Volume 5 Issue 1, January 2024

The protein transition seeks to mitigate the adverse impacts of production and consumption of animal-sourced foods. Three diverse but partially overlapping narratives emerge from the scientific literature, addressing drivers of change, actionable pathways and visions for the future.

The application of an integrated assessment framework in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa demonstrates how anticipatory governance and decision support tools can help inform policy-making at the national level in the face of looming climate and nutrition crises.

Material flow and ecological network analysis of China’s coupled nitrogen and phosphorus flows shows trade-offs and synergies between food and energy systems.

Redesigning crop management practices for climate, crop and soil co-optimization has great potential to maintain high yields, mitigate social and environmental impacts, and support sustainable agricultural intensification.

In vivo mercury demethylation by rice plants, involving neither light nor microorganisms, has major implications for human health and possibly even global mercury cycling.

We present an interdisciplinary conceptual framework of urban agriculture and synthesize its social–ecological effects across scales. Using those theoretical foundations, we proposed a multiphase developmental pathway for scaling up urban agriculture, including dynamics, processes, accelerators and feedback loops, which elucidated key considerations associated with achieving transformative change in urban regions.

Biofortification was first proposed as a low-cost, sustainable technique to enhance the nutritional value of staple food crops. This Perspective argues that both the micronutrients and the types of crop biofortified need to expand under rapid dietary change and proposes strategies to integrate biofortification into the global food system.

Protein production and consumption changes are needed to support healthy and sustainable food transformations. This systematic review explores narratives, gaps in the literature and paths forwards by focusing on the protein shift as a transition process in high-income countries.

Effective solutions for food systems transformation must be designed in a participatory way. This study illustrates the application of an integrated assessment framework to explore stakeholder-driven scenarios towards climate-smart nutrition security in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

While nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycles have been investigated separately, the links between them are key for sustainable food systems. Combining material flow and ecological network analysis, this study examines the resilience of China’s N–P-coupled cycling network over time under different scenarios.

Optimizing agricultural management practices has the potential to support sustainable agricultural intensification. This study presents a hybrid data-model integration approach that enables spatiotemporal optimization of agricultural management practices to maximize crop yield while reducing resource use and greenhouse gas emissions.

A natural pathway in rice and in seven other major crop species degrades 57–89% of accumulated methylmercury and releases Hg into the air. The MeHg demethylation within rice mitigates Hg flux into human food webs, diminishing human cognitive damage and generating global economic benefits of US$30.7–84.2 billion.

A trans-disciplinary framework shows how collaborative engagement and multi-phase development pathways can aid scaling up urban agriculture to transform food systems and support robust urban resilience and sustainability.