This commentary provides perspectives on advances over the last decade and future directions for research. Over the last 10 years, research on the topic of food consumption patterns and environmental impacts has progressed in various ways: it now not only looks at a range of...
Urbanisation is altering food systems, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. These changes can affect rural livelihoods in positive and negative ways. In this article, the authors present scientific evidence on the enabling conditions that shape these impacts
Food is a basic necessity of life. Our food production does have a downside for the physical environment, such as biodiversity loss and climate change. By putting consumers and supply chains at the centre of food policy, new opportunities are emerging for making our daily...
Urbanisation is a major driver of societal, environmental and economic change in both West and East Africa, affecting all aspects of food systems. This policy report provides insights into the current and projected dynamics of urbanisation and food systems in West and East...
The use of composite indicators has grown vastly over the past three decades. These indicators, which combine different data sources, can help to understand risks over time and compare between countries. Users of these indicators should, however, realise that the reliability...
Global economic models have been increasingly used to project food and agricultural developments for long term-time horizons, but food security aspects have often been limited to food availability projections. In this paper, we propose a broader framework to explore the...
To guide policymaking, decision makers require a good understanding of the long-term drivers of food security and their interactions. Scenario analysis is widely considered as the appropriate tool to assess ‘wicked problems’, such as ensuring global food security, that are...
The assessment of land degradation and restoration by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services shows that land degradation across the globe is a wide and severe issue and is showing no signs of slowing down. The authors offer 10...
The global food system is a major energy user and a relevant contributor to climate change. To date, the literature on the energy profile of food systems addresses individual countries and/or food products, and therefore a comparable assessment across regions is still...
Land-use change is a direct driver of biodiversity and carbon storage loss. Projections of future land use often include notable expansion of cropland areas in response to changes in climate and food demand, although there are large uncertainties in results between models and...
