium accumulation in barley offers a path to averting unsafe consumption by humans.

Concerns are emerging around wheat-based foods made from refined white flour and human health. This Review summarizes the impact of the amount, composition and interactions of the major carbohydrate components within wheat food products on human health and strategies to manipulate these components.

By 2050, the majority of aquatic dietary protein will be produced by the aquaculture sector. A set of 15 metrics are presented here to guide the industry sustainably through the rapid growth and development it is experiencing.

One-third of human-induced reactive nitrogen emissions can be traced to livestock supply chains. Highly variable nitrogen use efficiencies along these chains uncover opportunities for more sustainable nitrogen management.

Metabolomics can identify dietary biomarkers and describe the metabolic consequences of diet. A robust study design identifies a set of stable urinary metabolites that link to healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns, metabolic networks and distinct urinary metabolic signatures.

In the short term, conservation agriculture does not overcome problems of poor crop productivity and food insecurity of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Producing meat without the drawbacks of conventional animal agriculture would greatly contribute to future food and nutrition security. This Review Article covers biological, technological, regulatory and consumer acceptance challenges in this developing field of biotechnology.

Nanotechnology holds great application potential in plant agriculture. This Review Article identifies the technological readiness, addresses the primary barriers to adopting nano-enabled technologies and proposes a roadmap to advance nanotechnology-enabled agriculture.

A diet-controlled study indicates that metabolic flexibility is an important driver of inter-individual difference in the response to dietary change, and a high flexibility score is a likely health asset.

Under the current political and regulatory environment, animal-sourced foods will remain part of the least-cost nutritious diet in the United States.

A new approach to analysing resilience reveals changes in China’s phosphorus system and suggests ways to improve it.

Consumer acceptance of novel and disruptive technologies is key to their implementation and to building capacity for transforming food systems. Using gene technology, nanotechnology, cultured meat and food irradiation as cases, this Review explores consumer acceptance through the frames of food neophobia, disgust sensitivity and cultural values.

Emerging fungal and oomycete pathogens pose a significant risk to global food security. This Review summarizes factors affecting pathogen introduction and spread and current disease control strategies, and highlights the direction that research must take to face the challenge of emerging crop pathogens.

Rehabilitation of degraded farmlands can have diverse benefits for sustainability, supporting rural livelihoods, economies, society and culture, as well as contributing to food security. A long-established agroforestry programme in Cameroon illustrates these benefits.

Food banks, food pantries and other emergency food operations are often overlooked in studies of food access. Their availability for patrons should not be expressed in terms of geographic coverage, but rather their capacity and hours of operation.