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Environmental Research: Food Systems is a multidisciplinary, open access journal devoted to addressing the science of sustainable food systems in a way that bridges efforts relating to global change, resilience, mitigation, adaptation, security and solutions in the broadest sense. For detailed information about subject coverage see the About the journal section.

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Nathaniel D Mueller 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 010201

Environmental Research: Food Systems is a new multidisciplinary, open-access, and society-run journal from IOP Publishing dedicated to informing solutions to the considerable environmental, social, and economic challenges facing food systems. The journal's scope covers the entirety of food systems, from production to consumption, with research on the interactions between food systems and the environment particularly encouraged. Supported by a distinguished Editorial Board with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, the inaugural issue features studies on sustainable agricultural practices, global food trade, crop modeling, climate change adaptation, and sustainable consumption for climate change mitigation. The journal is committed to rigorous peer review, the highest standards of research integrity, and open access publications. By providing a new community-supported venue for food systems researchers, Environmental Research: Food Systems aims to drive innovation, inform policy, and foster sustainable food systems worldwide.

Nelson B Villoria et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 022002

This article examines how international trade and policy shape the economic consequences of climate-induced changes in crop productivity, considering both adaptation and mitigation. International trade serves as a global risk-sharing mechanism with the potential of ameliorating the adverse impacts of climate-induced crop shortages by allowing regions with agricultural surpluses to provide for those facing shortages. However, the effectiveness of trade in adaptation depends on whether changes in productivity occur in the short- or the long-run, the structure of tariffs and subsidies, and whether a country is a net importer or exporter of affected products. The most recent evidence on long-term adaptation suggests that the changes in domestic crop portfolios and a diversified set of suppliers are the most effective ways for food-dependent countries to adapt to projected changes in climate toward the mid-century. In the short term, trade helps to buffer against seasonal price shocks, offering relief from sudden price spikes in food staples. Concerns about importing price volatility have little support in the historical record. Still, they may be justified as shifts in climate may result in more frequent extreme events affecting large producing regions of the world. Emerging international trade policies aimed at climate change mitigation, such as carbon border adjustments and laws banning trade in products associated with deforestation, are gaining traction. The adaptability of the international trade regime to these policies remains uncertain. Critical areas for further research include moving from impact assessment to analyzing how the current structure of farm programs worldwide interacts with adaptation and mitigation strategies, expanding the range of crops, and including livestock products in the analysis.

P P Krishnapriya et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 015001

India faces significant air quality challenges, contributing to local health and global climate concerns. Despite a national ban on agricultural residue burning and various incentive schemes, farmers in northern India continue to face difficulties in curbing open-field burning. Using data from 1021 farming households in rural Punjab in India, we examine the patterns and drivers of the adoption of no-burn agriculture, particularly for farmers who mulch instead of burning crop residue. We find a growing trend in no-burn farming practices among farmers between 2015 and 2017, with the highest adoption rates among large farmers compared to medium and small farmers. Our findings suggest that access to equipment and learning opportunities may increase the likelihood of farmers using straw as mulch instead of burning it. Specifically, social learning appears to increase the likelihood of farmers embracing no-burn practices relative to learning from extension agencies. Furthermore, the form of learning depends on farm size. While large and medium farmers exhibit a variety of learning strategies, small farmers primarily self-learn. These results underscore the importance of a multiprong policy that provides sufficient access to equipment and a combination of learning platforms that enabling farmers from different land classes to adopt no-burn technologies.

Jennifer Hsiao et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 015004

Over the next three decades rising population and changing dietary preferences are expected to increase food demand by 25%–75%. At the same time climate is also changing—with potentially drastic impacts on food production. Breeding new crop characteristics and adjusting management practices are critical avenues to mitigate yield loss and sustain yield stability under a changing climate. In this study, we use a mechanistic crop model (MAIZSIM) to identify high-performing trait and management combinations that maximize yield and yield stability for different agroclimate regions in the US under present and future climate conditions. We show that morphological traits such as total leaf area and phenological traits such as grain-filling start time and duration are key properties that impact yield and yield stability; different combinations of these properties can lead to multiple high-performing strategies under present-day climate conditions. We also demonstrate that high performance under present day climate does not guarantee high performance under future climate. Weakened trade-offs between canopy leaf area and reproductive start time under a warmer future climate led to shifts in high-performing strategies, allowing strategies with higher total leaf area and later grain-filling start time to better buffer yield loss and out-compete strategies with a smaller canopy leaf area and earlier reproduction. These results demonstrate that focused effort is needed to breed plant varieties to buffer yield loss under future climate conditions as these varieties may not currently exist, and showcase how information from process-based models can complement breeding efforts and targeted management to increase agriculture resilience.

Claudio Gratton et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 013001

Livestock agriculture must change to meet demand for food production while building soil, reducing flooding, retaining nutrients, enhancing biodiversity, and supporting thriving communities. Technological innovations, including those in digital and precision agriculture, are unlikely by themselves to create the magnitude and directionality of transformation of livestock production systems that are needed. We begin by comparing technological, ecological and social innovations in feedlot-finished and pasture-finished cattle production and propose that what is required is a more integrative 'agroecological innovation' process that intentionally weaves these three forms of innovation to transition livestock agriculture to be genuinely regenerative and multifunctional. This integrated system emphasizes social innovations as essential components of the innovation system because of their capacity to address and influence the social context into which technological and ecological innovations occur. In particular, regional place-making can be especially useful as an interactive process of designing regional identities as people engage with one another and their environments to define landscape futures and the related social standards that normalize particular land management practices. Intentionally developing innovations can help communities engage in relational place-making processes to define desired outcomes for agricultural landscapes and develop ways to collaborate towards achieving them, including the creation of novel supply chains that support regenerative livestock systems. As social norms evolve through place-making they influence individual behaviors and agricultural practices on the ground and offer a pathway for more rapid scaling of regenerative practices in livestock agriculture. Regional place-making also can influence the 'meta' context of agricultural systems by engaging with public and private institutions responsible for management of natural resources, food systems, and the public good, further accelerating the scaling process. Emerging agroecological innovation systems for livestock agriculture must be designed and governed in ways that ensure responsible and diverse outcomes compatible with their social and ecological contexts, and with management approaches and technologies consistent with the values and goals of communities in a region.

Marcus Horril et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 022001

The UK agrifood sector is estimated to be responsible for a quarter of the UK's territorial greenhouse gas emissions, making it a priority sector for the UK's net zero commitments by 2050. Pulses have been commonly identified as significant in driving emissions reduction throughout the value chain, whilst also delivering multiple co-benefits for biodiversity, soils, local economy, and human health. This review takes a food systems perspective on the potential of pulses to help achieve net zero in UK agrifood. It explores how pulses can increase the net zero impact of each of the key activities and their associated stakeholders: producers, processors and manufacturers, transportation and storage operators, consumers, and waste handlers. In so doing, the review contributes to a field which tends to focus on the two ends of the value chain (production and consumption), as these have been the areas of main interest to date. It thereby accentuates the 'missing middle' (what happens between the farm gate and the plate) in mainstream net zero discussions. While it identifies many opportunities in all food system activities along the entire value chain, it also discusses the significant social, economic and technological barriers to increasing the production and consumption of pulses in the UK. Knowledge of producing pulses has dwindled, yields are not economically competitive, the infrastructure to support processing lacks investment, and consumer behaviour is only slowing shifting towards a more pulse-rich diet. A coordinated shift is required across the pulse system to capitalise on the overall net zero opportunities from 'fork to farm'.

Vilma Sandström et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 015002

Industrial food production systems depend on inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides, and commercial animal feeds that are highly traded commodities in global markets. Disturbances in international trade can threaten the local food production if the imports of the key agricultural inputs were drastically reduced. However, despite the importance of the topic, a comprehensive analysis focusing on the import dependency of multiple agricultural inputs at the global level and thus revealing the vulnerability of regions and individual countries does not exist. Here, we analyse the temporal trends of agricultural input trade globally at the national scale from 1991 to 2020 by applying statistics of the use and trade of synthetic fertilisers (N, P, and K), pesticides and livestock and aquaculture feeds (grouped into oilseed feeds and other feed crops). The results show that the import dependency of agricultural inputs has increased over the past 30 years, but there is high variation between countries. Countries with high import dependency combined with high use of these inputs, such as many industrial agricultural producers in South America, Asia as well as Europe, show high vulnerability to trade shocks. Also, our findings highlight that potential agricultural intensification in Sub-Saharan African countries—currently with low use of the inputs per cropland area but high import dependency—can lead to higher dependency on imported agricultural inputs. Therefore, understanding of the past trends and current risks associated with the dependency on imported agricultural inputs should be highlighted to mitigate the risks and build more resilient and sustainable food systems.

Nick Middleton 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 022003

Sand and dust storms (SDS) are common in the world's drylands, regions that are also critically important for global food production. Agriculture is the most prevalent land use resulting in anthropogenic SDS sources, resulting in impacts on cropland and rangeland, but food production is also affected by impacts from natural SDS sources. This review assesses our knowledge of SDS impacts on all the major types of food production in terrestrial and oceanic environments, impacts that occur in all three phases of the wind erosion system: during particle entrainment, during transport, and on deposition. These effects are short term and long term, direct and indirect. Wind erosion is a major cause of land degradation and there is good evidence to indicate that the deleterious effects of SDS can reduce food production via substantially diminished yields of crops, pastures and livestock. However, it is also clear that soil dust plays an important role in major biogeochemical cycles—especially phosphorus, nitrogen and iron—with implications for the valuable environmental services provided by numerous ecosystems, both terrestrial and marine. Ultimately, these nutrients have particular significance for soil formation, ecosystem productivity and food webs on land and at sea, and hence the provision of food for human societies. Efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of SDS on the sustainability of agriculture should be balanced with an appreciation of the significance of soil dust to the Earth system.

Fhazhil Wamalwa et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 025001

In this study, we introduce an integrated modeling framework that combines a hydrologic model, a biophysical crop model, and a techno-economic model to assess solar irrigation potential in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) based on seven commonly grown food crops-maize, wheat, sorghum, potato, cassava, tomato, and onion. The study involves determining the irrigation requirements, location-specific capital investment costs, crop-specific profitability, and the cropland area under various cost scenarios (low and high) and soil fertility (low, moderate, near-optimal, and optimal) scenarios. Our research reveals considerable potential for solar irrigation, with profitability and viable cropland areas that vary according to crop type, irrigation system cost scenarios, and soil fertility levels. Our assessment shows that approximately 9.34 million ha of SSA's current rainfed cropland are hydrologically and economically feasible for solar irrigation. Specifically, maize and onion display the lowest and highest viability, spanning 1–4 million ha and 29–33 million ha, respectively, under optimal soil fertility conditions. In terms of profitability, maize and onion rank as the least and most economically viable crops for solar irrigation, yielding average annual returns of $50-$125/ha and $933-$1450/ha, respectively, under optimal soil fertility conditions. The lower and upper bounds of profitability and cropland range correspond to high-cost and low-cost scenarios, respectively. Furthermore, our study reveals distinct regional differences in the economic feasibility of solar irrigation. Eastern Africa is more economically favorable for maize, sorghum, tomato, and cassava. Central Africa stands out for onion cultivation, whereas West and Southern Africa are more profitable for potato and wheat, respectively. To realize the irrigation benefits highlighted, an energy input of 940-2,168 kWh/ha/yr is necessary, varying by crop and geographic sub-region of the SSA sub-continent. Our model and its results highlights the importance of selecting the right crops, applying fertilizers at the appropriate rates, and considering regional factors to maximize the benefits of solar irrigation in SSA. These insights are crucial for strategic planning and investment in the region's agricultural sector.

Deniz Berfin Karakoc and Megan Konar 2024 Environ. Res.: Food Syst. 1 011001

Global grain trade plays a key role in food security. Many nations rely on imported grain to meet their dietary requirements. Grain imports may be at risk due to weather shocks, economic crises, or international conflicts. Countries aim to balance import risk with the expected return of their grain supplies. This research brings these dual objectives together in an innovative modern portfolio theory framework. Modern portfolio theory provides a set of concepts to formulate the trade-off between risk and expected return in national grain imports. Using Markowitz's mean-variance optimization model, we identify opportunities to reduce risk in existing national grain import accounts, without increasing costs under realistic supply mass constraints of trade partners. Several major grain importers may be able to reduce risk in their grain imports without increasing cost, such as wheat imports in Egypt, maize imports in Vietnam, and rice imports in Saudi Arabia. However, some countries would indeed have to pay more to achieve more stable grain supplies, such as wheat imports in Turkey. This study provides a framework to quantify the different costs, benefits, and levels of risk in grain trade that can inform future research and decision-making.

Review articles

Accepted manuscripts.

Hussein et al 

Abstract
While the livelihoods of Somalian livestock smallholders are rely heavily on seasonal climate conditions, little is known of long-term implications of the changing climate for this nation. Here, we quantify climate change impacts on pasture productivity and profitability of livestock smallholders across a rainfall gradient in northwestern Somalia. Using the Sustainable Grazing Systems (SGS) model we explore 80 future climate realisations, with global climate models projections including low- and high-impact socio-economic pathways (SSP245 and SSP585), two climate horizons (2040 and 2080) and four case study farm regions. In general, future seasonal and annual rainfall and temperature relative to the baseline period (1981-2020) increased for most regions. Mean annual temperatures increased by 9-14%, while cumulative annual precipitation increased by 37-57% from mid to late century, respectively. Grassland production increased with later climate horizons, as higher average annual rainfall together with elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide drove up growth rates in spring and autumn. Under the low emissions scenario (SSP245), changes in farm profit were modest or positive, ranging from negative 4% in Berbera to 20% in Sheikh. Under the higher emissions scenario (SSP585), farm profits were higher, ranging from 23% to 42% above baseline profits, largely due to greater pasture production and lower requirements for supplementary feed. We conclude that future climates will benefit the productivity and profitability of smallholder farmers in Somalia, although adaptive farm management will be required to cope with increased seasonal climate variability.

