Global nutrition. Metrics for land-scarce agriculture

Pollinator-dependent crops significantly contribute to diets and reduce household nutrient deficiencies in sub-Saharan Africa

Recent literature highlights the potential of animal pollinator-dependent (PD) crops in enhancing food and nutrition security, although there is a lack of detailed household-level estimates. In this study, we investigate the nutrient composition, productivity, and contribution of PD and pollinator-independent (PI) crops to household nutrition in four sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. We also evaluate the impact of reallocating resources from PI crops to PD crops on nutrient deficiencies, utilizing nationally representative panel data from three waves and over 30,000 household-year observations. Our findings reveal that PD crops exhibit higher micronutrient content per unit, albeit with lower macronutrient content compared to PI crops. PI crops have higher yield of calories per hectare while PD crops have higher vitamin A yield per hectare. However, protein and iron yield for PD and PI crops varies across countries. PI crops predominantly contribute to macronutrients and iron, while PD crops significantly contribute to vitamin A production. Our econometric results demonstrate that increasing the cultivation of PD crops relative to PI crops reduces the prevalence of nutrient deficiencies and increases crop income without compromising macronutrients production. This suggests that greater investment in PD crop production can be an integral approach to achieving nutrition security in SSA.

Designing nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) interventions with multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA): a review

Despite the efforts to end malnutrition through intensive agriculture of caloric crops, micronutrient deficiencies and other forms of malnutrition persist in vulnerable communities worldwide. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) interventions are recognized as chances to address the causes of malnutrition. In this work, the different types of NSA interventions were explored, as well as the pathways through which they can improve nutrition (e.g., increasing biofortified crops and income generation via agricultural sales for a positive impact on access to nutritious foods, and simultaneously involving nutrition education to improve care practices and eventually nutritional status). Some NSA interventions focus on one pathway. Well-designed interventions, however, should follow multi-pathway approaches targeting the underlying causes of undernutrition within the selected population. The circumstances in which certain indicators should be used to measure the impact of an NSA intervention in each stage of the full pathway were also explained, as well as the need of enhancing the design of such interventions. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been employed to solve agriculture-related issues, but it has not been used to identify the optimal types of NSA interventions, metrics, and indicators based on the context of the community, priorities and objectives of the project managers and designers, etc.

Reduced tillage and crop diversification can improve productivity and profitability of rice-based rotations of the Eastern Gangetic Plains

Intensive rice (Oryza sativa)-based cropping systems in south Asia provide much of the calorie and protein requirements of low to middle-income rural and urban populations. Intensive tillage practices demand more resources, damage soil quality, and reduce crop yields and profit margins. Crop diversification along with conservation agriculture (CA)-based management practices may reduce external input use, improve resource-use efficiency, and increase the productivity and profitability of intensive cropping systems. A field study was conducted on loamy soil in a sub-tropical climate in northern Bangladesh to evaluate the effects of three tillage options and six rice-based cropping sequences on grain, calorie, and protein yields and gross margins (GM) for different crops and cropping sequences. The three tillage options were: (1) conservation agriculture (CA) with all crops in sequences untilled, (2) alternating tillage (AT) with the monsoon season rice crop tilled but winter season crops untilled, and (3) conventional tillage (CT) with all crops in sequences tilled. The six cropping sequences were: rice-rice (R-R), rice-mung bean (Vigna radiata) (R-MB), rice-wheat (Triticum aestivum) (R-W), rice-maize (Zea mays) (R-M), rice-wheat-mung bean (R-W-MB), and rice-maize-mung bean (R-M-MB). Over three years of experimentation, the average monsoon rice yield was 8% lower for CA than CT, but the average winter crops yield was 13% higher for CA than CT. Systems rice equivalent yield (SREY) and systems calorie and protein yields were about 5%, 3% and 6%, respectively, higher under CA than CT; additionally, AT added approximately 1% more to these benefits. The systems productivity gain under CA and AT resulted in higher GM by 16% while reducing the labor and total production cost under CA than CT. The R-M rotation had higher SREY, calorie, protein yields, and GM by 24%, 26%, 66%, and 148%, respectively, than the predominantly practiced R-R rotation. The R-W-MB rotation had the highest SREY (30%) and second highest (118%) GM. Considering the combined effect of tillage and cropping system, CA with R-M rotation showed superior performance in terms of SREY, protein yield, and GM. The distribution of labor use and GM across rotations was grouped into four categories: R-W in low-low (low labor use and low GM), R-M in low-high (low labor use and high GM), R-W-MB and R-M-MB in high-high (high labor use and high GM) and R-R and R-MB in high-low (high labor use and low GM). In conclusion, CA performed better than CT in different winter crops and cropping systems but not in monsoon rice. Our results demonstrate the multiple benefits of partial and full CA-based tillage practices employed with appropriate crop diversification to achieve sustainable food security with greater calorie and protein intake while maximizing farm profitability of intensive rice-based rotational systems.

Spatial Distribution and Temporal Trends of Dietary Niacin Intake in Chinese Residents ≥ 5 Years of Age between 1991 and 2018

Limited knowledge exists on trends in niacin consumption and the prevalence of inadequate intakes in China. Understanding trends and the spatial distribution of the prevalence of inadequate niacin intake is crucial to identifying high-risk areas and sub-populations. The dietary intakes of niacin between 1991 and 2018 were analyzed using the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) data. The estimated average requirement cut point was applied to estimate inadequacy. The geographic information system's ordinary kriging method was used to estimate the spatial distribution of the prevalence of inadequate niacin intakes. However, between 1991 and 2018, the prevalence of inadequate niacin intake increased from 13.00% to 28.40% in females and from 17.75% to 29.46% in males. Additionally, the geographically significant clusters of high and low prevalence were identified and remained stable over almost three decades. The high prevalence of insufficient niacin intake was more pronounced in Henan and Shandong over 27 years. Further, effective and tailored nutrition interventions are required to address inadequate niacin intake in China.

Climate-friendly and nutrition-sensitive interventions can close the global dietary nutrient gap while reducing GHG emissions

Sustainable food systems require malnutrition and climate change to be addressed in parallel. Here, we estimate the non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions resulting from closing the world's dietary nutrient gap-that between country-level nutrient supply and population requirements-for energy, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and folate under five climate-friendly intervention scenarios in 2030. We show that improving crop and livestock productivity and halving food loss and waste can close the nutrient gap with up to 42% lower emissions (3.03 Gt CO2eq yr-1) compared with business-as-usual supply patterns with a persistent nutrient gap (5.48 Gt CO2eq yr-1). Increased production and trade of vegetables, eggs, and roots and tubers can close the nutrient gap with the lowest emissions in most countries-with ≤23% increase in total caloric production required for 2030 relative to 2015. We conclude that the world's nutrient gap could be closed without exceeding global climate targets and without drastic changes to national food baskets.

