Volume 2 Issue 8, August 2021

Reversing the alarming trend of rising food insecurity requires transformations towards just, sustainable and healthy food systems with an explicit focus on the most vulnerable and fragile regions.

China’s potato policy, introduced to improve food security, shows that substituting staples with alternative crops, though rarely the focus of dietary advice for planetary health, can also reduce the environmental impacts of food.

US–China trade relations have implications for global nitrogen and phosphorus surpluses, and increasing blue water demand. The case shows that trade policy analysis needs to integrate environmental considerations.

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.

Analysis of nutrient density and micronutrient content across plant-based milk alternatives shows inconsistencies pertinent to the definition of these products as a single food group.

The policy of integrating potato as a staple of the diet in China has potential to improve food security. Here, it is shown that successful integration may also reduce total carbon–land–water impacts of staple crops in China by up to 25% by 2030.

The potential environmental consequences driven by US–China crop trade tension are considerable and could spill over to other countries, especially Brazil and other South American countries, through international trade. Such consequences are predominantly driven by China’s proposed retaliation on US soybeans.

The world’s future food security will certainly be affected by extreme climate events, yet the location and magnitude of their impact are often overlooked. Using crop yield and food need projections under different socioeconomic conditions, this study estimates the share of the population at the risk of hunger under high and low greenhouse gas emission scenarios in the face of climate extremes.

Widespread use of antimicrobials in animals raised for food is driving antimicrobial resistance. Geographically targeted surveillance efforts could allow for prioritized intervention and preserve antimicrobial effectiveness.

Subnational data indicate that the increasing frequency of food-security crises since 2014 is more attributable to conflict in South Sudan and Nigeria than to drought or locust swarms, with pastoralists remaining more vulnerable to drought than those in agricultural zones.

Dietary changes are needed for greater nutrition and sustainability, yet it remains unclear how drastic these changes must be. Combining a new epidemiology-based nutritional index and 18 environmental indicators, this study estimates the positive impact of specific food substitutions.