Ward et al 

Methane from livestock is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Annex I countries' National Inventories report emissions from cattle as enteric or from manure management at ratios of between 3:1 and 9:1 depending on country and cattle type. Field research generally supports the inventories' assumptions about enteric emissions, but these ratios have focused interest on enteric emissions and diverted attention away from manure management. Official calculations about manure management emissions factors are more varied than those for enteric emissions and evidence from field measurements suggests inventories may be underestimating manure management emissions especially in the dairy sector. This paper has three objectives. First, it reviews the science underpinning the international framework for estimating methane emissions from manure management. Second, it presents data from two dairy farms in south-west England where measured emissions of methane from slurry storage facilities are four to five times greater than the assumptions in the UK's inventory. If these measurements were representative of the UK, the implication is that total methane emissions from the UK dairy herd would be over 40 per cent greater than the level reported to the UNFCCC and the proportion of total methane emissions from manure management would be almost a half rather than less than a quarter. Finally, the paper assesses the potential value if methane were captured from slurry storage facilities. Its value as a biogas is estimated to be £500 million per year for the UK dairy industry (at forecourt diesel prices). The paper concludes that the scale of emissions and the potential economic value of lost biogas are sufficient to warrant urgent research and action to reduce emissions from manure management with the beneficial prospect that a valuable new income stream for farm businesses could also be realised.

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• 2024-present Environmental Research: Food Systems Online ISSN: 2976-601X

Stanford University

The Center on Food Security and the Environment is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment .

Center on Food Security and the Environment

Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) addresses critical global issues of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation. Our long-term goals focus on designing new approaches to solving food security’s global challenges by building an evolving research portfolio with a team of experts in relevant scientific, economic, and policy areas. FSE is a joint effort of the  Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies  and the  Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment . 

Remote sensing approaches to improving aid targeting and understanding aid effectiveness

Poverty alleviation through sustainable palm oil production, marine conservation assessment in china, in the news.

David Lobell

Marshall Burke

Rosamond L. Naylor

Walter P. Falcon

Environmental Impacts of Food Production

What are the environmental impacts of food production? How do we reduce the impacts of agriculture on the environment?

By: Hannah Ritchie , Pablo Rosado and Max Roser

Agriculture has a significant environmental impact in three key ways.

First, it requires large amounts of fresh water , which can cause significant environmental pressures in regions with water stress. It needs water as input and pollutes rivers, lakes, and oceans by releasing nutrients.

It is a crucial driver of climate change, responsible for around one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions .

Finally, agriculture has a massive impact on the world’s environment due to its enormous land use . Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture.

Large parts of the world that were once covered by forests and wildlands are now used for agriculture. This loss of natural habitat has been the main driver for reducing the world’s biodiversity . Wildlife can rebound if we reduce agricultural land use and allow natural lands to restore.

Ensuring everyone has access to a nutritious diet sustainably is one of the most significant challenges we face. On this page, you can find our data, visualizations, and writing relating to the environmental impacts of food.

Key insights on the Environmental Impacts of Food

Food production has a large environmental impact in several ways.

What are the environmental impacts of food and agriculture?

The visualization here shows a summary of some of the main global impacts:

• Food production accounts for over a quarter (26%) of global greenhouse gas emissions. 1
• Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. Habitable land is land that is ice- and desert-free.
• 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture 2 .
• 78% of global ocean and freshwater eutrophication is caused by agriculture. 1 Eutrophication is the pollution of waterways with nutrient-rich water.
• 94% of non-human mammal biomass is livestock. This means livestock outweigh wild mammals by a factor of 15-to-1. 3 This share is 97% when only land-based mammals are included.
• 71% of bird biomass is poultry livestock. This means poultry livestock outweigh wild birds by a factor of more than 3-to-1. 3

Tackling what we eat, and how we produce our food, plays a key role in tackling climate change, reducing water stress and pollution, restoring lands back to forests or grasslands, and protecting the world’s wildlife.

Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture

Around half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. Habitable land is land that is ice- and desert-free. This is what the visualization shows.

Agricultural land is the sum of pasture used for livestock grazing, and cropland used for direct human consumption and animal feed.

Agriculture is, therefore, the world’s largest land user, taking up more area than forests, or wild grasslands.

Three-quarters of this agricultural land is used for livestock, which is pasture plus cropland used for the production of animal feed. This gives the world just 18% of global calories, and 37% of its protein. The other quarter of land is for crops for human consumption, which provide the majority of the world's calories and protein.

More than three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world's protein and calories.

What you should know about this data

• Other studies find similar distributions of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth’s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. 4 This left only 45% as ‘natural’ or ‘semi-natural’ land.
• The study by Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018) estimates that 43% of ice- and desert-free land is used for agriculture. 83% of this is used for animal-sourced foods. 1
• The difference in these figures is often due to the uncertainty of the size of ‘rangelands’. Rangelands are grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts that are grazed by domestic livestock or wild animals. The intensity of grazing on rangelands can vary a lot. That can make it difficult to accurately quantify how much rangelands are used for grazing, and therefore how much is used for food production.
• But as the review above showed, despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.

Food is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s emissions

Food systems are responsible for around one-quarter (26%) of global greenhouse gas emissions. 1

This includes emissions from land use change, on-farm production, processing, transport, packaging, and retail.

We can break these food system emissions down into four broad categories:

30% of food emissions come directly from livestock and fisheries . Ruminant livestock – mainly cattle – for example, produce methane through their digestive processes. Manure and pasture management also fall into this category.

1% comes from wild fisheries , most of which is fuel consumption from fishing vessels.

Crop production accounts for around a quarter of food emissions. This includes crops for human consumption and animal feed.

Land use accounts for 24% of food emissions. Twice as many emissions result from land use for livestock (16%) as for crops for human consumption (8%).

Finally, supply chains account for 18% of food emissions . This includes food processing, distribution, transport, packaging, and retail.

Other studies estimate that an even larger fraction – up to one-third – of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from food production. 5 These differences come from the inclusion of non-food agricultural products – such as textiles, biofuels, and industrial crops – plus uncertainties in food waste and land use emissions.

Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions

One-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions result from food and agriculture. What are the main contributors to food's emissions?

How much of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food?

Estimates of food emissions can range from one-quarter to one-third. Where do these differences come from?

• The source of this data is the meta-analysis of global food systems from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science . 1 This dataset is based on data from 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products.
• Environmental impacts are calculated based on life-cycle analyses that consider impacts across the supply chain, including land use change, on-farm emissions, the production of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, food processing, transport, packaging, and retail.
• Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO 2 eq). This means each greenhouse gas is weighted by its global warming potential value. Global warming potential measures the amount of warming a gas creates compared to CO 2 . In this study, CO 2 eq and warming effects are measured over a 100-year timescale (GWP 100 ).

Emissions from food alone would take us past 1.5°C or 2°C this century

One-quarter to one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from our food systems. The rest comes from energy.

While energy and industry make a bigger contribution than food, we must tackle both food and energy systems to address climate change.

Michael Clark and colleagues modeled the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would be emitted from food systems this century across a range of scenarios.

In a business-as-usual scenario, the authors expect the world to emit around 1356 billion tonnes of CO 2-we by 2100.

As the visualization shows, this would take us well beyond the carbon budget for 1.5°C – we would emit two to three times more than this budget. And it would consume almost all of our budget for 2°C.

Ignoring food emissions is simply not an option if we want to get close to our international climate targets.

Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow – an impossibility – we would still go well beyond our 1.5°C target, and nearly miss our 2°C target.

Emissions from food alone could use up all of our budget for 1.5°C or 2°C – but we have a range of opportunities to avoid this

If we want to meet our global climate targets we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food. What options do we have?

• The source of this data is the meta-analyses of global food systems from Michael Clark et al. (2020), published in Science . 6
• Their ‘business-as-usual’ projection makes the following assumptions: global population increases in line with the UN’s medium fertility scenario; per capita diets change as people around the world get richer (shifting towards more diverse diets with more meat and dairy); crop yields continue to increase in line with historical improvements, and rates of food loss and the emissions intensity of food production remain constant.
• This is measured in global warming potential CO 2 warming-equivalents (CO 2-we ). This accounts for the range of greenhouse gasses, not just CO 2 but also others such as methane and nitrous oxide. We look at the differences in greenhouse gas metrics at the end of our article on the carbon footprint of foods .

What we eat matters much more than how far it has traveled

‘Eat local’ is a common recommendation to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet. But it’s often a misguided one.

Transport tends to be a small part of a food’s carbon footprint. Globally, transport accounts for just 5% of food system emissions. Most of food’s emissions come from land use change and emissions from their production on the farm.

Since transport emissions are typically small, and the differences between foods are large, what types of food we eat matter much more than how far it has traveled. Locally-produced beef will have a much larger footprint than peas, regardless of whether it’s shipped across continents or not.

The visualization shows this.

Producing a kilogram of beef, for example, emits 60 kilograms of greenhouse gasses (CO 2 -equivalents). The production of a kilogram of peas, shown at the bottom of the chart, emits just 1 kilogram of greenhouse gasses. Whether the beef or peas are produced locally will have little impact on the difference between these two foods.

The reason that transport accounts for such a small share of emissions is that most internationally traded food travels by boat, not by plane. Very little food is air-freighted; it accounts for only 0.16% of food miles. 7 For the few products which are transported by air, the emissions can be very high: flying emits 50 times more CO 2 eq than boat per tonne kilometer.

Unlike aviation, shipping is a very carbon-efficient way to transport goods. So, even shipping food over long distances by boat emits only small amounts of carbon. A classic example of traded food is avocados. Shipping one kilogram of avocados from Mexico to the United Kingdom would generate 0.21kg CO 2 eq in transport emissions. 8 This is only around 8% of avocados’ total footprint.

Even when shipped at great distances, its emissions are much less than locally-produced animal products.

You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local

“Eat local” is a common recommendation to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet. How does the impact of what you eat compare to where it's come from?

• The source of this data is the meta-analyses of global food systems from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science . 1 This dataset is based on data from 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products.

Meat and dairy foods tend to have a higher carbon footprint

When we compare the carbon footprint of different types of foods, a clear hierarchy emerges.

Meat and dairy products tend to emit more greenhouse gasses than plant-based foods. This holds true whether we compare on the basis of mass (per kilogram) , per kilocalorie , or per gram of protein, as shown in the chart.

Within meat and dairy products, there is also a consistent pattern: larger animals tend to be less efficient and have a higher footprint. Beef typically has the largest emissions; followed by lamb; pork; chicken; then eggs and fish.

• This data presents global average values. For some foods – such as beef – there are large differences depending on where it is produced, and the farming practices used. Nonetheless, the lowest-carbon beef and lamb still have a higher carbon footprint than most plant-based foods.
• The source of this data is the meta-analyses of global food systems from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018), published in Science . 1 This dataset covers 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products.
• Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO 2 eq). This means each greenhouse gas is weighted by its global warming potential value. Global warming potential measures the amount of warming a gas creates compared to CO 2 . For CO 2 eq, this is measured over a 100-year timescale (GWP 100 ).

There are also large differences in the carbon footprint of the same foods

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food system is to change what we eat .

Adopting a more plant-based diet by reducing our consumption of carbon-intensive foods such as meat and dairy – especially beef and lamb – is an effective way for consumers to reduce their carbon footprint.

But there are also opportunities to reduce emissions by optimizing for more carbon-efficient practices and locations to produce foods. For some foods – in particular, beef, lamb, and dairy – there are large differences in emissions depending on how and where they’re produced. This is shown in the chart.

Producing 100 grams of protein from beef emits 25 kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalents (CO 2 eq), on average. But this ranges from 9 kilograms to 105 kilograms of CO 2 eq – a ten-fold difference.

Optimizing production in places where these foods are produced with a smaller footprint could be another effective way of reducing global emissions.

Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint

Plant-based protein sources still have a lower footprint than the lowest-impact meat products.

Explore data on the Environmental Impacts of Food

Research & writing.

‘Eat local’ is a common recommendation to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet. But transport tends to account for a small share of greenhouse gas emissions. How does the impact of what you eat compare to where it’s come from?

Hannah Ritchie

One-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions result from food and agriculture. What are the main contributors to food’s emissions?

Food production and climate change

What are the carbon opportunity costs of our food?

Food miles and transport.

Very little of global food is transported by air; this greatly reduces the climate benefits of eating local

Environmental impacts of meat and dairy.

Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts?

The carbon footprint of foods: are differences explained by the impacts of methane?

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares

Land use and deforestation.

Cutting down forests: what are the drivers of deforestation?

After millennia of agricultural expansion, the world has passed ‘peak agricultural land’

To protect the world’s wildlife we must improve crop yields – especially across Africa

Other articles on food impacts.

Food waste is responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions

Is organic really better for the environment than conventional agriculture?

More key articles on the environmental impacts of food, yields vs. land use: how the green revolution enabled us to feed a growing population.

Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers . Science , 360(6392), 987-992.

FAO. (2011). The state of the world’s land and water resources for food and agriculture (SOLAW) – Managing systems at risk. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome and Earthscan, London.

Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R., & Milo, R. (2018). The biomass distribution on Earth . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 115(25), 6506-6511.

Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000 . Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19(5), 589-606.

Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Guizzardi, D., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Tubiello, F. N., & Leip, A. J. N. F. (2021). Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Nature Food, 2(3), 198-209.

Clark, Michael A., Nina GG Domingo, Kimberly Colgan, Sumil K. Thakrar, David Tilman, John Lynch, Inês L. Azevedo, and Jason D. Hill. “ Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2° C climate change targets .” Science , 370, no. 6517 (2020): 705-708.

’Food miles’ are measured in tonne-kilometers which represents the transport of one tonne of goods by a given transport mode (road, rail, air, sea, inland waterways, pipeline etc.) over a distance of one kilometer. Poore & Nemecek (2018) report that of the 9.4 billion tonne-kilometers of global food transport, air-freight accounted for only 15 million. This works out at only 0.16% of the total; most foods are transported by boat.

We get this footprint value as: [9000km * 0.023kg per tonne-kilometer / 1000 = 0.207kg CO2eq per kg].

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From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste

Over one-third of the food produced in the United States is never eaten, wasting the resources used to produce it and creating a myriad of environmental impacts. Food waste is the single most common material landfilled and incinerated in the U.S., comprising 24 and 22 percent of landfilled and combusted municipal solid waste, respectively. Reducing and preventing food waste can increase food security, foster productivity and economic efficiency, promote resource and energy conservation, and address climate change. 

EPA prepared the report, From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste, to inform domestic policymakers, researchers, and the public about the environmental footprint of food loss and waste in the U.S. and the environmental benefits that can be achieved by reducing U.S. food loss and waste. It focuses primarily on five inputs to the U.S. cradle-to-consumer food supply chain -- agricultural land use, water use, application of pesticides and fertilizers, and energy use -- plus one environmental impact -- green house gas emissions. 

This report provides estimates of the environmental footprint of current levels of food loss and waste to assist stakeholders in clearly communicating the significance; decision-making among competing environmental priorities; and designing tailored reduction strategies that maximize environmental benefits. The report also identifies key knowledge gaps where new research could improve our understanding of U.S. food loss and waste and help shape successful strategies to reduce its environmental impact.

From Farm to Kitchen: The Environmental Impacts of U.S. Food Waste (pdf) (11.5 MB, November 30, 2021)

Visit EPA's Food Waste Research webpage

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Annual Review of Public Health

Volume 29, 2008, review article, creating healthy food and eating environments: policy and environmental approaches.

• Mary Story 1,3 , Karen M. Kaphingst 1,3 , Ramona Robinson-O'Brien 2,3 , and Karen Glanz 4
• View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: 1 Healthy Eating Research Program, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454-1015; email: [email protected] 2 Adolescent Health Protection Research Training Program, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454-1015, [email protected] 3 Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454-1015, [email protected] 4 Emory Prevention Research Center, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322; email: [email protected]
• Vol. 29:253-272 (Volume publication date April 2008) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.020907.090926
• First published as a Review in Advance on November 21, 2007
• © Annual Reviews

Food and eating environments likely contribute to the increasing epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases, over and above individual factors such as knowledge, skills, and motivation. Environmental and policy interventions may be among the most effective strategies for creating population-wide improvements in eating. This review describes an ecological framework for conceptualizing the many food environments and conditions that influence food choices, with an emphasis on current knowledge regarding the home, child care, school, work site, retail store, and restaurant settings. Important issues of disparities in food access for low-income and minority groups and macrolevel issues are also reviewed. The status of measurement and evaluation of nutrition environments and the need for action to improve health are highlighted.

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2023 Theses Doctoral

Can a Changing Food Environment Tip the Scale? A Mixed-Methods Study of Food Habitus and Obesity in a Neighborhood Undergoing Gentrification

Rhodes-Bratton, Brennan

The disproportionate concentration of unhealthy food in communities of color in the United States may contribute to health inequities and food insecurity. Gentrification has been associated with residents’ increased adverse health outcomes in its early and rapid phases. This study adds to the growing body of research by examining the relationship between gentrification, the food environment, food habits (the interplay between food chances and food choices), and health in New York City. I used a mixed methods approach to assess the food landscape in NYC between 1990 and 2014, using group-based trajectory modeling, the National Establishments Time-Series database, census data, and in-depth interviews with mothers from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health study. I found that the growth in the food environment was unevenly distributed. While healthy food chances declined across all examined neighborhoods, unhealthy food chances quickly grew, commanding dominance. It was gentrifying neighborhoods; however, that surprisingly experienced the most remarkable growth in unhealthy food chances compared to other neighborhoods. A cross-tabulation of the food chance trajectories of New York City census tracts indicated the presence of food ecologies that exhibit both healthy and unhealthy food chances. There was a strong association between the type of food ecology and gentrification status (p < 0.001). The in-depth interviews corroborated these findings and revealed that food insecurity is a by-product of gentrification in two ways. First, neighborhoods in the early stages of gentrification are inundated with unhealthy food chances, such as fast-food chains, without adequate access to quality, fresh, healthy foods. Secondly, when healthy food chances finally arrive in resource-deprived areas through gentrification, families are forced to relocate to areas without access to fresh, affordable, healthy foods due to the increased cost of living. This cycle of food insecurity is inequitable due to historical racial segregation, exploitative capitalistic markets, and racist stereotypes. Speculators invest in unhealthy food chances aligned with pre-existing stereotypes, assumptions, and beliefs that such communities do not or will not consume healthier foods. Therefore, a cycle of structural racism reinvents itself through this investment in unhealthy food chances, constructing food deserts and swamps bestowed upon communities experiencing poverty and disproportionate adverse cardiovascular health conditions. Strengthening policy focused on the relationship between gentrification mitigation and health outcomes is needed.

Geographic Areas

• New York (State)--New York
• Public health
• Obesity--Epidemiology
• Obesity in children
• Food habits--Health aspects
• Gentrification
• Environmental health

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University Food Environment Assessment Methods and Their Implications: Protocol for a Systematic Review

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States.
• 2 Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Centre at El Paso, El Paso, TX, United States.
• 3 J. Murrey Atkins Library, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States.
• PMID: 39178404
• DOI: 10.2196/54955

Background: While the retail food environment has been well studied, research surrounding the university food environment is still emerging. Existing research suggests that university food environments can influence behavioral outcomes such as students' dietary choices, which may be maintained long-term. Despite a growing interest in assessing university food environments, there is no standardized tool for completing this task. How researchers define "healthy" when assessing university food environments needs to be clarified. This paper describes the protocol for systematically reviewing literature involving university food environment assessments.

Objective: This paper aimed to describe the protocol for a systematic review of the assessments of university food environments. The review will summarize previously used tools or methods and their implications.

Methods: Electronic databases, including PubMed (NLM), Cochrane Library (Wiley), Web of Science (Clarivate), APA PsycINFO (EBSCO), CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health) Complete (EBSCO), ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health, and Google Scholar were searched for papers published between 2012 and 2022 using combinations of related medical subject headings terms and keywords. The electronic databases were supplemented by reviewing the reference list for all included papers and systematic reviews returned with our search results. The review will include all study types, including randomized controlled trials, observational studies, and other pre-post designs. Papers that examine at least 1 aspect of the university food environment, such as cafeterias, campus convenience stores, and vending machines, were considered for inclusion. A total of 2 reviewers will independently screen titles and abstracts, complete a full-text review, extract data, and perform a quality assessment of included papers, with a third reviewer resolving any conflicts. The Quality Assessment for Diverse Studies (QuADS) tool was used to determine the methodological quality of selected studies. A narrative and tabular summary of the findings were presented. There will not be a meta-analysis due to the methodological heterogeneity of the included papers.

Results: The initial queries of 4502 records have been executed, and papers have been screened for inclusion. Data extractions were completed in December 2023. The results of the review were accepted for publication in May 2024. The systematic review generated from this protocol will offer evidence for using different assessment tools to examine the campus food environment.

Conclusions: This systematic review will summarize the tools and methods used to assess university food environments where many emerging adults spend a significant part of their young adult lives. The findings will highlight variations in practice and how "healthy" has been defined globally. This review will provide an understanding of this unique organizational food environment with implications for practice and policy.

Trial registration: PROSPERO CRD42023398073; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=398073.

International registered report identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/54955.

Keywords: United States; diet; dietary choice; food assessment; food environment; health behavior; lifestyle habit; nutrition assessment; nutrition policy; obesity; retail food; tool; universities; university; university food; university food environment; weight gain; young adult.

©Alicia Anne Dahl, Lilian Ademu, Stacy Fandetti, Ryan Harris. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 23.08.2024.

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• Open access
• Published: 24 August 2024

Research on food security issues considering changes in rainfall

• SiMan Jiang 1 ,
• Shuyue Chen 2 ,
• Qiqi Xiao 2 &
• Zhong Fang 2  

Scientific Reports volume  14 , Article number:  19698 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

• Environmental economics
• Environmental social sciences

Ensuring food security is not only vital to the adequate supply of food in the world, but also the key to the economic development and social stability of various countries. Based on the panel data of 29 provinces in China from 2016 to 2020, this paper selects the number of foodborne diseases patients and iodine deficiency disease patients as reference objects, uses stunting rate of children under 5 years old, malnutrition rate of children under 5 years old, obesity rate of children under 5 years old, and newborn visit rate to measure improving nutrition, proposes Meta Entropy Two-Stage Dynamic Direction Distance Function (DDF) Under an exogenous Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to measure the efficiency of hunger eradication, food security, and improving nutrition under the influence of exogenous variable rainfall. The research results indicate that the sustainability of China’s agricultural economy is insufficient, and the focus of attention should be different in different stages. In addition, the average efficiency of the three regions generally shows a decreasing level in the eastern, western, and central regions. In order to improve China's ability to guarantee food security, we must continue to strengthen the construction of agricultural infrastructure, increase policy support for green agricultural production, promote the diversification of agricultural production, and enrich people’s agricultural product consumption varieties.

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Introduction.

The issue of food security is not only related to the livelihoods of countries but also to global development. In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, putting forward 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), of which the second goal (SDG2) focuses on food security and commits to eradicating hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030, also known as the “Zero Hunger” goal. Food security is an important cornerstone and key issue for global sustainable development. Currently, Food production has made significant progress globally in eradicating hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. However, many people are still facing hunger and malnutrition due to the impact of various factors such as extreme weather, global COVID-19 pandemic, and geopolitical conflicts in recent years. In addition, the loss of arable land and urban expansion have adversely affected agricultural land and put enormous pressure on preventing the degradation of ecosystem service functions and adapting to climate change, which brings new uncertainties to global food security and new challenges to food security in China. To cope with the uncertainty of global food security, food security in China has become even more important.

Having entered a new stage of development, China has made significant achievements in food security. In the face of the global food crisis, China’s food production has achieved a good harvest for 19 consecutive years, the total food output has remained above 650 million tons for 8 consecutive years, the self-sufficiency rate of food rations has exceeded 100 percent and that of cereal foods has exceeded 95 percent, with the per capita food possession at approximately 480 kg, which is higher than the internationally acknowledged food security line of 400 kg, and China has achieved basic self-sufficiency in cereals and absolute security in rations. Using 9 percent of the world's arable land and 6 percent of its freshwater resources, China has been able to feed nearly 20 percent of its population, making a historic transition from hunger to subsistence to well-being. However, after a long period of sustained improvement, China's food security situation was reversed in 2015 due to multiple challenges, including agricultural environmental pollution and intensifying climate change. Climate change will have a negative impact on food production, which will increase the price of agricultural products and subsequently increase China’s food imports, which in turn will affect China’s level of food self-sufficiency. Currently, for every 0.1 °C increase in temperature, China’s yield per unit area of the three major food crops will decrease by about 2.6 per cent, and just a 1 per cent increase in precipitation will increase the yield per unit area by 0.4 per cent. In recent years, climate change has led to significant changes in China’s agroclimatic resources: From 1951 to 2021, the annual average surface temperature in China increased at a rate of 0.26 °C per decade; annual rainfall in China increased by an average of 4.9 mm per decade, showing a trend of “northern expansion of the rainfall belt”. The “double increase in water and heat” of climate change has led to significant changes in China’s agroclimatic resources, with the crop growing season lengthening by 1.8 days per decade. The impact of climate change on agricultural production is both negative and positive, but the negative impact of uneven rainfall and extreme weather on agriculture is significant and requires increased attention. The problem of uneven rainfall is reflected in the redistribution of global rainfall, with increased rainfall in some areas causing flooding and damage to crop roots and soil structure, thus reducing food production; reduced rainfall in some other areas leads to drought, which affects crop growth and development, and likewise reduces food production. Droughts used to exist in the northern regions of China, but seasonal droughts are now occurring in many southern regions, especially at critical times of crop growth, leading to significant reductions in crop yields. At present, China's food security still faces many risks and challenges, with new problems in both production and consumption, such as the contradiction between the basic balance of food supply and demand and structural scarcity, the contradiction between food production methods and the upgrading of food demand, and the contradiction between the international food market linkage and the volatility of domestic food prices, which has resulted in a potentially further deterioration of the food security situation. These food insecurity trends will ultimately increase the risk of malnutrition and further affect the quality of diets, affecting people’s health in different ways. Currently, with less than a decade to go before the achievement of the 2030 SDGs, the global food security situation is still spiraling downwards. Therefore, food security should always be a matter of crisis awareness.