B3 Transcription Factors Determine Iron Distribution and FERRITIN Gene Expression in Embryo but Do Not Control Total Seed Iron Content

Iron is an essential micronutrient for humans and other organisms. Its deficiency is one of the leading causes of anemia worldwide. The world health organization has proposed that an alternative to increasing iron content in food is through crop biofortification. One of the most consumed part of crops is the seed, however, little is known about how iron accumulation in seed occurs and how it is regulated. B3 transcription factors play a critical role in the accumulation of storage compounds such as proteins and lipids. Their role in seed maturation has been well characterized. However, their relevance in accumulation and distribution of micronutrients like iron remains unknown. In Arabidopsis thaliana and other plant models, three master regulators belonging to the B3 transcription factors family have been identified: FUSCA3 (FUS3), LEAFY COTYLEDON2 (LEC2), and ABSCISIC ACID INSENSITIVE 3 (ABI3). In this work, we studied how seed iron homeostasis is affected in B3 transcription factors mutants using histological and molecular approaches. We determined that iron distribution is modified in abi3, lec2, and fus3 embryo mutants. For abi3-6 and fus3-3 mutant embryos, iron was less accumulated in vacuoles of cells surrounding provasculature compared with wild type embryos. lec2-1 embryos showed no difference in the pattern of iron distribution in hypocotyl, but a dramatic decrease of iron was observed in cotyledons. Interestingly, for the three mutant genotypes, total iron content in dry mutant seeds showed no difference compared to wild type. At the molecular level, we showed that genes encoding the iron storage ferritins proteins are misregulated in mutant seeds. Altogether our results support a role of the B3 transcription factors ABI3, LEC2, and FUS3 in maintaining iron homeostasis in Arabidopsis embryos.

Recent Advances in Agronomic and Physio-Molecular Approaches for Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Crop Plants

The efficiency with which plants use nutrients to create biomass and/or grain is determined by the interaction of environmental and plant intrinsic factors. The major macronutrients, especially nitrogen (N), limit plant growth and development (1.5-2% of dry biomass) and have a direct impact on global food supply, fertilizer demand, and concern with environmental health. In the present time, the global consumption of N fertilizer is nearly 120 MT (million tons), and the N efficiency ranges from 25 to 50% of applied N. The dynamic range of ideal internal N concentrations is extremely large, necessitating stringent management to ensure that its requirements are met across various categories of developmental and environmental situations. Furthermore, approximately 60 percent of arable land is mineral deficient and/or mineral toxic around the world. The use of chemical fertilizers adds to the cost of production for the farmers and also increases environmental pollution. Therefore, the present study focused on the advancement in fertilizer approaches, comprising the use of biochar, zeolite, and customized nano and bio-fertilizers which had shown to be effective in improving nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) with lower soil degradation. Consequently, adopting precision farming, crop modeling, and the use of remote sensing technologies such as chlorophyll meters, leaf color charts, etc. assist in reducing the application of N fertilizer. This study also discussed the role of crucial plant attributes such as root structure architecture in improving the uptake and transport of N efficiency. The crosstalk of N with other soil nutrients plays a crucial role in nutrient homeostasis, which is also discussed thoroughly in this analysis. At the end, this review highlights the more efficient and accurate molecular strategies and techniques such as N transporters, transgenes, and omics, which are opening up intriguing possibilities for the detailed investigation of the molecular components that contribute to nitrogen utilization efficiency, thus expanding our knowledge of plant nutrition for future global food security.

What is the Modern Human Eating? Dietary Transition of the Age-Old to the Modern Man of India

Objectives: The objective of this review is to examine the changes in food consumption pattern of Indians over the years and to recommend evidence-based policy making regarding all the factors affecting food consumption. Methods: We have reviewed the articles from major databases such as PubMed and Google Scholar. The keywords used for the search included dietary pattern, dietary trend, dietary intake, food system, nutrition system, prehistoric food systems, drought, famine, whole grains, diets, prices, income, environment, urban food consumption, processed foods, food security, food preferences, demographic transition, fat intake, food production, public distribution system, food consumption pattern, Indian agriculture, and India. Results: There is no facilitating environment for the production and cultivation of healthy and sustainable food. Conclusion: Policymakers should make major amendments to food and agricultural policies, and demotivate the consumption of junk food.

A sustainable phosphorus management in agriculture: Assessing trade-offs between human health risks and nutritional yield regarding heavy metals in maize grain

High-quality products in sustainable agriculture require both limited health risks and sufficient dietary nutrients. Phosphorus (P) as a finite and non-renewable resource is widely used in agriculture, usually exerting influence on the accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) in soil and crops. The present research explores, for the first time, the combined effects of long-term P fertilizer and repeated zinc (Zn) application in field on the human health risks and nutritional yield regarding trace elements in maize grain. A field experiment was conducted using maize with six P application rates (0, 12.5, 25, 50, 100, and 200 kg P ha^-1) and two Zn application rates (0 and 11.4 kg Zn ha^-1). The results showed that the concentrations of Zn, copper (Cu), and lead (Pb) in the maize grain were significantly affected by P application and can be further affected by Zn application. The concentrations of chromium (Cr) and arsenic (As) showed opposite tendency as affected by P fertilizer rates while did not affected by additional Zn application. Zn application decreased the cadmium (Cd) concentration at high P levels and Pb concentration at low P levels, particularly. No HMs contamination or direct health risk was found in maize grain after receiving long-term P and repeated Zn fertilizer. The threshold hazard quotient of an individual and all investigated HMs in this study were acceptable for human digestion of maize grain. While the carcinogenic risk of Cr was non-negligible in case of maize was taken as one of daily staple food for local residents. Combination use of P (25 kg ha^-1) and Zn fertilizer on maize enhanced its nutritional supply ability regarding Zn and Cu, and simultaneously mitigated potential human health risks associated with Cd and Pb.

