Volume 1 Issue 7, 2 July 2020

Bivalve shellfish represent a nutritious and low-impact food source that is underutilized. New innovations in production in this sector could fulfil the protein needs of nearly one billion people in the most vulnerable global regions.

Poor ocean governance enables illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing with negative impacts on seafood value chains, environment, society and global food security. A new Blue Paper outlines strategies — based on transparency and international cooperation — that could turn the tide on IUU fishing practices.

Metabolomics can identify dietary biomarkers and describe the metabolic consequences of diet. A robust study design identifies a set of stable urinary metabolites that link to healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns, metabolic networks and distinct urinary metabolic signatures.

One-third of human-induced reactive nitrogen emissions can be traced to livestock supply chains. Highly variable nitrogen use efficiencies along these chains uncover opportunities for more sustainable nitrogen management.

In the short term, conservation agriculture does not overcome problems of poor crop productivity and food insecurity of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Producing meat without the drawbacks of conventional animal agriculture would greatly contribute to future food and nutrition security. This Review Article covers biological, technological, regulatory and consumer acceptance challenges in this developing field of biotechnology.

Nanotechnology holds great application potential in plant agriculture. This Review Article identifies the technological readiness, addresses the primary barriers to adopting nano-enabled technologies and proposes a roadmap to advance nanotechnology-enabled agriculture.

Urinary metabolic phenotyping of 1,848 adults in the United States shows that 46 structurally identified metabolites were influenced by intakes of 67 nutrients, and accurately predicted healthy and unhealthy dietary patterns. These urinary biomarkers are diet-derived, stable, measurable and associated with disease risk, thereby representing an advance on traditional ways of obtaining information about dietary patterns.

Livestock greenhouse gas emissions are key to the sustainability of food systems. A spatially explicit analysis of global livestock supply chains shows large variability of nitrogen use efficiency across species, systems, production intensities and the origin and management of animal feed.

Principles of conservation agriculture are widely promoted for sustainable agricultural intensification, but their effects on crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa are poorly understood. A meta-analysis covering 16 countries quantifies such effects and reveals the conditions under which they are maximized.