Volume 1 Issue 4, April 2020

Resilience of the food system is being tested by the COVID-19 pandemic. We must take stock, learn — and transform.

Scientific meetings should be organized in the spirit of responsible consumption and production, including the prioritization of plant-based meals for reduced nitrogen loss. The Cercedilla Manifesto indicates how.

Textured soy protein can now provide scaffolding for bovine skeletal muscle cells to adhere to and form meat-like 3D cell cultures, thus advancing the generation of cultured meat and reducing the reliance on animal agriculture.

Pork production in East Asia is declining due to African swine fever. The effects of this epidemic are modelled, predicting global meat price increases and lower food security in China.

Current food production systems and diets do not support purely local food consumption around the world, even when trade flows are optimized.

CRISPR technology has been widely used in plant genome editing and has great potential in precision breeding. The application of CRISPR technology to food crops provides potential for crop synthetic biology and crop domestication. The authors also discuss the implications of regulatory policy for deployment of the technology in the developing world.

Gender inequality, discriminatory laws and economic precarity persist for many women in the agriculture and food sectors. This Perspective frames the persistent malnutrition and food insecurity experienced in parts of South Asia, despite economic growth, in terms of social and political structures that inhibit the agency of women.

Animal skeletal muscle cell culture has the potential to provide new protein sources without the need for conventional animal agriculture. Ben-Ayre et. al. address one of the challenges of growing cell-based meat in vitro by using textured soy protein as an extracellular matrix scaffold. This approach allowed three-dimensional skeletal muscle cell development to produce a meat-like product for human consumption.

African swine fever (ASF) is diminishing pork production in East Asia, especially China, but the global economic costs of ASF are unclear. Mason-D’Croz et al. model the effect of Chinese ASF outbreak scenarios on the global pork market, predicting pork, beef and poultry price increases and a decline in per capita calorie intake in China.

A ‘foodshed’ model indicates the minimum distance between crop production and consumption globally. Results show that most of the world’s population depends on trade to feed themselves, even under different levels of yield gap closure and food loss reduction.

The starchy staples of West African cooking have significance beyond nutrition and satiety. In Ghana, fufu, tzed and banku are associated with regional and cultural identity, and the preparation and consumption of the ‘proper meal’ with social roles.