Closing Research Investment Gaps for a Global Food Transformation

Recent calls for a global food transformation have centered on simultaneously improving human and environmental health, recognizing that food and nutrient diversity have declined over time while food systems have exacted a heavy climate and ecological toll. Grain legumes and coarse grain crops provide important human nutrition and environmental benefits, but the production and consumption of many of these crops remains relatively low compared to major commodities, such as maize, wheat, rice, and soy. Outstanding hurdles to scaling up these “minor commodity” crops include (among other things) their relatively lower yields, and lower farmer adoption, based partly on actual or perceived profitability and marketability. We hypothesize that these limitations are attributable in part to unequal funding for these crops' research and development (R&D) both on a national and global scale. In the United States, we show that investment patterns for a snapshot of USDA-funded research grants from 2008 to 2019 consistently favor major commodity crops, which received 3 to 4.5 times more funding and 3 to 5 times as many grants than the minor commodity crop groups. This current USDA funding allocation poses a barrier to food system transformations. Achieving nutritious diets for planetary health requires more public agricultural investment toward minor commodity crops and increased collaboration between public health, nutrition, agriculture, and environmental sectors.

Nutrient Adequacy of Global Food Production

A major challenge for countries around the world is to provide a nutritionally adequate diet to their population with limited available resources. A comprehensive analysis that reflects the adequacy of domestic food production for meeting national nutritional needs in different countries is lacking. Here we combined national crop, livestock, aquaculture, and fishery production statistics for 191 countries obtained from UN FAO with food composition databases from USDA and accounted for food loss and waste occurring at various stages to calculate the amounts of calories and 24 essential nutrients destined for human consumption. We then compared the domestic production quantities of all nutrients with their population-level requirements estimated from age- and sex-specific intake recommendations of WHO to assess the nutrient adequacy of the national food production. Our results show inadequate production of seven out of 24 nutrients (choline, calcium, polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin E, folate, and iron) in most countries, despite the overall adequacy of the total global production. High-income countries produce adequate amounts of dietary nutrients in general, while the foods produced in low-income countries mainly comprising roots and cereal products often lack in important micronutrients such as choline, calcium, and vitamin B12. South Asian food production barely fulfills half of the required vitamin A. Our study identifies target nutrients for each country whose domestic production should be encouraged for improving nutritional adequacy through interventions such as increasing the production of foods or fortified foods that are rich in these inadequate nutrients while not undermining the local environment. This assessment can serve as an evidence base for nutrition-sensitive policies facilitating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of zero hunger and good health and well-being.

Global relationships between crop diversity and nutritional stability

Nutritional stability – a food system’s capacity to provide sufficient nutrients despite disturbance – is an important, yet challenging to measure outcome of diversified agriculture. Using 55 years of data across 184 countries, we assemble 22,000 bipartite crop-nutrient networks to quantify nutritional stability by simulating crop and nutrient loss in a country, and assess its relationship to crop diversity across regions, over time and between imports versus in country production. We find a positive, saturating relationship between crop diversity and nutritional stability across countries, but also show that over time nutritional stability remained stagnant or decreased in all regions except Asia. These results are attributable to diminishing returns on crop diversity, with recent gains in crop diversity among crops with fewer nutrients, or with nutrients already in a country’s food system. Finally, imports are positively associated with crop diversity and nutritional stability, indicating that many countries’ nutritional stability is market exposed.

Crop diversification could be important for food security. Here, using methods from network science, the authors find that a positive relationship between crop diversity and nutritional stability globally does not necessarily equate to improving nutritional stability in a given country.

2000 years of agriculture in the Atacama desert lead to changes in the distribution and concentration of iron in maize

We performed a histological and quantitative study of iron in archaeological maize seeds from prehispanic times recovered from Tarapacá, Atacama Desert. Also, we examined iron distribution changes at the cell level in embryos from ancient versus new varieties of maize. Our results show a progressive decrease in iron concentration from the oldest maize to modern specimens. We interpret the results as an effect of prehispanic agriculture over the micronutrient composition of maize.

Life cycle assessment of a long-term multifunctional winter wheat-summer maize rotation system on the North China Plain under sustainable P management

In sustainable agriculture, sufficient crop yields and nutrients must be produced while maintaining environmental protection. Considering the role of phosphorus (P) fertilizer in influencing crops yield and environmental security, life cycle assessment was used to examine the environmental impacts of long-term P application on the grain yield and nutritional quality of winter wheat and summer maize. Thus, a long-term field experiment with six P application rates for winter wheat (0, 25, 50, 100, 200, and 400 kg P ha^-1) and summer maize (0, 12.5, 25, 50, 100, and 200 kg P ha^-1) was conducted on the North China Plain (NCP). The results showed that the cradle-to-farm gate eutrophication potential (EP), energy depletion (ED), and P depletion (PD) were significantly affected by the P application rate applied in winter wheat and summer maize production. The critical P rate required to ensure food security for wheat and maize was in line with the optimal rate for sustainable environmental development in terms of grain production and nutrient levels. On the NCP, the ED and PD of summer maize with optimized P management over 10 years were less than those of winter wheat regardless of using yield or nutrient level as the functional unit. However, the EP of the nutrient supply in winter wheat was less than that in summer maize under optimized P fertilization. The specific nutritional components that limited improvements in environment of wheat and maize production under the optimal P rate were energy (calories) and protein, respectively. In conclusion, in a multifunctional winter wheat-summer maize rotation system, optimized P fertilization (50 kg ha^-1 for winter wheat and 25 kg ha^-1 for summer maize) combined with the planting of high-yield wheat varieties and high-protein maize varieties showed great potential to reduce the environmental impacts of wheat and maize production.

Diving Deep into the Data: A Review of Deep Learning Approaches and Potential Applications in Foodomics

Deep learning is a trending field in bioinformatics; so far, mostly known for image processing and speech recognition, but it also shows promising possibilities for data processing in food analysis, especially, foodomics. Thus, more and more deep learning approaches are used. This review presents an introduction into deep learning in the context of metabolomics and proteomics, focusing on the prediction of shelf-life, food authenticity, and food quality. Apart from the direct food-related applications, this review summarizes deep learning for peptide sequencing and its context to food analysis. The review’s focus further lays on MS (mass spectrometry)-based approaches. As a result of the constant development and improvement of analytical devices, as well as more complex holistic research questions, especially with the diverse and complex matrix food, there is a need for more effective methods for data processing. Deep learning might offer meeting this need and gives prospect to deal with the vast amount and complexity of data.