Food security is affected by several factors, and rainfall is one of the major influences on food production. The regional impact of rainfall on production is complex and can have an impact on the total food production in China. Although the national rainfall has not shown a significant trend in the last 50 years, there are significant regional differences. In the scientific study of global change, there will be a long way to go to study the impact of rainfall changes on food production and food security in different regions of China and to propose effective countermeasures.

Literature review

The concept of food security was first officially introduced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1974. It is defined as ensuring sufficient global availability of basic food supplies at all times, particularly in the case of natural disasters or other emergencies to prevent the exacerbation of food shortages, while steadily increasing food consumption in countries with low per capita intake to reduce production and price fluctuations. Make food security one of the basic rights of human life. This concept reflects people’s concerns about the occurrence of global food crisis at that time, recognizing that the decline of food supply plays a major role in promoting the expansion of hunger, while the instability of food prices caused by supply–demand imbalances exacerbates the severity of the hunger situation 1 . Although the early definition of food security primarily emphasized the quantity of food supply, namely the accessibility of food, and measures to address hunger mainly focused on expanding food production, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of food stability as a crucial aspect of food security 2 . As the world's economic situation evolves, people have gained a better understanding of food security, leading to an expanded conceptual framework. In 1982, the FAO revised the definition of food security to ensure sufficient food supply, stable food flows, and stable food sources for individuals or households. This new interpretation incorporates some micro considerations into the existing macro perspective, emphasizing the significance of balancing food supply and demand 3 . During the World Food Summit in 1996, the FAO updated the definition of food security to ensure that all individuals have physical and economic access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food at all times, and the effective utilization of these food nutrients, and defined four pillars of food security: availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability. In 2001, the FAO added the term “social” to the original definition of food security, which has become the most widely cited definition in current international food policies, that is, to ensure that all individuals at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food to meet people's needs and preferences regarding food and promote people to lead positive and healthy lives.

Food security is closely related to people's lives, and it has always been the focus of academic attention. The existing research mainly analyzes the impact of resource endowment, climate change and government policy on food security, and then explores practical paths for various countries and regions to ensure food security in the future.

The literature primarily focuses on water resources, land resources, and human resources and other aspects to study the impact of resource endowment on food security. From the perspective of water resources, Kang et al. 4 summarized the evolution of irrigation water productivity in China over the past 60 years, studied the differences in food productivity under different planting patterns, fertilization levels, and irrigation water consumption, analyzed the current situation of water resources’ impact on food security and explored comprehensive measures to improve agricultural water use efficiency in the future; Chloe et al. 5 combining interviews and surveys from British farmers with the resilience theory to analyze the influencing factors of water scarcity risk and management strategies, found that farmers need to establish resilience by maintaining the buffer of water resources or increasing the availability of backup resources to minimize the negative impacts of water scarcity on food production and farmer’s economic income. From the perspective of land resources, Charoenratana and Shinohara 6 pointed out that land and its legal rights are crucial factors for farmer income and agricultural production, and sustainable food security can only be achieved if land is kept safe. Li et al. 7 indicated that while there has been a strong transition of cultivated land from non-staple food production to food production in the suburbs of Changchun after rapid urbanization, overall, the utilization diversity of suburban cultivated land in the black soil region of Northeast China has decreased, leading to a reduction in local supply of non-staple food. From the perspective of human resources, Yang et al. 8 found that the relationship between non-agricultural employment and food production presents an inverted U-shaped pattern, which means that in the case of a small supply of non-agricultural labor force, increasing non-agricultural employment will have a positive impact on food output, while in the case of a large supply of non-agricultural labor force, increasing non-agricultural employment is not conducive to food output increase. Abebaw et al. 9 investigated the impact of rural outmigration on food security in Ethiopia, and the results showed that rural outmigration significantly increased the daily calorie intake per adult by approximately 22%, reducing the gap and severity of food poverty by 7% and 4%, respectively.

Climate change. There is no consensus on the impact of climate change on food security. The majority of scholars assert that climate change will have significant negative effects on the availability, accessibility, and stability of food. Bijay et al. 10 argued that the ongoing global climate change has caused a range of issues, including increased carbon dioxide, frequent droughts, and temperature fluctuations, which pose significant obstacles to pest management, consequently impeding increased food production. Muhammad et al. 11 concluded through empirical analysis that climate change has a substantial adverse impact on irrigation water, agriculture, and rural livelihoods, and the latter three have a significant positive correlation with food security, suggesting that climate change is detrimental to food security. Atuoye et al. 12 examined the influence of gender, migration, and climate change on food security, and their findings revealed that as global climate changes, the impact of controlling carbon emissions on non-migrant food insecurity in Tanzania is reduced, while it exacerbates the impact on migrant food insecurity. However, some scholars contend that climate change can improve agricultural production conditions in certain regions, thereby facilitating increased food production and positively impacting food security 13 , 14 .

Government policy. Bizikova et al. 15 evaluated 73 intervention policies in a sample of 66 publications, of which 49 intervention policies had a positive impact on food security, 7 intervention policies had a negative impact, and 17 intervention policies had no impact. Chengyou et al. 16 used data such as mutual aid funds of impoverished villages in China to evaluate the effect of agricultural subsidies, and the empirical conclusion pointed out that agricultural subsidies can improve farmers' willingness to plant food, promote farmers in impoverished areas to increase the planting area, and help farmers improve their own food production capacity and economic income. Na et al. 17 proposed that food subsidies can increase the working time of part-time farmers in agricultural work, especially in food planting, and promote farmers to better switch between non-agricultural work and agricultural work. This subsidy effect is conducive to maintaining sufficient supply and sustainable development of food production.

The existing literature studies food security from different perspectives and draws reasonable conclusions and policy recommendations, but it fails to analyze the issue of food security under the comprehensive effect of resource endowment, climate change and government policy. Based on this, this paper proposes the Entropy Window two-stage DDF to measure the efficiency of hunger eradication, food security and improving nutrition in 29 provinces of China under the influence of exogenous variable rainfall. From the perspective of food security, the impact of resource endowment, climate change and government policy on food security is comprehensively considered. In addition, in terms of climate change, different from the existing research focusing on the negative effects of high temperature, low temperature and drought on food production, this paper focuses on the impact of extreme changes in rainfall on food security, providing a certain complement to the existing literature on food security research.

Research methods

The evolution of DEA methods has seen many discussions of the dynamic DEA model. Färe and Grosskopf 18 first established the concept of dynamic DEA, devised a form of dynamic analysis, and then proposed a delayed lag (carryover) variable for the dynamic model. Tone and Tsutsui 19 then extended it to a dynamic DEA approach based on weighted relaxation, including four types of connected activities: (1) desired (good); (2) undesired (bad); (3) discretionary (free); and (4) non-discretionary (fixed). Battese and Rao 20 and Battese et al. 21 next demonstrated that it is possible to compare the technical efficiencies of different groups using the Meta-frontier model. Portela and Thanassoulis 22 proposed a convex Meta-frontier concept that can take into account the technology of all groups, the state-of-the-art level of technological production, as well as the communication between groups and can be further extended to improve business performance. O’Donnell et al. 23 proposed a Meta-frontier model for defining technical efficiency using an output distance function, which accurately calculates group and Meta-frontier technical efficiencies and finds that the level of technology of all groups is superior to the level of technology of any one group.

In this paper, the evaluation performance based on DDF is better, which can provide more accurate estimation results. Therefore, this paper modifies the traditional DDF model, combines Dynamic DEA with Network Structure 19 , 24 and Entropy method 25 , and considers exogenous issues to construct Meta Entropy Two-Stage Dynamic DDF Under an Exogenous DEA Model in order to measure the efficiency of hunger eradication, food security, and improving nutrition in 29 provinces of China under the influence of rainfall.

The entropy method

In this model, the stage 2 (Hunger eradication and improving nutrition of sustainable stage) output item “Improving nutrition” covers four detailed indicators: (1) stunting rate of children under 5 years old; (2) malnutrition rate of children under 5 years old; (3) obesity rate of children under 5 years old; and (4) newborn visit rate. If these detailed indicators are put into DEA, then there will be problems that cannot be solved. Therefore, this model first uses the Entropy method and then finds the weights and output values of four detailed indicators of improving nutrition in stage 2. The Entropy method mainly includes the following four steps.

Step 1: Standardize the data of the four detailed indicators of improving nutrition in stage 2 in 29 provinces of China.

Here, \(r_{mn}\) is the standardized value of the \(n\) th indicator of the \(m\) th province; \(\mathop {\min }\limits_{m} x_{mn}\) is the minimum value of the \(n\) th indicator of the \(m\) th province; and \(\mathop {\max }\limits_{m} x_{mn}\) is the maximum value of the \(n\) th indicator of the \(m\) th province.

Step 2: Add up the standardized values of the four detailed indicators of improving nutrition in stage 2.

Here, \(P_{mn}\) represents the ratio of the standardized value of the \(n\) th indicator to the sum of the standardized values for the \(m\) th province.

Step 3: Calculate the entropy value ( \({\text{e}}_{{\text{n}}}\) ) for the \({\text{n}}\) th indicator.

Step 4: Calculate the weight of the \({\text{n}}\) th indicator \(\left( {{\text{w}}_{{\text{n}}} } \right)\) .

Using the above steps, we are able to find the weights and output values of the four detailed indicators of improving nutrition in stage 2.

Meta entropy two-stage dynamic DDF under an exogenous DEA model

Suppose there are two stages in each \(t \left( {t = 1, \ldots ,T} \right)\) time periods. In each time period, there are two stages, including agricultural production stage (stage 1), hunger eradication and improving nutrition of sustainable stage (stage 2).

In stage 1, there are \(b \left( {b = 1, \ldots ,B} \right)\) inputs \(x1_{bj}^{t}\) , producing \(a \left( {a = 1, \ldots , A} \right)\) desirable outputs \(y1_{aj}^{t}\) and \(o \left( {o = 1, \ldots , O} \right)\) undesirable outputs \(U1_{oj}^{t}\) . Stage 2 takes \(d \left( {d = 1, \ldots , D} \right)\) inputs \(x2_{dj}^{t}\) , creating \(s \left( {s = 1, \ldots ., S} \right)\) desirable outputs \(y2_{sj}^{t}\) and \(c \left( {c = 1, \ldots ., C} \right)\) undesirable outputs \(U2_{cj}^{t}\) ; the intermediate outputs connecting stages 1 and 2 are \(z_{hj}^{t} \left( {h = 1, \ldots ,H} \right)\) ; the carry-over variable is \(c_{lj}^{t} \left( {l = 1, \ldots ,L} \right)\) ; the exogenous variable is \(E_{vj}^{t} \left( {v = 1, \ldots ,V} \right)\) .

Figure  1 illustrates the framework diagram of the model. In stage 1, the input variables are agricultural employment, effective irrigation area and total agricultural water use, and the output variables are total agricultural output value and agricultural wastewater discharge. In stage 2, the input variable is local financial medical and health expenditure, and the output variables are the number of foodborne disease patients, the number of iodine deficiency disease patients, and improving nutrition. The link between stage 1 and stage 2 is the intermediate output: total agricultural output value. And the exogenous variable is rainfall.

Model framework.

Under the frontier, the DMU can choose the final output that is most favorable to its maximum value, so the efficiency of the decision unit under the common boundary can be solved by the following linear programming procedure.

Objective function

Efficiency of \({\text{DMUi}}\) is:

Here, \({\text{w}}_{1}^{{\text{t}}}\) and \({\text{w}}_{2}^{{\text{t}}}\) are the weights for stages 1 and stage 2, and \({ }\theta_{1}^{{\text{t}}}\) and \(\theta_{2}^{{\text{t}}}\) are the efficiency values for stages 1 and stage 2.

Subject to:

Stage 1: Agricultural production stage

Here, \({\text{q}}_{{{\text{bi}}1}}^{{\text{t}}}\) , \({\text{q}}_{{{\text{ai}}1}}^{{\text{t}}}\) , and \({\text{q}}_{{{\text{oi}}1}}^{{\text{t}}}\) denote the direction vectors associated with stage 1 inputs, desirable outputs, and undesirable outputs.

Stage 2: Hunger eradication and improving nutrition of sustainable stage

Here, \({\text{q}}_{{{\text{di}}2}}^{{\text{t}}}\) , \({\text{q}}_{{{\text{ci}}2}}^{{\text{t}}}\) , and \({\text{q}}_{{{\text{hi}}\left( {1,2} \right)}}^{{\text{t}}}\) denote the direction vectors associated with stage 2 inputs, undesirable outputs, and the intermediate outputs connecting stages 1 and 2.

The link of two periods

The exogenous variables

From the above results, the overall efficiency, the efficiency in each period, the efficiency in each stage, the efficiency in each stage in each period are obtained.

Input, desirable output, and undesirable output efficiencies

The disparity between the actual input–output indicators and the ideal input–output indicators under optimal efficiency represents the potential for efficiency improvement in terms of input and output orientation. This paper chooses the ratio of actual input–output values to the computed optimal input–output values as the efficiency measure for the input–output indicators. The relationship between the optimal value, actual value, and indicator efficiency is as follows:

If the actual input and undesirable output equals the optimal input and undesirable output, then the efficiencies of that input and undesirable output are equal to 1 and known as efficient. However, if the actual input exceeds the optimal input, then the efficiency of that input indicator is less than 1, which denotes being inefficient.

If the actual desirable output equals the optimal desirable output, then the efficiency of that desirable output is equal to 1 and is referred to as efficient. However, if the actual desirable output is less than the optimal desirable output, then the efficiency of that desirable output indicator is less than 1 and is considered inefficient. ME (Mean Efficiency) reflects the average efficiency of a certain region throughout the study period, with higher values indicating higher efficiency in that region.

