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Despite increasing interest in cellular agriculture, coffee, cocoa and palm oil produced using these techniques have received limited scientific attention. Emerging alternatives could mitigate negative environmental and socio-economic impacts associated with these crops and meet growing demand despite declining production, but it is important to ensure that they do not reinforce inequities.
Innovation in pesticide application is urgently needed. However, recent approaches, such as employing full-service pesticide contractors or utilizing artificial intelligence for pest control, may prioritize economic and production outcomes over environmental protection and public health. Here, we explore these propositions, their associated risks, and suggest a pathway for sustainable, risk-reduced pesticide decisions.
Land consolidation in China is seen as a key strategy to increase resource use efficiency while maintaining high yields, yet it often reduces crop diversity. Reconciling consolidation, diversity and agricultural technology is key for food and nutrition security.
More than 1,600 multi-stakeholder dialogues were convened in preparation for the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021. These dialogues have helped facilitate inclusive explorations of the complex challenges of transforming food systems and accelerate progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Indigenous peoples are frequently denied the right to own, control and use their traditional lands and resources. Using the example of the Burdekin plum, we explore how this undermines resource access and benefit sharing with Indigenous peoples and hinders scientific research in food innovation.
The framework presented in the Dublin Declaration has generated controversy by advocating for maintaining or increasing livestock numbers. The serious and acute harms associated with global livestock production today bring the goals of the declaration into dispute.
Malnutrition and climate change are intimately linked. Nature Food’s latest Collection illustrates the central role of diets in both of these issues, underscoring the burden of current diets on human and planetary health, as well as how much improvement can be achieved through better dietary choices.
Not only does the problem persist, but it is also getting worse. Nature Food’s Collection ‘Loss and waste in food systems’ is a contribution to the debate on drivers, impacts and solutions.
A focus on improvements to livestock production limits the scope for food systems transformation. Research, policy and industry must adopt measures to downsize livestock production and consumption to meet sustainability _targets and facilitate a just transition.
Policies for supporting domestic grain production propose converting large areas of marginal and low-grade arable land into strategic cropland reserves. This process will require advances in science and land engineering, and presents opportunities to revitalize social, economic and ecological systems in rural China.
Despite decades of resistance in the USA, agroecology is gaining momentum as a catalyst for food systems transformation, calling for coordinated action between science, practice and movement to dismantle the dominant industrial paradigm.
Working conditions in food systems remain precarious across the globe. Little scientific guidance exists on what works where when it comes to initiatives aimed at addressing this issue. Investments in large-scale, nationally representative agricultural worker data are needed to properly document the scale and nature of working conditions and better guide policy design and implementation.
Crop pest invasions and their interactions with climate change may have been overlooked in crop yield projections, hindering the development of climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture. A harmonized strategy is proposed to integrate such interactions into crop yield projections and management under climate change scenarios.
Building soil health and manipulating the soil microbiome, alongside _targeted plant breeding that prioritizes preferential root architectural development, hold the key to the future success of regenerative agriculture. Greater integration is needed between disciplines focused on the rhizosphere scale with plant, microbiome and soil scientists working at the wider farm scale.