Aquatic biodiversity enhances multiple nutritional benefits to humans

Humanity depends on biodiversity for health, well-being, and a stable environment. As biodiversity change accelerates, we are still discovering the full range of consequences for human health and well-being. Here, we test the hypothesis-derived from biodiversity-ecosystem functioning theory-that species richness and ecological functional diversity allow seafood diets to fulfill multiple nutritional requirements, a condition necessary for human health. We analyzed a newly synthesized dataset of 7,245 observations of nutrient and contaminant concentrations in 801 aquatic animal taxa and found that species with different ecological traits have distinct and complementary micronutrient profiles but little difference in protein content. The same complementarity mechanisms that generate positive biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning in terrestrial ecosystems also operate in seafood assemblages, allowing more diverse diets to yield increased nutritional benefits independent of total biomass consumed. Notably, nutritional metrics that capture multiple micronutrients and fatty acids essential for human well-being depend more strongly on biodiversity than common ecological measures of function such as productivity, typically reported for grasslands and forests. Furthermore, we found that increasing species richness did not increase the amount of protein in seafood diets and also increased concentrations of toxic metal contaminants in the diet. Seafood-derived micronutrients and fatty acids are important for human health and are a pillar of global food and nutrition security. By drawing upon biodiversity-ecosystem functioning theory, we demonstrate that ecological concepts of biodiversity can deepen our understanding of nature's benefits to people and unite sustainability goals for biodiversity and human well-being.

Substitution of inland fisheries with aquaculture and chicken undermines human nutrition in the Peruvian Amazon

With declining capture fisheries production, maintaining nutrient supplies largely hinges on substituting wild fish with economically comparable farmed animals. Although such transitions are increasingly commonplace across global inland and coastal communities, their nutritional consequences are unknown. Here, using human demographic and health information, and fish nutrient composition data from the Peruvian Amazon, we show that substituting wild inland fisheries with chicken and aquaculture has the potential to exacerbate iron deficiencies and limit essential fatty acid supplies in a region already experiencing high prevalence of anaemia and malnutrition. Substituting wild fish with chicken, however, can increase zinc and protein supplies. Chicken and aquaculture production also increase greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural land use and eutrophication. Thus, policies that enable access to wild fisheries and their sustainable management while improving the quality, diversity and environmental impacts of farmed species will be instrumental in ensuring healthy and sustainable food systems.

The importance of the traditional milpa in food security and nutritional self-sufficiency in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico

Around 30% of global food is produced by smallholder farmers, yet they constitute the most food-insecure group. In Mexico, food self-sufficiency is declining. Rural policies in the country have stimulated the production of cash crops to the detriment of the traditional intercropping system, the milpa. Such a decline may have negative consequences for the food security of subsistence farmers. This study aimed to assess changes in nutritional self-sufficiency over the last 30 years and the role of milpa systems in food security for two communities in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. The study used satellite images, censuses, and field data to estimate food production. Three cropping systems, monoculture of maize, monoculture of common bean, and the milpa were compared in terms of nutrients and vitamins produced. Furthermore, a household typology was developed for each community to contrast nutritional self-sufficiency levels between the different household types. Results showed that the milpa produced more volume of food per area compared to the other systems. The milpa also produced all the nutrients and vitamins (except for B12) required to feed at least 2 persons ha^-1. Monocultures of maize lacked vitamins A, B9, B12, and C, and the common bean lacked vitamins A, B12, and C. While farmers recognized the importance of the milpa, they preferred monocultures due to the reduced labor demands of this system. Households that obtained most of their income from off-farm activities had the lowest nutritional self-sufficiency. Enhancing nutritional self-sufficiency through crop diversification has the potential to not only improve the nutrition of subsistence farmers, but also to enhance ecosystem service provision, promote biodiversity conservation and restoration, and improve resilience to climate change.

Locally Adapted and Organically Grown Landrace and Ancient Spring Cereals-A Unique Source of Minerals in the Human Diet

Consumer interest in local and organic produce, sustainability along the production chain and food products contributing to health, are laying the foundation for local and organic-based diets using nutrient-dense food. Here, we evaluated 25 locally adapted landrace and ancient spring cereal genotypes per location over four locations and three years, for mineral content, nutritional yield and nutrient density. The results showed a large variation in minerals content and composition in the genotypes, but also over cultivation locations, cultivation years and for genotype groups. Highest minerals content was found in oats, while highest content of Zn and Fe was found in ancient wheats. The wheat Diamant brun, the wheat landrace Öland and naked barley showed high mineral values and high content of Zn and Fe when grown in Alnarp. Nutritional yield, of the cereals evaluated here, was high related to values reported internationally but lower than those found in a comparable winter wheat material. The nutrient density was generally high; less than 350 g was needed if any of the evaluated genotype groups were to be used in the daily diet to reach the recommended value of Zn and Fe, while if the suggested Novel Nordic Diet mix was used, only 250 g were needed. A transfer from currently consumed cereals to those in the present study, along the New Nordic Diet path, showed their potential to contribute as sustainable and nutrient-rich sources in the human diet.

Dissection of Molecular Processes and Genetic Architecture Underlying Iron and Zinc Homeostasis for Biofortification: From Model Plants to Common Wheat

The micronutrients iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) are not only essential for plant survival and proliferation but are crucial for human health. Increasing Fe and Zn levels in edible parts of plants, known as biofortification, is seen a sustainable approach to alleviate micronutrient deficiency in humans. Wheat, as one of the leading staple foods worldwide, is recognized as a prioritized choice for Fe and Zn biofortification. However, to date, limited molecular and physiological mechanisms have been elucidated for Fe and Zn homeostasis in wheat. The expanding molecular understanding of Fe and Zn homeostasis in model plants is providing invaluable resources to biofortify wheat. Recent advancements in NGS (next generation sequencing) technologies coupled with improved wheat genome assembly and high-throughput genotyping platforms have initiated a revolution in resources and approaches for wheat genetic investigations and breeding. Here, we summarize molecular processes and genes involved in Fe and Zn homeostasis in the model plants Arabidopsis and rice, identify their orthologs in the wheat genome, and relate them to known wheat Fe/Zn QTL (quantitative trait locus/loci) based on physical positions. The current study provides the first inventory of the genes regulating grain Fe and Zn homeostasis in wheat, which will benefit gene discovery and breeding, and thereby accelerate the release of Fe- and Zn-enriched wheats.

Health Impacts of the Green Revolution: Evidence from 600,000 births across the Developing World

What is the contribution of the 'Green Revolution' to improvements in child health during the 20th century? We provide global scale estimates of this relationship by constructing a novel, spatially-precise indicator of modern crop variety (MV) diffusion and leveraging child-level data from over 600,000 children across 21,604 sampling locations in 37 developing countries between 1961-2000. Results indicate that the diffusion of MVs reduced infant mortality by 2.4-5.3 percentage points (from a baseline of 18%), with stronger effects for male infants and among poor households. The sizable contribution of agricultural technology to improved welfare should inform global food and development policy.

Biodiversity in Tomatoes: Is It Reflected in Nutrient Density and Nutritional Yields Under Organic Outdoor Production?

