News & Comment

Nutrition education and food assistance programmes have the potential to reduce the societal burdens that disproportionately impact those living in low-resource contexts. Here, we call for a standardized evaluation framework, measures and procedures for assessing nutrition education programmes in the USA as critical for achieving nutrition security and population health while lowering the national burden of escalating healthcare costs.

Despite growing recognition of how food environments shape our eating behaviour, existing policy interventions to change them remain insufficient. Approaches focused on the food supply itself, driven by grassroots social change rather than solely top-down policy, are particularly important to improve diet quality.

Reduced access to healthy diets, combined with the pervasiveness of ultra-processed foods, pose severe consequences for public health and the environment. Francesco Branca, former director of the World Health Organization’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety and invited professor of public health at the University of Geneva, reflects on our current food environment and the need to steer it towards people’s nutritional needs rather than market interests.

This month, Nature Food presents a Focus issue on the recent evolution of food environments, their influence on individual food choices and efforts to reduce their impact on public health.

‘Food is Medicine’ has been increasingly accepted in the US healthcare system. Developing and implementing such programmes globally could advance mental health, improve providers’ experiences and stimulate positive change in the food and agricultural sectors.

Situating digital agriculture within recent histories of uneven agrarian development reveals its potential to perpetuate injustice. To avoid this outcome, we argue for innovation processes that centre the needs, knowledge and priorities of communities who work the land.

The food industry has created ultra-processed food-like products that disrupt nature’s biological matrix and exploit our innate preferences for sugar, salt and fat — with the goal of encouraging overconsumption and maximizing profit. Increases in obesity, other nutrition-related non-communicable diseases and environmental harms have occurred as a result. Only major political commitments and the adoption of healthy food policies will curb ultra-processed food’s negative impact on global planetary and human health.

Global food systems are dominated by large corporations that are primarily driven by the goal of maximizing profits and shareholder value. Strengthening corporate accountability to promote health, equity and environmental sustainability is a critical part of recalibrating current corporatized food systems.

Public institutions, as essential providers of meals to diverse communities, have a responsibility to support sustainable and equitable food systems through strategic procurement policies. By adopting robust sustainability criteria and supporting rural economies, they can strengthen food system resilience. By also ensuring nutritious food is accessible, public-sector catering plays a key role in the transition to a resilient, equitable food future.

The classic genetics × environment × management framework, used for assessing crop yield, can be extended to include four enabling factors for yield intensification (knowledge, availability of critical goods and services, experience, and capability). The resulting framework, ‘GEM4’, enables managers and advisors to identify farm-level constraints to yield intensification. The framework may be a useful tool for research and development initiatives at local or global levels supporting crop yield intensification.

The increasing polarization of food systems debates hampers transformation towards sustainability. Making knowledge actionable and action knowledgeable is key for our society to move forward, says Patrick Caron.

The journal’s anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on food systems research and to celebrate our contribution to it.

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.