Empirical study

Comparative analysis of total efficiency values considering and not considering exogenous variables.

As shown in Fig.  2 , in terms of the average total efficiency value for each region, without considering the exogenous variable rainfall, from 2016 to 2020, the average total efficiency values of the eastern, central, and western regions show a pattern of “eastern > western > central” in descending order. With the exogenous variable rainfall taken into account, the average total efficiency values for each region for each year were greater than the corresponding average total efficiency values without taking into account the exogenous variable rainfall, which may be attributed to the fact that rainfall plays a key role in irrigating the farmland and replenishing the soil moisture, which is an important factor in the process of agricultural production, and that the addition of rainfall has a more pronounced marginal effect on the increase in the total efficiency values. With the exogenous variable rainfall taken into account, the average total efficiency values for each region in each year are larger than the corresponding average total efficiency values without taking into account the exogenous variable rainfall, indicating that there is more room for improvement in the average total efficiency values without taking rainfall into account than in the efficiency values with rainfall taken into account. Except for 2016, when the average total efficiency value of the western region was greater than that of the eastern region and the central region, the average total efficiency values of the eastern, central, and western regions from 2017 to 2020 also showed a pattern of “eastern > western > central” from largest to smallest. It can be concluded that whether or not the exogenous variable rainfall is taken into account, the eastern region has a better overall efficiency in agricultural production and achieving food security than the western and central regions due to its better agricultural infrastructure, good economic base, and better educated labor force.

Average efficiency by region from 2016 to 2020.

The three regions of the East, Central and West maintain a similar fluctuating upward trend. The average efficiency in the eastern and western regions is relatively high, and the five-year fluctuation interval is small, ranging from 0.75 to 0.85. After considering the exogenous variable rainfall, the average total efficiency value in the central region increased from 0.62 to 0.66. However, compared with the eastern and western regions, the total efficiency in the central region is still at a lower level and the five-year fluctuation interval is larger, between 0.55 and 0.70, with the largest fluctuation interval in the average efficiency in 2017–2018, at − 0.11. This may be due to the downsizing of grain sowing area under the structural reform of the agricultural supply side, leading to a small decline in the total national grain output in 2018, which in turn affects the level of efficiency in eradicating hunger, guaranteeing food security and improving nutrition. From this, it can be concluded that the eastern and western regions should give full play to their original advantages and promote the modernization and sustainable development of agricultural production in order to accelerate the achievement of the three major goals of eradicating hunger, guaranteeing food security and improving nutrition, while the central region still has more room for improvement and needs to further play the role of agricultural policies to alleviate the people’s worries about food.

Table 1 Average efficiency by province and city from 2016 to 2020 demonstrates the average efficiency values for each province and city from 2016 to 2020 when rainfall is considered and not considered. From the point of view of the annual average total efficiency by province, after considering the exogenous variable rainfall, the efficiency value of most provinces has been improved. The average efficiency has also been improved from 0.6134 to 0.6189. Among them, the efficiency value of Qinghai increases from 0.8167 to 1, and the ranking also rises from 11th to 1st place. Qinghai is deep inland, with less rainfall throughout the year, and its agricultural and animal husbandry production is more sensitive to the changes of rainfall, and the addition of exogenous variable rainfall makes the average total efficiency more accurately portrayed, and achieves the DEA validity. Shandong’s ranking drops from 9 to 11th after considering the exogenous variable rainfall. As a major agricultural province, Shandong’s food production will be seriously affected by persistent heavy precipitation and other extreme weather events, which indicates that Shandong needs to take measures to strengthen the ability of its agricultural production to cope with extreme precipitation.

Two-stage average efficiency analysis

The average efficiency values of the two stages in both cases of considering exogenous variable rainfall and not considering exogenous variable rainfall are very similar, indicating that exogenous variable rainfall does not have much effect on the efficiency of stage 1 and stage 2, and therefore only the specific case with exogenous variable rainfall is discussed. Figures  3 and 4 show the efficiency values for Stage 1 and Stage 2 for each province and city for the years 2016–2020 when rainfall is considered. As shown in Fig.  3 , the difference between the efficiency values for Stage 1 and Stage 2 is still relatively significant. The efficiency of agricultural production in Stage 1 is significantly higher than that of hunger elimination, food security and nutritional improvement in Stage 2, and the fluctuation is relatively smooth, which indicates that there is still much room for improvement in China’s food production in terms of hunger elimination, food security and nutritional improvement, and that how to develop high-quality and high-efficiency agriculture and increase the output of food units is an urgent problem to be solved by each province.

Comparison of the average efficiency of the two phases by province from 2016 to 2020.

Average efficiency values for the two phases in each province from 2016 to 2020.

Specifically, there are large gaps in the efficiency of agricultural production in China's provinces, which can be roughly categorized into three types: the first type has an efficiency value of 1, realizing the DEA is effective, and is filled in green in Fig.  4 ; the second type has an efficiency value between 1 and the average, and is filled in yellow in Fig.  4 ; and the third type has an efficiency value below the average, and is filled in red in Fig.  4 .

In the first stage, the first category is Shanghai, Shandong, Tianjin, Beijing and other 15 provinces, whose agricultural production efficiency values are all 1, at the meta-frontier, and these provinces rely on a solid economic foundation and sound agricultural infrastructure to realize the optimal efficiency of effective inputs and outputs; the second category is Guangxi, Hubei, Sichuan, and Liaoning, whose agricultural production efficiencies are higher than the national average and close to the meta-frontier; the third category consists of 10 provinces such as Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Heilongjiang, etc., whose economic development is relatively slow, meteorological conditions are poor, agricultural production is susceptible to meteorological disasters, and the efficiency of agricultural production is below the average level, among which the value of Gansu’s agricultural production efficiency is the lowest, 0.496.

In the second stage, the first category includes seven provinces, including Yunnan, Tianjin, Beijing, and Ningxia, which either have higher economic levels or better climatic conditions, and have the highest efficiency in eradicating hunger, achieving food security, and improving nutrition, with an efficiency value of 1; the second category includes eight provinces, including Shanghai, Chongqing, Jilin, and Shaanxi, which have an efficiency in eradicating hunger, achieving food security, and improving nutrition higher than the national average, and are close to the meta-frontier; the third category includes 14 provinces, including Fujian, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Guangxi, which are below the national average, among which Sichuan has the lowest efficiency value of 0.1, which is evident that Sichuan, as a “Heavenly Grain Silo,” is more likely to speed up the realization of mechanization and digital development to improve comprehensive grain production capacity.

In summary, provinces with high efficiency values in agricultural production and in eradicating hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition can be categorized into two groups, one of which is the developed and coastal provinces with good economic and climatic conditions, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Hainan, can enhance agricultural sustainable efficiency and actively promote the sustainable development of the agricultural economy; the other category is the provinces with relatively backward economic development, including Yunnan, Ningxia, Qinghai, Heilongjiang and other central and western regions, although their development is relatively late and low, they have unique climatic conditions, geographic conditions, ecological conditions, and other resource advantages, which bring opportunities for sustainable agricultural development in the central and western regions. As for the provinces with lower efficiency values for agricultural production and hunger eradication, reaching food security and improving nutrition, they are not only affected by the level of economic development and ecological conditions such as climate and environment, but also by the level of urbanization, such as Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other eastern coastal provinces with a high level of urbanization will also face pressure on the supply of agricultural products as the sown area of crops continues to decrease due to a combination of factors such as the occupation of arable land by construction sites as well as abandonment of land.

Comparative analysis of output indicator efficiency in the regions

Taking rainfall as an exogenous variable into account, the efficiency of the number of foodborne diseases patients and improving nutrition showed a higher pattern in the eastern and western regions and a lower pattern in the central region. Table 2 shows the efficiency values of each output indicator for 2016–2020. From 2016 to 2020, the efficiency of these two output indicators in the eastern and western regions showed an upward trend, while that in the central region showed a downward trend. It shows that the contribution of agricultural production to food security in the eastern and western regions is small, and more perfect institutional measures should be formulated to ensure food security; the contribution of agricultural production to improving nutrition in the central region is relatively small, and corresponding health expenditures need to be increased to improve people's own nutritional supplements. In terms of the efficiency of the number of iodine deficiency disease patients, the efficiency in the eastern and central regions was low and showed a downward trend from 2016 to 2020, while the efficiency in the western region was high and the fluctuation was relatively small. As people in the eastern and central regions can easily buy kelp, laver and other iodine-rich foods, local residents eat iodine-rich food at high frequency and in large amounts, while in the western region, which is far from the sea, daily eating may not meet the human body's daily demand for iodine. Therefore, in order to reduce the incidence of iodine deficiency diseases caused by geographical location and dietary habits, governments in the western region need to speed up the opening of transportation channels and purchasing channels for iodized salt and iodine-rich foods.

Conclusions and policy recommendation

The key to sustainable agricultural development lies in the organic integration of ecological sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability, emphasizing the coordination between agroecological production capacity and human development. The conclusions of this paper are as follows.

First, in the total factor efficiency analysis, the average total efficiency values of the eastern, central, and western regions in each year when the exogenous variable rainfall is taken into account are higher than the corresponding average total efficiency values without considering exogenous variable rainfall. This may be due to the fact that rainfall is an important factor in the agricultural production process and the inclusion of rainfall has a more pronounced marginal effect on the increase in the total efficiency value. In addition, there is a certain difference between the average total efficiency values of the eastern and western regions regardless of whether exogenous variable rainfall is considered. Still, the difference is not very large, and all three regions maintain a similar trend of fluctuating upward. However, the average total efficiency value of the central region is still at a lower level compared to the eastern and western regions, and the fluctuations of the eastern and western regions over the 5 years are small, fluctuating between 0.75 and 0.85, while the average efficiency of the central region over the 5 years is low and fluctuates greatly, fluctuating between 0.55 and 0.70, and the fluctuations of the average efficiency in 2017–2018 are the largest, at − 0.11. Besides the average efficiency of the eastern region was slightly lower than that of the western region in 2016, the average efficiency of the three regions generally showed a decreasing hierarchy of eastern, western, and central regions one by one. In terms of the annual average total efficiency of each province, after considering the exogenous variable rainfall, the efficiency values of most provinces have improved, with Qinghai's average total efficiency rising to 1, achieving optimal input–output efficiency.. In contrast, Shandong's average efficiency ranking has declined.

Second, under the condition of considering the exogenous variable rainfall, the efficiency value in stage 1 (agricultural production stage) is significantly higher than the efficiency value in stage 2 (eliminating hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition), and the fluctuation is relatively smooth, which suggests that China's food production still has a large room for improvement, and that the focus of attention should be different in different stages. Specifically, in stage 1, the provinces with lower agricultural production efficiency values belong to the central and western inland provinces with slower economic development and poorer meteorological conditions, while in stage 2, the provinces with lower efficiency value also include the more economically developed eastern coastal provinces, such as Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, etc. The rapid population growth in the developed eastern coastal areas, coupled with the impact of the construction of arable land and the impact of a combination of factors such as the abandonment of land, crop sowing area has been decreasing, resulting in per capita arable land area is lower than the national average level. This shows that although the developed eastern coastal provinces have a better foundation for agricultural development, they are also facing enormous pressure on the supply of agricultural products and increasingly fierce competition in the future industrial development.

Third, a comparative analysis of the efficiency of output indicators by region, taking into account the exogenous variable of rainfall, reveals that the efficiency of the number of foodborne diseases patients and improving nutrition are both high in the eastern and western regions and low in the central region and that the efficiency of these two output indicators shows a rising trend in the eastern and western regions and a declining trend in the central region in the period from 2016 to 2020. In terms of the efficiency of the number of iodine deficiency disease patients, the efficiency of the eastern and central regions is low and shows a similar downward trend over the five-year period, while the efficiency of the western region is high and fluctuates relatively little, with no significant trend of change.

Through the above empirical analysis, it can be seen that rainfall, an exogenous variable, has a significant impact on the average efficiency in the eastern, central and western regions. Therefore, this paper puts forward corresponding policy recommendations on hunger eradication, food security and improving nutrition. The specific recommendations are as follows:

First, continue to strengthen the construction of agricultural infrastructure and increase the per capita arable land. All regions, especially the central and western regions, need to continue to increase investment in agriculture, build agricultural infrastructure such as water conservancy facilities, transportation facilities, and electric power facilities, promote the transformation and upgrading of old agricultural infrastructure, help the rapid development of agricultural mechanization in China, further enhance the ability to resist natural disasters, and improve agricultural output and production efficiency. In this way, the contradiction between food production and the growing rigid demand for food can be alleviated.

Second, increase policy support for green agricultural production to ensure China's food security. Due to the developed industry and serious pollution, the eastern region should pay more attention to green agricultural production. Each province shall formulate corresponding subsidy plans for green agricultural production according to the specific conditions of the province, strengthen green technology to lead the green development of agriculture, increase the enthusiasm of farmers to carry out green agricultural production, promote the promotion of green agricultural production, decrease the use of harmful fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural film, etc., to reduce agricultural pollution, so as to increase the supply of green agricultural products on the market to decrease the prevalence of foodborne diseases.