In many regions of the world, human nutrition is still characterized by an insufficient intake of essential nutrients like minerals such as iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn). In view of decreasing resources and a growing world population, the efficiency and the sustainability of cultivation systems should be considered not only in terms of crop yield and profit margin but also in terms of the yield of essential nutrients. Tomatoes are the most consumed vegetable in the world. Organic outdoor tomato cultivation is generally characterized by a higher diversity of varieties and lower fertilization input compared to conventional production. A 2-year field experiment with a set of 20 cultivars was performed to evaluate their variation regarding fruit mineral concentrations [potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), phosphorous (P), Fe, and Zn], their contribution to the dietary reference intake (DRI), and the nutritional yields (adults ha^-1 year^-1). Results show that mineral concentrations differed significantly by cultivar and by year. However, even though significant genotype-by-year effects appear, several cultivars exhibit high genotype stability across years for the single traits studied. Taking this together with medium-to-high heritability, genetics strongly controls most studied traits. Among the cultivars, the contribution of 100 g fresh fruits varied from 4.5 to 7.7% for K, 0.8 to 1.8% for Ca, 2.3 to 4.4% for Mg, 3 to 6.6% for P, 3.1 to 6.9% for Fe, and 1.9 to 4.2% for Zn to meet daily requirements. Based on average fruit yields per hectare, the cultivars varied with regard to the nutritional yields for all the studied minerals, but most strongly for Fe (44-120 adults ha^-1 year^-1) and Zn (22-84 adults ha^-1 year^-1). In terms of contribution to the DRI and nutritional yield for Fe, the cocktail cultivar "Bartelly F1" produced the highest results, while for Zn the salad cultivar "Bocati F1" showed the highest values. Our results show that the targeted use of tomato biodiversity in organic outdoor production can be suitable to achieve high fruit yields as well as to produce high nutritional yields per unit area, thus contributing to more effective land use and improved food security. These findings also provide valuable insights for tomato breeders to improve the tomato fruit quality while maintaining yield.

Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Zinc and Iron Accumulation during Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) Grain Development

Breeding and engineering of biofortified crops will benefit from a better understanding of bottlenecks controlling micronutrient loading within the seeds. However, few studies have addressed the changes in micronutrient concentrations, localization, and speciation occurring over time. Therefore, we studied spatial patterns of zinc and iron accumulation during grain development in two barley lines with contrasting grain zinc concentrations. Microparticle-induced-X-ray emission and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry were used to determine tissue-specific accumulation of zinc, iron, phosphorus, and sulfur. Differences in zinc accumulation between the lines were most evident in the endosperm and aleurone. A gradual decrease in zinc concentrations from the aleurone to the underlying endosperm was observed, while iron and phosphorus concentrations decreased sharply. Iron co-localized with phosphorus in the aleurone, whereas zinc co-localized with sulfur in the sub-aleurone. We hypothesize that differences in grain zinc are largely explained by the endosperm storage capacity. Engineering attempts should be targeted accordingly.

Identifying key drivers for geospatial variation of grain micronutrient concentrations in major maize production regions of China

Micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent health problems worldwide. The maintenance of adequate concentrations of micronutrients in maize grain is crucial for human health. We investigated the overall status and geospatial variation of micronutrients in Chinese maize grains and identified their key drivers. A field survey was conducted in four major maize production areas of China in 2017 with 980 pairs of soil and grain samples collected from famers' fields. At a national scale, grain zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) and copper (Cu) concentrations varied substantially, with average values of 17.4, 17.3, 4.9, and 1.5 mg kg^-1, respectively, suggesting a solid gap between grain Zn and Fe concentrations and the biofortification target values. Significant regional difference in the concentrations of Zn, Mn and Cu, but not Fe, were observed in grain, with much higher levels in Southwest China. The nutritional yields of Zn, Fe and Cu were lower than the energy and Mn yields, indicating an unbalanced output between energy and micronutrients in current maize production system. Grain Zn, Fe, Mn and Cu correlated negatively with maize yield in most test regions. Increased nitrogen (N) rate positively affected grain Zn and Cu, while increased phosphorus (P) rate negatively affects grain Zn and Fe. Apart from Fe, available Zn, Mn and Cu in soil exerted significant positive effects on grain Zn, Mn and Cu concentrations, respectively. Decrease in soil pH and increase in the organic matter content may increase the accumulation of Fe and Mn in grain. Grain Zn and Cu concentrations increased as available soil P decreased. Of the factors considered in this study, grain yield, N and P rates, soil pH and organic matter were the main factors that affect grain micronutrient status and should be more extensively considered in the production and nutritional quality of maize grain.

Increased greenhouse gas emissions intensity of major croplands in China: Implications for food security and climate change mitigation

Balancing crop production and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture soil requires a better understanding and quantification of crop GHG emissions intensity, a measure of GHG emissions per unit crop production. Here we conduct a state-of-the-art estimate of the spatial-temporal variability of GHG emissions intensities for wheat, maize, and rice in China from 1949 to 2012 using an improved agricultural ecosystem model (Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model-Agriculture Version 2.0) and meta-analysis covering 172 field-GHG emissions experiments. The results show that the GHG emissions intensities of these croplands from 1949 to 2012, on average, were 0.10-1.31 kg CO₂ -eq/kg, with a significant increase rate of 1.84-3.58 × 10^-3  kg CO₂ -eq kg^-1  year^-1 . Nitrogen fertilizer was the dominant factor contributing to the increase in GHG emissions intensity in northern China and increased its impact in southern China in the 2000s. Increasing GHG emissions intensity implies that excessive fertilizer failed to markedly stimulate crop yield increase in China but still exacerbated soil GHG emissions. This study found that overfertilization of more than 60% was mainly located in the winter wheat-summer maize rotation systems in the North China Plain, the winter wheat-rice rotation systems in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and southwest China, and most of the double rice systems in the South. Our simulations suggest that roughly a one-third reduction in the current N fertilizer application level over these "overfertilization" regions would not significantly influence crop yield but decrease soil GHG emissions by 29.60%-32.50% and GHG emissions intensity by 0.13-0.25 kg CO₂ -eq/kg. This reduction is about 29% and 5% of total agricultural soil GHG emissions in China and the world, respectively. This study suggests that improving nitrogen use efficiency would be an effective strategy to mitigate GHG emissions and sustain China's food security.

