Reviews & Analysis

The Chinese breadbasket is not where it used to be. Reshaped land systems have extended distances between food production and consumption, thus increasing carbon emissions associated with grain transport.

Sustainable crop protection approaches are crucial to feeding an exponentially increasing global population. Seed wraps developed from banana harvest biomass and loaded with an ultra-low volume of a pesticide resulted in a substantial increase in the yield and quality of yam crops in field trials in Benin.

Plant parasitic nematodes (PPNs) are responsible for substantial yield and post-harvest losses in yam production among smallholders in Africa. A seed wrap technology provides a low-cost, nature-based solution.

The increasing production and use of nitrogen fertilizers exert extreme pressure on the environment. There are ways to mitigate its harmful impacts without sacrificing food quality and quantity.

Aligning an organization’s food consumption with ambitious biodiversity targets involves complex steps but is instrumental for the protection of biodiversity nationally and globally.

Using a resilience heuristic to diagnose food systems will allow us to identify and relieve the underlying drivers of food system challenges. This perspective identifies four ‘aching points’ that are central points of tension in the local–global debate, and proposes transformative pathways towards more sustainable and resilient food systems.

Regulatory bodies exist at the science–policy interface. They must have robust and reliable mechanisms to avert regulatory capture, including ways to identify and address conflicts of interest.

Food systems must transform to provide undernourished people with greater access to nutrient-rich foods. While there has been a push to increase volumes of food production, too little attention has been paid to the factors that enable access to nutritious aquatic foods.

The demand for dairy produce is growing alongside concerns about the impact of intensive dairying on water quality owing to nutrient loss. We found that nitrogen losses were greatest from all-grazed systems, but could be lowered by incorporating some housing.

Synergies between agroecology and nutrition are explored in this Perspective, with a view towards developing a framework to transform agroecology for improved nutrition.

The phyllosphere is essential for plant health and fitness. This Review examines the relations between phyllosphere microbiota and the host plants and constructs a framework to engineer the phyllosphere microbiome for sustainable crop production.

Nano-enabled fertilizers and pesticides can bring new economic benefits to agricultural practices with reduced environmental impacts. Moving forward, nano-enabled agrochemicals should continue to be optimized for greater efficiency.

Meeting future food demand while mitigating the social and environmental externalities associated with the agricultural sector will require creative, multi-scalar and synergistic strategies.

The EDGAR-FOOD database presents a way forward in quantifying the impacts of air pollutants emitted from the global food system on human health and crops.

Computer-aided food engineering (CAFE) drives high-level innovations in food safety and quality. The multiscale structure of foods requires novel modelling paradigms. This Review explores current CAFE modelling frameworks and computational approaches and the challenges to introducing computer-aided engineering in food-manufacturing processes.

Hedonic responses to food odour may be rooted in evolution, associated learning or the physiochemical structure of odorants. Here, vanilla is used to study these mechanisms in an effort to understand why some flavours are universally liked and how that might be advanced in food science.

Locally grown agricultural products have been increasingly replaced by their mass market equivalents with consequences for people and the environment. This Perspective explores how multifunctional landscape products can support human well-being and sustainability by examining seven case studies worldwide.

When plants are under stress, the over-accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) leads to phytotoxicity and growth inhibition. This Review examines the current approaches of applying ROS-scavenging and ROS-triggering nanomaterials to plants to enhance stress resistance and explores their delivery pathways.

Inedible crustacean waste can be utilized for chitin and chitosan extraction. This Perspective reflects on recent developments in chitin extraction and explores future chitin and chitosan applications within and outside the food system.

Farm animals in circular food systems upcycle non-competing feedstuff and therefore reduce feed–food competition. This can increase global food supply while reducing pressure on the Earth’s system.