Third, promote the diversification of agricultural production and enrich people's agricultural product consumption varieties. On the one hand, each province extends local agricultural production varieties according to climate conditions and resources, rationally layout the supply structure of agricultural products, and increase policies to encourage farmers to carry out diversified agricultural production. On the other hand, some regions are limited by resource endowments and cannot expand the types of agricultural production, so it is necessary to speed up the construction of infrastructure such as logistics and preservation, improve the system of connecting production and marketing of agricultural products, enrich the "vegetable basket" of people in these regions with poor agricultural resources, and meet people's diversified consumption demand for agricultural products. In addition, nutrition guidance, publicity and education should be strengthened to raise people's awareness of rational diet and nutritious diet.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

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Jiang, S., Chen, S., Xiao, Q. et al. Research on food security issues considering changes in rainfall. Sci Rep 14 , 19698 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-70803-x

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Environment and food safety: a novel integrative review

Shanxue jiang.

1 School of Ecology and Environment, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, 100048 China

2 State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Food Chain Pollution Control, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, 100048 China

3 Key Laboratory of Cleaner Production and Integrated Resource Utilization of China National Light Industry, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, 100048 China

4 Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083 China

Huijiao Wang

5 School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing, 100083 China

Zhiliang Yao

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Environment protection and food safety are two critical issues in the world. In this review, a novel approach which integrates statistical study and subjective discussion was adopted to review recent advances on environment and food safety. Firstly, a scientometric-based statistical study was conducted based on 4904 publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database. It was found that the research on environment and food safety was growing steadily from 2001 to 2020. Interestingly, the statistical analysis of most-cited papers, titles, abstracts, keywords, and research areas revealed that the research on environment and food safety was diverse and multidisciplinary. In addition to the scientometric study, strategies to protect environment and ensure food safety were critically discussed, followed by a discussion on the emerging research topics, including emerging contaminates (e.g., microplastics), rapid detection of contaminants (e.g., biosensors), and environment friendly food packaging materials (e.g., biodegradable polymers). Finally, current challenges and future research directions were proposed.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-021-16069-6.

Introduction

Environment and food safety have been two important topics in the world (Zhang et al. 2015 ; Bilal and Iqbal 2020 ; Liu et al. 2020b ; Song et al. 2020 ; Ye et al. 2020 ; Qin et al. 2021 ). Human activities have posed great threats on environment and food safety. For example, due to the intensive use of disposable masks which are mainly made of non-biodegradable polymers, massive amount of waste is produced. In fact, environment and food safety are closely intercorrelated (He et al. 2016 ; Sagbara et al. 2020 ). As shown in Figure ​ Figure1, 1 , on the one hand, food safety is strongly affected by environment (Lu et al. 2015 ). Contaminants from polluted soil, water, and air could migrate into crops, vegetables, fish, animals, and so on (Lu et al. 2015 ; Sun et al. 2017 ; Li et al. 2020a ). On the other hand, in order to ensure food safety and quality, various processing procedures are carried out, which increase the burden on the environment and even cause environmental pollution (Yao et al. 2020 ). For example, food processing industry produces a huge amount of wastewater (Li et al. 2019 ; Ahmad et al. 2020 ; Akansha et al. 2020 ; Boguniewicz-Zablocka et al. 2020 ). If the wastewater is discharged into rivers directly, the rivers will be polluted. As food industry wastewater typically contains high concentrations of organic matters, eutrophication can easily take place (Feng et al. 2021 ; Jiang et al. 2021 ). In addition, food packaging materials are widely used as food containers and to preserve food from decay (Vitale et al. 2018 ; Wohner et al. 2020 ; Zeng et al. 2021 ). When the food is consumed, a mass of packaging waste is produced, which will cause environmental problems if not disposed properly (Poyatos-Racionero et al. 2018 ; Bala et al. 2020 ; Brennan et al. 2020 ; Liu et al. 2020a ). However, plastics, as one of the most commonly used packaging materials, cannot be disposed easily and can exist in the environment for hundreds of years (Barnes 2019 ; Chen et al. 2021b ; Mulakkal et al. 2021 ; Patrício Silva et al. 2021 ).

Illustration of the relationship between environment and food safety and their impacts on human health

Environment and food safety have strong impacts on human health (Fung et al. 2018 ; Gallo et al. 2020 ). Many studies are conducted to investigate the migration of contaminants from the environment to food, and finally to human beings. For example, it is reported that heavy metals in the aquatic environment can migrate into fishes via bioaccumulation and bioconcentration (Baki et al. 2018 ; Korkmaz et al. 2019 ; Arisekar et al. 2020 ). When these polluted fishes are consumed, the heavy metals will migrate into human bodies (Saha et al. 2016 ; Gholamhosseini et al. 2021 ). Although the concentrations of heavy metals in the fishes are usually below the maximum allowed level (Velusamy et al. 2014 ; Safiur Rahman et al. 2019 ), the fact that humans are at the top of the food chain cannot be ignored. In other words, as there are various food sources for human beings, the heavy metals in our bodies could accumulate and finally reach a level that causes serious health risks, such as cancer (Badamasi et al. 2019 ; Yu et al. 2020a ). In addition to the common types of contaminants (e.g., heavy metals, pesticides, pathogen, particulate matter), there are also some emerging types of contaminants (e.g., microplastics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals), and more efforts are needed to study their effects on human health (Aghilinasrollahabadi et al. 2020 ; Li et al. 2020b ; Zhang et al. 2020 ).

Given the importance of environment and food safety, it is not surprising that a lot of related studies have been published, including many review studies. For example, Qin et al ( 2021 ) reviewed the effects of heavy metals in soil on food safety in China and discussed the sources (e.g., pesticides, fertilizers, vehicle emissions, coal combustion, sewage irrigation, mining) and remediation strategies (e.g., soil amendments, phytoremediation, foliar sprays). Suhani et al. (Suhani et al. 2021 ) reviewed the effects of cadmium pollution on food safety and human health with a focus on the mechanisms (e.g., cellular or molecular alterations). Deshwal et al. (Deshwal and Panjagari 2020 ) reviewed the effects of metal-based packaging materials on food safety and health issues (e.g., bisphenol A migration, metal migration, dissolution, blackening, and corrosion). Sun et al. (Sun et al. 2017 ) reviewed the relationship between air pollution and food security with a focus on the food system (e.g., the effect of agricultural policy on food security). However, most of these review studies only focus on certain subfields (Ayelign and De Saeger 2020 ; Endersen and Coffey 2020 ; Imathiu 2020 ; Nelis et al. 2020 ; Singh et al. 2020a ). In addition, most of these reviews are based solely on the subjective experiences of the researchers in the related fields. In the age of big data, it is necessary to give a timely update on the research of environment and food safety through objective data analysis. The scientometric-based statistical method provides a powerful tool to disclose research trends and progress on certain research areas through data analysis of published documents. However, although there are already quite a few scientometric studies on other research areas (Jiang et al. 2018 ; Li et al. 2018 ; Kamali et al. 2020 ; Khalaj et al. 2020 ; Zakka et al. 2021 ; Zeb et al. 2021 ; Ni et al. 2021 ), the scientometric studies on environment and food safety are very limited. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide an integrative review on environment and food safety via objective statistical analysis coupled with subjective review on strategies to protect the environment and ensure food safety, followed by a discussion on emerging research topics.

A scientometric review

As shown in Figure ​ Figure2, 2 , during the past 20 years, there were nearly 5000 publications on the topic of environment and food safety (detailed method was provided in the Supplementary Information ). From 2001 to 2020, there was a steady increase in publications every year. Meanwhile, it was indicated that the increase in research output slowed down in 2020, possibly due to the terrible coronavirus pandemic which suspended researchers’ lab work. In terms of document types, the 4904 publications were categorized into 10 types, where research article, review, and proceedings paper were the top three, accounting for 73.23%, 16.54%, and 13.09% of the total publications, respectively (Supplementary Table 1 ). In terms of languages, most of the documents were published in English, accounting for 96.76% of the total publications (Supplementary Table 2 ). The following languages were German (0.67%), Chinese (0.57%), Portuguese (0.43%), Spanish (0.41%), French (0.39%), etc. The language analysis revealed that a SCIE journal is not necessarily an English journal. For example, among the journals included in the data, the SCIE journal Berliner und Munchener Tierarztliche Wochenschrift publishes research results in German, and the SCIE journal Progress in Chemistry publishes research results in Chinese. To be available to researchers from all over the world, an English version of the titles, keywords, and abstracts of these publications are also provided. However, as the main text is not written in English, the impact of these publications is usually limited to the local research community, i.e., the papers written in German is normally only read by German researchers while the papers written in Chinese is normally only read by Chinese researchers.

Number of publications per year and cumulative number of publications from 2001 to 2020

In terms of journals, about 165 journals published at least 5 papers, and the total papers published in these journals accounted to about half of the total publications (more details are provided in supplementary data ). Furthermore, as shown in Figure ​ Figure3, 3 , the total papers published in the top 20 most publishing journals accounted to about one-fourth of the total publications. These results revealed that the research on environment and food safety is of broad interest.

Number of publications and cumulative percentage of the top 20 most publishing journals

In terms of publishing countries/regions, more than 100 countries/regions contributed to these publications (more details are provided in supplementary data ). Especially, more than 50 countries/regions contributed at least 20 publications to the research on environment and food safety during the past 20 years. These results again revealed that the research on environment and food safety is of global interest. As shown in Figure ​ Figure4, 4 , in terms of research output, the USA and China were leading the research on environment and food safety. Specifically, among the countries/regions, the USA was undoubtedly the most publishing country, which accounted for nearly one-fourth of the total publications. The runner-up was China, which contributed to around 15% of the total publications. However, it does not mean that the USA and China have contributed to around 40% of the total publications because many papers are published as a result of collaborations among several countries.

Number of publications and corresponding percentage of the top 20 most publishing countries/regions

Generally, over 400 research institutes had contributed at least 5 publications to the research on environment and food safety, and nearly 50 research institutes published at least 20 papers during the past 20 years (more details are provided in supplementary data ). The top 20 most publishing research institutes were summarized in Table ​ Table1. 1 . Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which ranked the first place based on number of publications, is the largest cluster of research institutes in China. The research conducted by CAS is quite diverse and multidisciplinary. Especially, the research on environment and food safety is loosely conducted by different CAS research institutes, including but are not limited to Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES), Institute of Urban Environment, and Institute of Soil Science. For example, researchers from RCEES found that water pollution and soil pollution had serious effect on food safety and human health (Lu et al. 2015 ). The next one, USDA ARS, short for United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, is a leading research institute in the USA focusing on food safety and human health from the aspect of agriculture. Similarly, US FDA is short for United States Food and Drug Administration and is exclusively focusing on food and drug-related research so as to protect public health. INRA, short for French National Institute of Agronomic Research, is a very famous research institute in Europe focusing on agricultural research. Similarly, Istituto Superiore di Sanità is a leading research institute in Italy focusing on public health. In addition to the above 5 research institutes, the remaining 15 research institutes are all universities, and their research on environment and food safety is mainly conducted by the related departments or research centers of the universities. For examples, the Department of Food Technology, Food Safety and Health at Ghent University (located in Belgium) is renowned for its state-of-the-art research on food technology, food microbiology, food chemistry, food safety, etc. Similarly, Wageningen University (located in Netherlands) has a research institute named Wageningen Food Safety Research. Another two European universities were both from Denmark, namely University of Copenhagen and Technical University of Denmark. The Department of Food Science at University of Copenhagen and the National Food Institute at Technical University of Denmark are mainly responsible for food-related research. Besides, there were also two universities from China (i.e., China Agricultural University and Zhejiang University) and one university from Canada (i.e., University of Guelph). The remaining 8 universities all came from the USA, accounting for over half of the universities in the top 20 most publishing research institutes, which corresponded well with the above countries/regions analysis.

The top 20 most publishing research institutes

Table ​ Table2 2 summarized the top 20 most-cited articles on environment and food safety. As revealed by Table ​ Table2, 2 , the research on environment and food safety is diverse, and there are quite a few research directions which received a lot of attention. Generally, the research topics disclosed by the most cited papers included food inspection/detection technique, heavy metal pollution, food additives, food packaging, food allergy, food pesticide, foodborne pathogen and diseases, microplastics, food processing, and production. Various food inspection/detection techniques have been reported, including electrochemical strategies to detect gallic acid in food (Badea et al. 2019 ), thermal imaging technique coupled with chemometrics (Mohd Ali et al. 2020 ), paper-based analysis device for rapid food safety detection (Qi et al. 2020 ), line-scan spatially offset Raman spectroscopy technique for subsurface inspection of food (Qin et al. 2017 ), surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for detection of mycotoxins in food (Wu et al. 2021b ), chromatography, and mass spectrometry (Pauk et al. 2021 ; Suman et al. 2021 ). In addition, heavy metal pollution has posed great threats on food safety, and a lot of studies are conducted, including the soil heavy metal pollution and food safety (Qin et al. 2021 ) and the impacts of various heavy metals (e.g., cadmium, lead, arsenic) on food safety and human health (Corguinha et al. 2015 ; Suhani et al. 2021 ). Furthermore, there are a variety of food additives used in different situations. For example, feed additives such as antibiotics have been used in animal nutrition; however, the use of antibiotics can cause antimicrobial resistance which can further increase the morbidity and mortality of diseases (Silveira et al. 2021 ). Therefore, as will be discussed below, laws and regulations are needed to strictly control the use of food additives. Furthermore, foodborne pathogen also has strong impacts on food safety. As an effective way to kill or inhibit foodborne pathogen, antimicrobial food packaging is gaining growing research interest in recent years (Woraprayote et al. 2018 ; Motelica et al. 2020 ; Alizadeh-Sani et al. 2021 ).