The Land Sparing, Water Surface Use Efficiency, and Water Surface Transformation of Floating Photovoltaic Solar Energy Installations

Floating photovoltaic solar energy installations (FPVs) represent a new type of water surface use, potentially sparing land needed for agriculture and conservation. However, standardized metrics for the land sparing and resource use efficiencies of FPVs are absent. These metrics are critical to understanding the environmental and ecological impacts that FPVs may potentially exhibit. Here, we compared techno-hydrological and spatial attributes of four FPVs spanning different climatic regimes. Next, we defined and quantified the land sparing and water surface use efficiency (WSUE) of each FPV. Lastly, we coined and calculated the water surface transformation (WST) using generation data at the world’s first FPV (Far Niente Winery, California). The four FPVs spare 59,555 m2 of land and have a mean land sparing ratio of 2.7:1 m2 compared to ground-mounted PVs. Mean direct and total capacity-based WSUE is 94.5 ± 20.1 SD Wm−2 and 35.2 ± 27.4 SD Wm−2, respectively. Direct and total generation-based WST at Far Niente is 9.3 and 13.4 m2 MWh−1 yr−1, respectively; 2.3 times less area than ground-mounted utility-scale PVs. Our results reveal diverse techno-hydrological and spatial attributes of FPVs, the capacity of FPVs to spare land, and the utility of WSUE and WST metrics.

Shedding light on the evidence blind spots confounding the multiple objectives of SDG 2

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 consists of five targets ranging from the eradication of hunger and malnutrition to doubling productivity of small-scale farmers and ensuring sustainable and resilient food production systems. Trade-offs and synergies arise between strategies to achieve any one of these targets, which complicates the use of evidence to guide policies and investments since most analyses focus solely on one objective. This gives rise to 'blind spots' in the evidence base, where acting to achieve one objective can have strong impacts on achieving others, hampering attempts to establish a systematic approach to attaining the multiple objectives of SDG 2. Here, we focus on three key blind spots that arise from potential interactions between increasing agricultural productivity and enhancing the sustainability of food production systems, eradicating hunger and malnutrition, and increasing the resilience of food production systems to climate change. Incorporating the consideration of synergies and trade-offs into policy-making is also essential; however, there is relatively little evidence of this occurring in national policies to date.

Conceptual Links between Landscape Diversity and Diet Diversity: A Roadmap for Transdisciplinary Research

Malnutrition linked to poor quality diets affects at least 2 billion people. Forests, as well as agricultural systems linked to trees, are key sources of dietary diversity in rural settings. In the present article, we develop conceptual links between diet diversity and forested landscape mosaics within the rural tropics. First, we summarize the state of knowledge regarding diets obtained from forests, trees, and agroforests. We then hypothesize how disturbed secondary forests, edge habitats, forest access, and landscape diversity can function in bolstering dietary diversity. Taken together, these ideas help us build a framework illuminating four pathways (direct, agroecological, energy, and market pathways) connecting forested landscapes to diet diversity. Finally, we offer recommendations to fill remaining knowledge gaps related to diet and forest cover monitoring. We argue that better evaluation of the role of land cover complexity will help avoid overly simplistic views of food security and, instead, uncover nutritional synergies with forest conservation and restoration.

Transcriptional Regulation of Iron Distribution in Seeds: A Perspective

Several transcription factors have been involved in the regulation of gene expression during seed development. Nutritional reserves, including iron, are principally accumulated during seed maturation stages. Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, it has been shown that iron is stored during seed development in vacuoles of the endodermis cell layer. During seed germination, these iron reserves are remobilized and used by the seedling during the heterotrophic to autotrophic metabolism switch. To date, no information about how iron distribution is genetically regulated has been reported.

Grain Mineral Accumulation Changes in Chinese Maize Cultivars Released in Different Decades and the Responses to Nitrogen Fertilizer

Evaluating changes in the accumulation of grain minerals, including nitrogen (N), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), phosphorus (P), and zinc (Zn), across different genotypes can provide valuable information for the development of nutrient-enriched maize varieties. Meanwhile, N rates can affect maize yield and quality, but their effects on element accumulation remain to be elucidated. Here, field experiments were conducted at two locations in China over 2 years (2010 and 2011). Under a normal N application rate (240 kg N ha-1), 24 maize cultivars that had been bred and released between 1930 and 2010 were evaluated for the elemental concentrations in the grains. Cultivars Yedan 13 and Zhengdan 958, representing old- and new-era cultivars respectively, were selected to investigate grain element accumulation in response to different levels of N (0, 60, 120, 180, and 240 kg N ha-1). The results showed that element concentrations were significantly affected by year, genotype (G), N rates, and N × G interaction. Grain yield tended to increase with the year of cultivar released, while the concentrations of N, Cu, Mn, and Zn in the grain significantly declined in the new-era. The element concentrations of grains were mainly influenced by N rate or N × G interactions. As N levels increased, N, Cu, Fe, Mg, and Mn concentrations rose, while K, P, and Zn concentrations decreased. Compared with old-era cultivars, new-era cultivars showed an increase in grain yield of 25.39%; however, they demonstrated decreases in N, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, P, and Zn concentrations. In the new-era varieties, the reduction in Cu, Fe, K, and P concentrations were significantly exacerbated by high N rates, but this was not the case in the old-era varieties. The concentration of grain Cu, K, Mg, P, and Zn were higher under N-limited condition (N0), but grain yield was also lower. However, the optimal N rate (120-180 kg N ha-1) could increase N, Fe, Mg, and Mn concentrations without affecting grain yield in new-era varieties. It is concluded that maize breeding processes have improved grain yield, but reduced grain nutrient element concentrations. Enhanced concentrations of certain elements in maize grain could be achieved with optimal rates of N fertilizer being applied.

A model-based exploration of farm-household livelihood and nutrition indicators to guide nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions

Assessing progress towards healthier people, farms and landscapes through nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) requires transdisciplinary methods with robust models and metrics. Farm-household models could facilitate disentangling the complex agriculture-nutrition nexus, by jointly assessing performance indicators on different farm system components such as farm productivity, farm environmental performance, household nutrition, and livelihoods. We, therefore, applied a farm-household model, FarmDESIGN, expanded to more comprehensively capture household nutrition and production diversity, diet diversity, and nutrient adequacy metrics. We estimated the potential contribution of an NSA intervention targeting the diversification of home gardens, aimed at reducing nutritional gaps and improving livelihoods in rural Vietnam. We addressed three central questions: (1) Do ‘Selected Crops’ (i.e. crops identified in a participatory process) in the intervention contribute to satisfying household dietary requirements?; (2) Does the adoption of Selected Crops contribute to improving household livelihoods (i.e. does it increase leisure time for non-earning activities as well as the dispensable budget)?; and (3) Do the proposed nutrition-related metrics estimate the contribution of home-garden diversification towards satisfying household dietary requirements? Results indicate trade-offs between nutrition and dispensable budget, with limited farm-household configurations leading to jointly improved nutrition and livelihoods. FarmDESIGN facilitated testing the robustness and limitations of commonly used metrics to monitor progress towards NSA. Results indicate that most of the production diversity metrics performed poorly at predicting desirable nutritional outcomes in this modelling study. This study demonstrates that farm-household models can facilitate anticipating the effect (positive or negative) of agricultural interventions on nutrition and the environment, identifying complementary interventions for significant and positive results and helping to foresee the trade-offs that farm-households could face. Furthermore, FarmDESIGN could contribute to identifying agreed-upon and robust metrics for measuring nutritional outcomes at the farm-household level, to allow comparability between contexts and NSA interventions.

