Volume 4 Issue 7, July 2023

Finance is a critical catalyst of food systems transformation. At the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit, the Financial Lever Group suggested five imperatives to tap into new financial resources while making better use of existing ones. These imperatives are yet to garner greater traction to instigate meaningful change.

The recent involvement of Nestlé in the Africa Food Prize reinforces the presence of the ultra-processed food industry in the continent and invites us to reflect on the implications this may have for Africa’s sustainable food systems agenda.

Increased yields, reduced food waste and loss, and a shift to healthier diets are key to achieve carbon neutrality, food security and global sustainability simultaneously.

Variations in land and water footprint accounts should not shift attention away from the potential to reduce the environmental impact embedded in food choices.

A risk assessment of land-based food supply in the United States reveals a high risk of forced labour in domestic production and processing.

Some food is lost at the production stage or is wasted by consumers. Policies aimed at avoiding this may have rebound effects through food availability and food prices, thus requiring alternative measures.

A framework for analysing connectivity in US food flow networks reveals locations that are vital leverage points for well-functioning domestic agri-food supply chains. Planning around these logistics hubs could help build resilience to various threats and disruptions facing food systems.

The local loss of a crop can affect food availability in other countries, directly through trade but also indirectly if production inputs become unavailable. Quantifying the direct and often overlooked indirect effects of local shocks could inform the design of resilient food supply chains and effective crisis responses.

Negative-emission technologies might pose trade-offs to food security and other land-based sustainability targets. A scenario analysis reveals the potential impacts of bioenergy deployment in China on global and domestic sustainable development, and how free trade and food systems efficiency measures could mitigate the potential adverse sustainability impacts.

Modelled estimates of the environmental impact of dietary choices often fail to reflect true dietary practice. This study links a dietary dataset from 55,000 UK consumers with food-level data on GHG emissions, land use, water use, eutrophication and biodiversity to compare the environmental burden of different levels of meat consumption.

Reducing the environmental pressure and impact of food production is central to the European Union’s Farm to Fork Strategy. This study applies a multi-model approach to track food through the global trade network, estimating the land and water footprints of food consumption in the 27 member states of the European Union.

Efficiency improvements that cause price decreases and consumption increases may offset the benefits of avoided food loss and waste (FLW), hindering progress towards SDG 12. Based on published income-group- and food-type-specific price elasticities of supply and demand, this study quantifies the direct rebound effects from large reductions in FLW of six types of food.

The elimination of forced labour (Sustainable Development Goal 8.7) is a priority for the sustainability of food systems. Using data on production, trade, labour intensity and risk, this study estimates the risk of forced labour embedded in the US land-based food supply across product category, country of origin and supply chain stage.

The disruption of hubs connecting production, processing and consumption locations may seriously impact agri-food supply-chain networks and affect food security. Using complex network statistics, this study identifies structural chokepoints that accumulate agri-food commodities from their production regions to be further processed and redistributed to final consumption points across the United States.

Malnutrition at both low and high levels of calorie consumption is a major global health challenge. Using a fully integrated framework, this study reports that healthier diets and reduced food waste improves both undernutrition and obesity outcomes while reducing pressure on environmental resources by 2050.