Summary of the top 20 most-cited papers

TC , total citations; the TC data was collected based on Web of Science core collection; PY , publishing year

As shown in Supplementary Figure 1 and Supplementary Figure 2 , food, safety, and environment were the top three most common words in titles. The following ones were assessment, health, risk, and environmental. It is well known that environmental pollution can pose risks on food safety and finally threatens human health. A further analysis revealed that a lot of studies were related to risk assessment, such as risk assessment of antimicrobial resistance (Likotrafiti et al. 2018 ; Pires et al. 2018 ), risk assessment of heavy metals (Yasotha et al. 2020 ), risk assessment of pesticide (Frische et al. 2014 ), risk assessment of veterinary drugs (Tsai et al. 2019 ), environmental risk assessment (More et al. 2020 ), and health risk assessment (Akhbarizadeh et al. 2020 ). The next one was efficacy, which was usually combined together with safety, such as safety and efficacy of feed additives (Bampidis et al. 2020 ). Besides, Listeria monocytogenes was intensively studied by researchers (Anast et al. 2020 ; Kawacka et al. 2020 ; Wu et al. 2020b ). Another common word was analysis, such as analysis of herbicide (Pan et al. 2020 ), analysis of bacteria (Kang et al. 2020 ), and analysis of microplastics (Primpke et al. 2020 ). Other common research topics revealed by title analysis included but are not limited to food quality, food production, food processing, food additive, food contamination, detection of food contaminants, food microbiology, environmental impact, as well as water, soil, animal, fish, meat, and dairy.

The top 20 most used keywords were listed in Table ​ Table3 3 (more details are provided in supplementary data ). It could be seen that microbiology was closely related to food safety, and a lot of studies were conducted on Listeria monocytogenes, biofilm, salmonella, and antibiotic resistance. In addition, additives, such as zootechnical additives and nutritional additives, were also intensively investigated by researchers. Other topics included aquaculture, poultry, and agriculture. Another keyword worth mentioning was food security. Food security is different with food safety. Briefly, food security is a more inclusive term and focuses more on the availability of food while food safety is about the quality of food. On the other hand, food security and food safety are closely related to each other (Vipham et al. 2020 ). For instance, if food security becomes a big issue, then usually food safety is not guaranteed, and vice versa. Generally, the results revealed by keywords analysis were in consistent with the above title and keywords analysis.

The top 20 most used keywords

The keywords network graph revealed some interesting results. As shown in Figure ​ Figure5, 5 , the network had three centers, namely the “ food safety ”-centered network, the “ safety ”-centered network and the “ efficacy ”-centered network. Interestingly, the “ safety ”-centered network and the “ efficacy ”-centered network were closely related, while they were relatively unrelated with the “ food safety ”-centered network. Furthermore, the results again uncovered that food safety involved many aspects, many of which were already discussed above.

Keywords network graph. Keywords whose cooccurrence exceeded 10 times were connected with lines

The publications in this study were divided into over 200 Web of Science categories (more details are provided in supplementary data ). The top 20 Web of Science categories were shown in Figure ​ Figure6. 6 . Undoubtedly, the Food Science & Technology category ranked the first place, followed by the Environment Sciences category. As revealed by Figure ​ Figure6, 6 , food safety was closely related to microbiology, chemistry, and agriculture. Microorganisms such as foodborne pathogens pose great threats on food safety and a lot of studies are focusing on it. For instance, Lin et al (Lin et al. 2021 ) studied the role of Salmonella Hessarek, an emerging foodborne pathogen, in egg safety. Anyogu et al. (Anyogu et al. 2021 ) reviewed the microorganisms and indigenous fermented foods with a focus on microbial food safety hazards. Van Boxstael et al. ( 2013 ) studied the impacts of bacterial pathogens and viruses on food safety in the fresh produce chain. Also, a lot of studies are focusing on food safety and chemistry, such as untargeted food chemical safety assessment (Delaporte et al. 2019 ), chemical safety of recycled food packaging (Geueke et al. 2018 ), and chemical food safety hazards of sausages (Halagarda et al. 2018 ). Furthermore, studies on food safety and agriculture include but are not limited to chemical and biological risks in urban agriculture (Buscaroli et al. 2021 ), biosensors for sustainable agriculture and food safety (Griesche and Baeumner 2020 ), agricultural soil contamination, and the impact on food safety (Wang et al. 2019b ). In addition, the Materials Science category was also on the top list, which indicated that materials are also important research directions in environment and food safety. A further analysis revealed the common materials studied by researchers, including biomaterials, food packaging materials, biodegradable materials, coating materials, sensors and biosensors for food detection, and nanoparticles. The research area analysis showed similar results with Web of Science categories (Supplementary Table 3 ).

Number of publications and corresponding percentage of the top 20 Web of Science categories

Strategies to protect environment and ensure food safety

The above scientometric analysis revealed that the studies on environment and food safety were diversified and multidisciplinary. Further analysis of the above results disclosed the challenges and strategies to protect environment and ensure food safety. As discussed earlier, environment and food safety are closely related to each other. It should be noted that the environment here is not limited to the broad environment (e.g., air, water, soil) which the public are familiar with. In other words, in addition to the broad environment, there are also food-related environments which exist in various processes, including but are not limited to food processing, food packaging, food transportation, food storage, and food consumption. In order to ensure food safety, contaminants/pollutants from the environmental side should be prevented from reaching the food side. An example of food chain pollution control is presented in Figure ​ Figure7. 7 . It can be seen that from growing wheat to making bread, there are a variety of processes which could cause pollution and control strategies are needed, which are summarized as follows. Firstly, from wheat growing to wheat harvesting: the pollutants/contaminants could be taken in or migrate into the wheat via contaminated soil, water, and air, and therefore strategies are needed to prevent soil, water, and air from being contaminated, such as reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers. Secondly, initial processing of wheat: after the wheat is harvested, traditionally it needs to be dried by the farmers before it is sold. During this process, contamination can easily occur if the wheat is dried directly on the road which is common in rural China. In addition, the containers of the harvested wheat are also sources of pollution which should be carefully controlled. Alternatively, the pollution can be avoided if the wheat is directly sold and transported to the flour mill from the farm without being dried by the farmers. Thirdly, during the transportation processes (e.g., from farm to flour mill, from flour mill to bread bakery, from bread bakery to supermarkets), contamination can also take place and control strategies are needed. Fourthly, during the wheat processing at the mill and bread baking at the bakery, contamination can take place due to environment exposure, insufficient frequency and quality of facility washing and cleaning, use of additives, etc. Fifthly, during the bread packaging process, the workers can be an important source of bread contamination if the bread is packed manually. Finally, when the consumers buy the bread and do not consume the bread timely, the bread can decay. Based on the above discussion, the food chain pollution control can be generally categorized into the following sections: source pollution (i.e., soil, water, air) control, pollution control during food processing, pollution control during food packaging, pollution control during transportation, pollution control during storage, and pollution control during consumption.

Demonstration of the whole food chain pollution control from wheat growing to bread consuming

Especially, based on the type of chemicals, the contaminants/pollutants can be categorized into pesticides and herbicides, heavy metals, food additives, pathogens, microplastics, antibiotics, and so on (Van Boxstael et al. 2013 ; Tóth et al. 2016 ; He et al. 2019b ; Rajmohan et al. 2019 ; Bonerba et al. 2021 ). Therefore, the corresponding strategies are to control the use of chemicals and materials which can produce these contaminates. For example, as will be discussed in the following section, microplastics come from the wide use of plastics and are receiving growing concern. In order to reduce the amount of microplastics, the use of plastics should be controlled or restricted. Based on the media of migration, these contaminants can reach at the food side via air, water, and soil. Therefore, the corresponding strategies are to remove contaminants from air, water and soil. Alternatively, strategies can be deployed to prevent these contaminants from contacting the food. For example, as will be discussed later, food packaging is a common strategy to protect food from being contaminated by the environment (Risyon et al. 2020 ). To sum up, by controlling the sources and migration routes of food contaminants, food safety can be improved. Furthermore, in order to ensure food safety, whole process monitoring techniques and platforms are necessary. A lot of studied have been conducted on food safety monitoring. For example, De Oliveira et al. ( 2021 ) proposed that environmental monitoring programs (EMPs) are necessary to ensure food safety and quality. The EMPs are used to prevent environmental contamination of the finished product, via checking the cleaning-sanitation procedures, and other environmental pathogen control programs with a range of sampling analysis. Medina et al. (Medina et al. 2019 ) proposed food fingerprints as an effective tool to monitor food safety. Weng et al. (Weng and Neethirajan 2017 ) reviewed microfluidics as an effective method to realize rapid, cost-effective, and sensitive detection of food contaminants such as foodborne pathogens, heavy metals, additives, and pesticide residues. Other monitoring methods/techniques/devices include but are not limited to pH-sensitive smart packaging films (Alizadeh-Sani et al. 2020 ), point-of-care detection devices (Wu et al. 2017 ), and real-time pathogen monitoring via a nanotechnology-based method (Weidemaier et al. 2015 ). Food safety monitoring can be done by either government officials or the relative bodies (e.g., self-monitoring), or both. Furthermore, from the time the food raw materials are being cultivated in the farmland, pasture, fishing ground or other places, to the time the food is being consumed by customers, inspecting and detecting should be deployed. This can be done by the government officials and/or the stakeholders. Although the term “inspection” and “detection” are often used as the same, here, food safety inspection is regarded as an administrative strategy, which is carried out by governmental officials to check whether the relative workers/factories/bodies have followed the food safety requirements/regulations, while food safety detection is regarded as a technique-based strategy, which is used to detect food contaminants and check whether the quality of the food meets the relative standards. Meanwhile, food safety laws need to be enacted to discourage or prevent the relative workers/factories/bodies from affecting the food safety, whether purposely or not.

On the other hand, during the process of food production, the environment can be polluted as well. For example, in order to increase crop yield, a lot of fertilizers are used, which will migrate into the soil and water bodies, and cause soil and water pollution. Therefore, the use of fertilizers should be restricted, which can be realized through agricultural innovations (Liu et al. 2021 ), government policies (van Wesenbeeck et al. 2021 ), etc. Furthermore, during food processing, a large amount of solid waste or/and wastewater are produced which can cause environmental pollution. Therefore, techniques are needed to dispose the food waste properly. Especially, food waste usually contains high amount of organic compounds and therefore falls into the category of biomass, which can be used to produce useful biochemicals like biofuels (Wainaina et al. 2018 ; Chun et al. 2019 ). For example, agro-food waste is an important source of lignocellulosic biomass; the valorization of lignocellulosic biomass is regarded as a sustainable source of energy and has the potential to replace conventional fossil fuels (Ong and Wu 2020 ; Lee and Wu 2021 ; Lee et al. 2021 ; Mankar et al. 2021 ; Zhenquan et al. 2021 ). Furthermore, the concepts of recycling and sustainable development can be deployed. For example, food packaging materials can be recycled and used again. Another example is to use cloth bags to replace plastic bags when shopping. These strategies can reduce the burden on the environment as the amount of food-related waste can be reduced. In addition, novel environment-friendly materials (e.g., biodegradable polymers) can be developed and used in food industries (Stoica et al. 2020 ; Cheng et al. 2021 ). To summarize, the above strategies to protect environment and ensure food safety are presented in Figure ​ Figure8 8 .

Emerging studies on environment and food safety

Scientometric analysis is powerful in disclosing the research trend and is relatively subjective compared to conventional type of review. However, as it is essentially a statistical study which relies on a huge amount of data, it is less effective to reveal the emerging research directions which could be ignored in the scientometric study. Therefore, it is necessary and important to carry out a subjective discussion on emerging studies on environment and food safety as an indispensable supplement (Figure ​ (Figure9 9 ).

Emerging contaminants

There are various contaminants affecting environment and food safety. Among the various types of contaminants, emerging contaminants, such as microplastics, are receiving growing concern due to their potential effects on human health (Sarker et al. 2020 ). Because of the wide application of plastics, microplastics are found almost everywhere in the environment, including soil, water, and air (Álvarez-Lopeztello et al. 2020 ; Chen et al. 2020 ; Wang et al. 2021c ). For example, microplastics are reported to exist in bottled water (Zhou et al. 2021 ) and take-out food plastic containers (Du et al. 2020 ). Furthermore, researchers have found that microplastics could serve as the carrier for many other contaminants such as heavy metals and antibiotics (Zhou et al. 2019 ; Purwiyanto et al. 2020 ; Yu et al. 2020b ). Studies reveal that the ability to absorb heavy metals increase as the microplastics age (Lang et al. 2020 ). As a result, the risks of microplastics on environment, food safety, and human health could be significantly increased. However, the research on microplastics is still at an early stage, and more efforts are needed to uncover the world of microplastics. For example, there is no standard procedures to extract, identify, and quantify microplastics so results by different methods could be different and uncomparable (Kumar et al. 2020 ; Zhou et al. 2020 ). Meanwhile, due to the various sizes, shapes, forms, sources, and types of microplastics, it is difficult and time-consuming to characterize microplastics (Wu et al. 2020a ). Therefore, it is important to develop new methods for rapid and effective detection of microplastics (Li et al. 2020c ).

In addition to microplastics, there are other emerging contaminants which can have negative effects on the environment, food safety, and human health. These emerging contaminants include but are not limited to persistent organic pollutants (Titchou et al. 2021 ), antibiotics (Koch et al. 2021 ), personal care products (Scaria et al. 2021 ), pharmaceuticals (Chaturvedi et al. 2021 ), endocrine-disrupting compounds (Kasonga et al. 2021 ), and non-nutritive artificial sweeteners (Praveena et al. 2019 ). More research efforts are needed to gain a better understanding of the migration, degradation, accumulation characteristics, as well as the potential risks of these contaminants.