Assessing the sustainability of post-Green Revolution cereals in India

Substantial growth in food production has occurred from a narrowing diversity of crops over the last 50 y. Agricultural policies have largely focused on the single objective of maximizing production with less attention given to nutrition, climate, and environment. Decisions about sustainable food systems require quantifying and assessing multiple dimensions together. In India, diversifying crop production to include more coarse cereals, such as millets and sorghum, can make food supply more nutritious, reduce resource demand and greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance climate resilience without reducing calorie production or requiring more land. Similar multidimensional approaches to food production challenges in other parts of the world can identify win–win scenarios where food systems meet multiple nutritional, environmental, and climate resilience goals.

Sustainable food systems aim to provide sufficient and nutritious food, while maximizing climate resilience and minimizing resource demands as well as negative environmental impacts. Historical practices, notably the Green Revolution, prioritized the single objective to maximize production over other nutritional and environmental dimensions. We quantitatively assess outcomes of alternative production decisions across multiple objectives using India’s rice-dominated monsoon cereal production as an example. We perform a series of optimizations to maximize nutrient production (i.e., protein and iron), minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and resource use (i.e., water and energy), or maximize resilience to climate extremes. We find that increasing the area under coarse cereals (i.e., millets, sorghum) improves nutritional supply (on average, +1% to +5% protein and +5% to +49% iron), increases climate resilience (1% to 13% fewer calories lost during an extreme dry year), and reduces GHGs (−2% to −13%) and demand for irrigation water (−3% to −21%) and energy (−2% to −12%) while maintaining calorie production and cropped area. The extent of these benefits partly depends on the feasibility of switching cropped area from rice to coarse cereals. Based on current production practices in 2 states, supporting these cobenefits could require greater manure and draft power but similar or less labor, fertilizer, and machinery. National- and state-level strategies considering multiple objectives in decisions about cereal production can move beyond many shortcomings of the Green Revolution while reinforcing the benefits. This ability to realistically incorporate multiple dimensions into intervention planning and implementation is the crux of sustainable food production systems worldwide.

"More crop per drop": Exploring India's cereal water use since 2005

India has the highest national freshwater demand globally and 91% of India's freshwater is used in the agriculture sector. Cereals account for over 50% of the dietary water footprint in India and represent a potential opportunity for reducing water use in Indian agriculture. This study combines governmental production and irrigation statistics with crop distribution maps to examine trends in annual water use for cereal production in India between 2005 and 2014. A new online water assessment tool, Cool Farm Tool Water (CFTW), was used to calculate water use and derive seasonal state-level blue and green water footprints for rice, wheat, sorghum, millet and maize. The analysis indicates that India achieved 26.4% increased total cereal production between 2005 and 2014 without additional water or land use. Cereal water footprints have declined due to higher yields for most crops and slightly lower rates of evapotranspiration. There has also been a shift in the area under production away from the Kharif (monsoon) towards the Rabi (dry) season in which total water footprints for all cereals except rice are substantially lower (-33.4% to -45.0% compared to Kharif), but show a significantly higher dependency on ground and surface water. The value of this study is two-fold. First, it provides a full assessment of production trends for the five major cereals in India for each year from 2005 to 2014 and links it to water use. Secondly, it uses updated seasonal water footprints, which demonstrate the potential for changes in cereal production practices to contribute to improved efficiency of water use in India. Future pressures on scarce water resources may encourage transition to cereals with lower irrigation dependency, in particular maize, but also sorghum and millet. In addition, increased emphasis on improving millet and sorghum yields would be of benefit to secure cereal production and reduce its overall water footprint.

Country-Specific Sustainable Diets Using Optimization Algorithm

Current diets of most nations either do not meet the nutrition recommendations or transgress environmental planetary boundaries or both. Transitioning toward sustainable diets that are nutritionally adequate and low in environmental impact is key in achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. However, designing region-specific sustainable diets that are culturally acceptable is a formidable challenge. Recent studies have suggested that optimization algorithms offer a potential solution to the above challenge, but the evidence is mostly based on case studies from high-income nations using widely varying constraints and algorithms. Here, we employ nonlinear optimization modeling with a consistent study design to identify diets for 152 countries that meet four cultural acceptability constraints, five food-related per capita environmental planetary boundaries (carbon emissions, water, land, nitrogen, and phosphorus use), and the daily recommended levels for 29 nutrients. The results show that a considerable departure from current dietary behavior is required for all countries. The required changes in intake amounts of 221 food items are highly country-specific but in general point toward a need to reduce the intake of meat, dairy, rice, and sugar and an increase in fruits, vegetables, pulses, nuts, and other grains. The constraints for fiber, vitamin B12, vitamin E, and saturated fats and the planetary boundaries for carbon emissions and nitrogen application were the most difficult to meet, suggesting the need to pay special attention to them. The analysis demonstrates that nonlinear optimization is a powerful tool to design diets achieving multiple objectives.

Climate change, demographic pressures and global sustainability

This article emphasizes the need for broader approaches for formulating policies for mitigating the effects of climate change especially in the contexts of agricultural decisions, and population health and migration. Constraints imposed by rapid population growth in developing countries for achievement of Sustainable Development Goals are discussed and evidence is presented on "unwanted" fertility from India. Second, comparisons are made for India during 2002-2016 for average well depths in 495 districts and terrestrial water storage anomalies assessed via GRACE satellites for 274 1° × 1° grids using estimated parameters from dynamic random effects models. Lastly, migration patterns especially of the highly educated from 39 sending countries to OECD countries during 2000-2010 are analyzed using dynamic random effects models and total fertility rates were significantly associated with higher migration rates for the highly educated. Implications of the empirical evidence for enhancing global sustainability are discussed.

