Ethiopia’s iodized salt supply was cut off in May 1998, limiting intake to the iodine levels in local foods. We found a significant drop in child survival and academic achievement, especially in rural...

Nutrient profile models (NPMs) underpin front-of-pack nutrition labelling (FOPNL), which can help consumers to make healthier food choices. This systematic review identifies and characterizes existing...

Institutional and structural barriers limit the effective use of remote sensing in European Union agricultural governance, constraining its potential to enable fair, resilient and environmentally soun...

Inland aquaculture faces varied climate impacts. This systematic review identifies 53 adaptation options and 17 barriers, highlighting the need for tailored strategies, policy coherence, better inform...

Food and beverage manufacturers have the potential to contribute to the transition towards a more nutritious and sustainable food system. By analysing products sold by 44 major food and beverage manuf...

Debt-for-food swaps have been presented as instruments that can simultaneously mobilize additional resources for food security and alleviate debt distress in countries with heavy debt burdens. A recen...

As the range of agricultural technological solutions expands, questions emerge about how to assess their technical potential under differing local conditions and what that means for food security.

Food systems substantially impact carbon storage and biodiversity, with food consumption driving four-fifths of losses on agricultural land, particularly through animal-sourced foods. Targeted interve...

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is widely recognized for its potential to enhance agricultural productivity and contribute to climate mitigation, yet its benefits in real-world farming contexts remain uncer...

Indigenous and traditional knowledge can help to address climate, biodiversity and nutrition challenges, yet medicalized top-down approaches prevail. This systematic review explores how food systems l...

Brazil’s seafood consumption remains low despite its rich marine biodiversity. The study suggests that better use of seafood could help address nutritional gaps, in combination with improved fisheries...

This study identifies targets and proposes benchmarks for 44 indicators from the Food Systems Countdown Initiative. The analysis reveals what is required for their achievement at national and global l...

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are already enhancing food security early warning systems by improving data collection, event monitoring and forecasting. However, to avoid costly errors, ...

Life cycle assessment and mass balance modelling reveal trade-offs in diverting US food waste from landfills to composting and anaerobic digestion. Although climate impacts and nutrient loading would ...

Sub-Saharan Africa’s food systems are increasingly vulnerable to climate change. Using the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED) framework, Zambian nutrition security and policy ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how new foods are designed, produced and experienced. While AI has the potential to link molecular composition to functional and sensory performance and ac...

Spatial assessments reveal that oil crop expansion, particularly in tropical regions, threaten global biodiversity. Hotspots of production and consumption are identified, showing that consumption-side...

Climate-smart agriculture policy is failing because it ignores the stakeholder cognition that drives political decisions. Cognitive mapping can make these worldviews explicit, creating a powerful tool...

Soybeans are central to global food security, but rising demand for animal-sourced foods has made China highly dependent on imports, creating environmental spillover through deforestation and land-use...

Reducing consumption of meat and dairy foods is essential for the long-term sustainability of the UK food system. A study quantifying the impact on environmental footprints, nutrient intake, health an...

Land degradation is widely recognized as a threat to food security. Using high-resolution global data on multiple land degradation indicators and crop yield gaps, the study shows that greater historic...

The Global Dietary Database for Impact Assessments provides information on what people eat across countries and demographic groups by integrating data on food availability, consumption and waste, as w...

Analysis of age-specific dietary emissions in 149 countries shows that adolescents and young adults have the highest per capita emissions, while population aging, particularly in higher-income regions...

Food systems face numerous challenges such as biodiversity loss and undernourishment. This Perspective presents a systems-thinking approach rooted in agroecology that can guide transformative changes ...

Dietary intake and supply chain data from 165 countries reveal demographic disparities in diet-related environmental impacts. Impacts are greatest among young, highly educated urban men, and healthier...

The environmental and health impacts of diets vary by socio-demographic group, population trends and diet composition. Per-capita environmental impacts tend...

Using microsimulation of Scottish Health Survey adults, this study compares 33 pathways for achieving the UK Climate Change Committee meat and dairy reduction targets. Most pathways improved nutrient ...

Diets affect both human and planetary health. Recent research reveals how dietary footprints vary across demographic groups and offers new data and methods for future studies.

Evidence on the effectiveness of national policies against cropland degradation is limited. Using global satellite data from 2001 to 2019, this study addresses this gap and reveals which country chara...

Across 121 countries, survey respondents without clean drinking water were more likely to report lacking food and experiencing threats to food safety. This pattern was consistent across all country‑in...

The Netherlands is one of the world’s top trading countries and the second largest exporter of agricultural goods. Using an agroecological food system model, this study examines the feasibility of thi...

Saudi Arabia is seeking to reposition halal from a label focused on religious permissibility to a broader trust mark that explicitly encompasses food safety, quality and nutrition. This matters becaus...

Targeted strategies to simultaneously reduce NH3 and N2O emissions in agriculture are urgently needed. By combining high-resolution emissions inventories with policy scenario analysis, this study eval...

Ultraprocessed food research faces several methodological limitations that warrant careful scientific examination rather than rhetorical dismissal. Advancing research quality and fostering open dialog...

Spatial optimization can reduce production risk and improve output without expanding land or irrigation, but meeting future demand will require a combined strategy of global crop redistribution, yield...

We provide global causal evidence that agri-environmental policies reduce cropland degradation. Using a dataset that links approximately 4,700 national policies to 83 million cropland observations wor...

Climate change and rapid urbanization are fragmenting periurban cropland, increasing edge disturbance and vulnerability to hydrological extremes. This study shows that cropland edge reduction and ecol...

European agrifood systems face sustainability and resilience challenges. This Perspective identifies five systemic lock-ins hindering transformation and proposes guiding principles to address these is...

Organic waste mismanagement can degrade soils and increase pollution. A machine learning approach using data from 848 global composting experiments reveals 19 key management parameters and strategies ...

The strength of the evidence linking ultra-processed foods to adverse health outcomes polarizes the opinion of the scientific community. Two Perspectives published side-by-side in this issue of Nature...

Food preparation typically requires access to clean drinking water. This Analysis of data from the World Risk Poll explores the links between food sufficiency, clean drinking water availability and th...

Policymakers often dismiss the health risks associated with the intake of ultra-processed foods, alleging conceptual imprecision and limited evidence. This Perspective offers responses to four such cr...

Northward shifts in China’s grain production, driven by expanded trade and climate change, transfer environmental burdens to less affluent northern regions—a trend that is environmentally and economic...

Phosphorus mismanagement threatens food security, water quality, climate and biodiversity. This Comment outlines how countries may establish national working groups and action plans to tackle these ch...