Spatial analysis of energy use and GHG emissions from cereal production in India

Agriculture contributes 18% of India's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet, little is known about the energy requirements of individual crops, making it difficult to link nutrition-enhancing dietary changes to energy consumption and climate change. We estimate the energy and CO₂ intensity of food grains (rice, wheat, sorghum, maize, pearl millet and finger millet) taking into account their irrigation requirements, water source, dependence on groundwater, yields, fertilizer and machinery inputs. Rice is the most energy-intensive cereal, while millets are the least. Total energy use contributes 16% of GHG emissions for rice, due to its high methane emissions, and 56% for wheat. Fertilizer production and use dominates GHG emissions from all crops, contributing 52% of GHGs from cereals. Energy intensities vary by up to a factor of four across the country, due to varying water requirements, irrigation sources and groundwater table depths. The results suggest that replacing rice with other cereals has the potential to reduce energy consumption and GHGs, though the spatial variation of production shifts would influence the extent of this reduction and the possible trade-offs with total production.

The science of food security

We need to feed an estimated population in excess of 9 billion by 2050 with diminishing natural resources, whilst ensuring the health of people and the planet. Herein we connect the future global food demand to the role of agricultural and food science in producing and stabilising foods to meet the global food demand. We highlight the challenges to food and agriculture systems in the face of climate change and global megatrends that are shaping the future world. We discuss the opportunities to reduce food loss and waste, and recover produce that is currently wasted to make this the new raw ingredient supply for the food industry. Our systems-based perspective links food security to agricultural productivity, food safety, health and nutrition, processing and supply chain efficiency in the face of global and industry megatrends. We call for a collaborative, transdisciplinary approach to the science of food security, with a focus on enabling technologies within a context of social, market and global trends to achieve food and nutritional security.

Impact of Historical Changes in Coarse Cereals Consumption in India on Micronutrient Intake and Anemia Prevalence

BACKGROUND

Production of rice and wheat increased dramatically in India over the past decades, with reduced proportion of coarse cereals in the food supply.

OBJECTIVE

We assess impacts of changes in cereal consumption in India on intake of iron and other micronutrients and whether increased consumption of coarse cereals could help alleviate anemia prevalence.

METHODS

With consumption data from over 800 000 households, we calculate intake of iron and other micronutrients from 84 food items from 1983 to 2011. We use mixed-effect models to relate state-level anemia prevalence in women and children to micronutrient consumption and household characteristics.

RESULTS

Coarse cereals reduced from 23% to 6% of calories from cereals in rural households (10% to 3% in urban households) between 1983 and 2011, with wide variations across states. Loss of iron from coarse cereals was only partially compensated by increased iron from other cereals and food groups, with a 21% (rural) and 11% (urban) net loss of total iron intake. Models indicate negative association between iron from cereals and anemia prevalence in women. The benefit from increased iron from coarse cereals is partially offset by the adverse effects from antinutrients. For children, anemia was negatively associated with heme-iron consumption but not with iron from cereals.

CONCLUSIONS

Loss of coarse cereals in the Indian diet has substantially reduced iron intake without compensation from other food groups, particularly in states where rice rather than wheat replaced coarse cereals. Increased consumption of coarse cereals could reduce anemia prevalence in Indian women along with other interventions.

Alternative cereals can improve water use and nutrient supply in India

Humanity faces the grand challenge of feeding a growing, more affluent population in the coming decades while reducing the environmental burden of agriculture. Approaches that integrate food security and environmental goals offer promise for achieving a more sustainable global food system, yet little work has been done to link potential solutions with agricultural policies. Taking the case of cereal production in India, we use a process-based crop water model and government data on food production and nutrient content to assess the implications of various crop-shifting scenarios on consumptive water demand and nutrient production. We find that historical growth in wheat production during the rabi (non-monsoon) season has been the main driver of the country's increased consumptive irrigation water demand and that rice is the least water-efficient cereal for the production of key nutrients, especially for iron, zinc, and fiber. By replacing rice areas in each district with the alternative cereal (maize, finger millet, pearl millet, or sorghum) with the lowest irrigation (blue) water footprint (WFP), we show that it is possible to reduce irrigation water demand by 33% and improve the production of protein (+1%), iron (+27%), and zinc (+13%) with only a modest reduction in calories. Replacing rice areas with the lowest total (rainfall + irrigation) WFP alternative cereal or the cereal with the highest nutritional yield (metric tons of protein per hectare or kilograms of iron per hectare) yielded similar benefits. By adopting a similar multidimensional framework, India and other nations can identify food security solutions that can achieve multiple sustainability goals simultaneously.

Understanding dietary and staple food transitions in China from multiple scales

China is facing both non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and micronutrient deficiency, which have been largely related to transitions within Chinese diets, for example, the overconsumption of vegetable oils and animal-source products and decreasing consumption of coarse staple foods. In this study, we use three metrics-dietary diversity score (DDS), staple diversity score (SDS) and the proportion of coarse staple consumption (PoCS)- to investigate overall dietary transitions as well as trends in staple food consumption for nine provinces in China from 1997 to 2009. We also investigated how household characteristics, community urbanicity, and provincial conditions have affected household diets and the relationship between overall diet and staple diet across socio-economic gradients. Overall dietary diversity (DDS) showed consistent growth across all the provinces and subpopulations and was strongly associated with a household's socio-economic status. However, staple indicators (SDS and PoCS) showed notable difference both geographically and socio-economically. The relationship between overall dietary indicator (DDS) and staple indicators (SDS, PoCS) across SES gradients revealed that education is a more important influence than income in ensuring dietary balance and nutritional quality. Our findings show that programs aimed at promoting dietary balance and healthy staple diets must account for differences between provinces in terms of agronomic, nutritional, social, and economic conditions. By identifying the socio-economic characteristics and locations of the most nutritionally vulnerable populations, this study also points toward the need for policies that incorporate nutritional considerations into grain production systems and provide a strategy for enhancing China's national food security.

Multi-indicator sustainability assessment of global food systems

Food systems are at the heart of at least 12 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The wide scope of the SDGs call for holistic approaches that integrate previously “siloed” food sustainability assessments. Here we present a first global-scale analysis quantifying the status of national food system performance of 156 countries, employing 25 sustainability indicators across 7 domains as follows: nutrition, environment, food affordability and availability, sociocultural well-being, resilience, food safety, and waste. The results show that different countries have widely varying patterns of performance with unique priorities for improvement. High-income nations score well on most indicators, but poorly on environmental, food waste, and health-sensitive nutrient-intake indicators. Transitioning from animal foods toward plant-based foods would improve indicator scores for most countries. Our nation-specific quantitative results can help policy-makers to set improvement targets on specific areas and adopt new practices, while keeping track of the other aspects of sustainability.

The development of sustainable food systems requires an understanding of potential trade-off between various objectives. Here, Chaudhary et al. examine how different nations score on food system performance across several domains, including environment, nutrition, and sociocultural wellbeing.