Rapid detection of contaminants

Not limited to the detection of microplastics, it is also necessary to develop rapid detection methods for common contaminants. For example, due to the widespread application of pesticides in agriculture, pesticide residue is becoming a serious environment and food safety issue (Farahy et al. 2021 ). Traditionally, food contaminants are detected by instrumental analysis, such as chromatography and mass spectrometry (Ye et al. 2019 ). However, the instrumental analysis process is expensive, complicated, and time-consuming (Zhang et al. 2019 ). Furthermore, the contaminants are usually in low concentration, but can accumulate gradually in human bodies via bioconcentration. Therefore, it is important to develop rapid method to detect trace-level concentration of food contaminants. Biosensor is an emerging and promising technology in detecting food contaminants such as pesticides, and a variety of biosensors have been developed in recent years (Majdinasab et al. 2018 , 2019 ). For example, Ouyang et al. (Ouyang et al. 2021 ) developed a sensitive biosensor to detect carbendazim pesticide residues based on luminescent resonance energy transfer from aptamer-labelled upconversion nanoparticles to manganese dioxide nanosheets. Capobianco et al. (Capobianco et al. 2021 ) developed an enzyme-linked immunoelectrochemical biosensor to detect pathogenic bacteria in large volume food samples without subsampling. Wang et al. (Wang et al. 2019a ) developed a magnetic quantum dot-based lateral flow biosensor to detect protein toxins in food samples. Kaushal et al. (Kaushal et al. 2019 ) developed a novel biosensor using gold nanorods capped by glycoconjugates which demonstrated potential in optical detection and ablation of foodborne bacteria. Generally, a biosensor is mainly composed of a biological sensing element (also known as bioreceptor), a transducer, and an electrical output system (Santana Oliveira et al. 2019 ; Majdinasab et al. 2021 ). The bioreceptor will interact with the analyte, and the transducer will convert the interaction into a detectable signal, which is then processed and displayed on the output system. Common materials used in the biological element include antibodies, enzymes, nucleic acids, antigens, aptamers, whole cells, and bacteriophage (Arora et al. 2011 ; Rotariu et al. 2016 ; Griesche and Baeumner 2020 ; Singh et al. 2020b . Biosensor technology has obvious advantages compared to traditional detection technologies. It is rapid, highly sensitive and selective, accurate, relatively compact, and easy to operate (Dominguez et al. 2017 ). However, there are still some challenges to widely commercialize biosensors, such as limited lifetime of the biological sensing elements and limited range of analytes that can be detected (Di Nardo and Anfossi 2020 ). Furthermore, as a specific type of biosensor is only effective in detecting a specific type of contaminant, more efforts are needed to develop integrated biosensors which can detect different types of containments simultaneously (Majdinasab et al. 2020 ). In addition to biosensors, there are also a variety of other reported methods for rapid detection of food contaminants, such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) (Yao et al. 2021 ), optical sensors based on nanomaterials (Chen et al. 2021a ), hyperspectral imaging technology (He and Sun 2015 ), and perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) (Cai et al. 2021 ).

Environment friendly food packaging materials

As revealed above, food packaging is closely related to food safety. Although there are different kinds of food packaging materials, the non-biodegradable plastic materials (e.g., polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, polyethylene terephthalate) are the most common ones and are widely used in our daily life (Cazón and Vázquez 2021 ). However, the non-biodegradable plastic materials have caused serious environmental problems, commonly known as white pollution. Especially, because of the coronavirus pandemic, take-out food becomes more popular. As plastic materials are the most common packaging materials for take-out food, the demand for plastic materials increases dramatically. Meanwhile, plastic materials also have food safety issues. It is found that the monomer residues used to make plastic polymers could migrate into food, which could cause health problems (Pilevar et al. 2019 ). Especially, the migration rate is not only affected by the quality of these materials, but also affected by the food properties. In addition to monomer residues, additives in these plastic materials could also migrate into food, causing health risks (Hahladakis et al. 2018 ). For example, bisphenol A, a common additive used in plastics, can adversely affect human endocrine system, block normal cell function, affect thyroid hormone, affect testosterone levels, and could also possibly induce cancer (Huang et al. 2019 ; Vilarinho et al. 2019 ). Another very common additive in plastics is phthalates, which is used as plasticizer to soften the plastics. It is reported that phthalates in plastic bottles could migrate into water, and the amount of migration increases as the storage time increases (Luo et al. 2018 ). Similar to bisphenol A, phthalates can also disrupt human endocrine system and cause bad effects on human health (Wang et al. 2018 ). Not limited to bisphenol A and phthalates, there are many types of plastic additives which could migrate into food and cause food safety issues.

As the conventional non-biodegradable plastics can cause both environmental problems and food safety issues, a lot of studies are carried out to find alternatives to non-biodegradable plastics for food packaging. Biodegradable polymers are regarded as the one of the most promising alternatives for food packaging (Othman 2014 ). As its name indicates, biodegradable polymers can be decomposed by microorganisms. Common biodegradable polymers studied as food packaging materials include but are not limited to polylactic acid (PLA) (Swaroop and Shukla 2018 , 2019 ; Mohamad et al. 2020 ), polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) (Pattanayaiying et al. 2019 ), polysaccharides (such as starch (Osorio et al. 2019 ; Menzel 2020 ; Saraiva Rodrigues et al. 2020 ), cellulose (Balasubramaniam et al. 2020 ; Riaz et al. 2020 ), pectin (Nešić et al. 2018 ), chitosan (Haghighi et al. 2020 ; Priyadarshi and Rhim 2020 )), polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) such as polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) (Adeleye et al. 2020 ; Fernandes et al. 2020 ; Shahid et al. 2020 ), polycaprolactone (PCL) (Khalid et al. 2018 ; Mugwagwa and Chimphango 2020 ), and cellulose acetate (Xie and Hung 2018 ; Rajeswari et al. 2020 ).

However, in addition to high production cost, there are some critical technical challenges which must be solved so as to widely commercialize biodegradable polymers and replace conventional plastics (Pérez-Arauz et al. 2019 ). Generally, biodegradable polymers have low thermal stability, low mechanical stability, and poor barrier properties (Risyon et al. 2020 ). One way to improve its performance is to add additives during production. For example, Risyona et al. (Risyon et al. 2020 ) prepared PLA-based film using different concentrations of halloysite nanotubes as additives. They found that the PLA film with 3.0 wt.% of halloysite nanotubes demonstrated optimal properties. Dash et al. (Dash et al. 2019 ) prepared starch and pectin-based film using different concentrations of titanium dioxide nanoparticles. They found that addition of the nanoparticles could effectively improve the mechanical properties and moisture barrier properties of the films. However, similarly to conventional plastics, these additives might also migrate into food (He et al. 2019a ). Another strategy being intensively studied is polymer blending, which integrates the merits of different polymers (de Oliveira et al. 2020 ). For example, Rajeswari et al. (Rajeswari et al. 2020 ) blended polysaccharides and cellulose acetate together, and the resulting film showed improved thermal stability and tensile strength. The prepared films also demonstrated antimicrobial properties towards certain types of microorganisms. Sangroniz et al. (Sangroniz et al. 2018 ) blended poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) with poly(hydroxi amino ether), and the resulting film showed great improvement of barrier properties. However, polymer blending could also have its drawback. For example, if the blending polymers are immiscible with each other, the mechanical strength and barrier properties of the resulting materials will be affected (Corres et al. 2020 ).

Conclusions, challenges, and future research directions

In this review, a scientometric-based statistical study was firstly conducted on the research of environment and food safety, which revealed that the research on environment and food safety was growing steadily from 2001 to 2020. Interestingly, statistical analysis of the most-cited papers, titles, abstracts, keywords, and research areas revealed that the research on environment and food safety is diverse and multidisciplinary. Furthermore, strategies to protect the environment and ensure food safety are discussed, such as controlling the use of chemicals and materials which can produce environment and food contaminates, preventing these contaminants from contacting the food, developing whole process monitoring techniques and platforms, and utilizing the food waste properly. In addition, emerging research topics are discussed, such as emerging contaminants, rapid detection of contaminants, and environment friendly food packaging materials.

Although environment and food safety are receiving growing concern, there are still some very challenging issues. These challenges can be categorized into four parts. Firstly, it is challenging to eliminate environmental pollutions (Hao et al. 2018 ; Christy et al. 2021 ). Air pollution, water pollution, and soil pollution are still serious environmental problems in many parts of the world (Wu et al. 2016 , 2021a ; Rajeswari et al. 2019 ; Shen et al. 2021b ). Although a lot of studies have been carried out, the mechanisms of some pollutions (e.g., haze weather) are still unclear (Shen et al. 2020 ; Wang et al. 2021a ). Secondly, it is challenging to dispose food waste effectively and efficiently. It is reported that a substantial amount of food waste is produced along the food supply chain (Aschemann-Witzel 2016 ; Li et al. 2019 ). Especially, food wastewater typically contains very complex components, and the treatment process is very energy intensive and costly. Thirdly, it is challenging to realize whole-process monitoring of contaminants, due to the diverse contaminants during food cultivation, processing, packaging, transportation, and retailing. Fourthly, the accurate effects of environmental pollution on human health are still unclear, and it is challenging to establish procedures to accurately assess the risks of environmental pollution on human health. For example, it is well reported that ozone pollution and PM2.5 pollution can cause negative effects on human health (Guan et al. 2021 ; Shen et al. 2021a ; Wang et al. 2021b ). However, the underlying mechanisms, accurate assessment procedures, and quantitative studies are still lacking. In order to address these challenges, more research efforts are needed to (1) uncover the underlying mechanisms of contaminant formation, migration and fate; (2) develop more cost-effective and sustainable food waste treatment and utilization technologies, targeting net zero emissions; (3) develop rapid detection methods and in situ monitoring technologies for environment and food safety; and (4) establish health risk assessment models and procedures.

Supplementary information

Method of the scientometric study, percentage distribution of document types, number of publications in different languages, the top 20 research areas, word cloud generated from abstracts and titles were provided in the Supplementary Information file . The raw data and processed results were provided in the Supplementary Data file (in .xlsx format).

(DOCX 569 kb)

(XLSX 145 kb)

Author contribution

Conceptualisation: SJ and ZY; methodology: SJ; writing—original draft preparation: SJ; writing—review and editing: FW, QL, HS, HW, and ZY; supervision: ZY; funding acquisition: ZY. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

This work was supported by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education (grant no. PXM2019_014213_000007) and School Level Cultivation Fund of Beijing Technology and Business University for Distinguished and Excellent Young Scholars (grant no. BTBUYP2020).

Data availability

Declarations.

Not applicable

The authors declare no competing interests.

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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The high social and environmental costs of food in Kenya detailed in new research

• From The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
• Published on 25.08.24
• Challenges Environmental health & biodiversity

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The mention of food costs brings to mind the prices consumers pay, along with expenses producers have for seeds, labor, transport, and others. However, the true cost of food extends beyond these visible factors, encompassing deeper, often overlooked costs. IFPRI’s Research on True Cost of Food in Kenya

In a recent study, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) sought to account for the true cost of food in Kenya, focusing on Kisumu, Kajiado, and Vihiga counties, where the CGIAR Initiative on Nature-Positive Solutions is being implemented. A similar study was conducted in Vietnam.

The research employed the True Cost Accounting (TCA) methodology. TCA is the systematic measurement and valuation of environmental, social, health, and economic costs to inform sustainable choices by governments and food system stakeholders. This method delves deeper into costs that are often ignored yet critically important. Its approach is grounded in The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Agri-food Evaluation framework, which accounts for externalities generated in the use of natural, human, and social capital.

Kibui, Rachel. 

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Uk graduate student named national corn growers association research ambassador .

The National Corn Growers Association named University of Kentucky graduate student Travis Banet as a 2023-2024 Research Ambassador, one of eight students awarded nationally.

By Christopher Carney Published on Aug. 27, 2024

Earlier this year, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced eight Research Ambassadors for 2023-2024. Current University of Kentucky graduate research assistant Travis Banet in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment was selected—embarking on a corn production travel experience like no other. 

The NCGA’s Research Ambassador program, now in its third year, is designed to build a network of future leaders in the agricultural sector—selecting students who demonstrate academic excellence, leadership potential and relevant research in corn production.  

“I was excited to represent Kentucky and UK as one of eight research ambassadors selected by the National Corn Growers Association,” Banet said. “I was able to travel the country and take part in NCGA meetings to learn more about how my research, along with my future career, can better serve farmers across the country.” 

Along with receiving monetary support, research ambassadors receive fully-funded travel to participate in NCGA events throughout the year. This includes attending grower research committee meetings, conferences and congressional visits at the state or federal level. 

Banet, who grew up in a one-stoplight rural town in southern Indiana, was able to travel to St. Louis, Houston and Washington, D.C. 

The NCGA Action Team Meetings in St. Louis were the first stop for Banet, where sustainable agriculture took center stage. Banet joined in on the Sustainable Agriculture Research Action Team (SARA) and other NCGA action teams meetings. Speakers also addressed issues such as the economic feasibility and outlook for corn. Additionally, Banet got a behind-the-scenes look at how the NCGA works with Congress on political agreements such as the United States Farm Bill.

“I got to hear and listen to a lot of the country’s top experts associated with corn production,” Banet reflected. “These are not connections that I would have been able to make without the support of his research ambassadorship experience.”  

Next, Banet attended the Commodity Classic in Houston. Along with attending several panel discussions, one of the highlights for Banet was the Field to Market main speaker Zippy Duvall , president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, who spoke on how modern agriculture can be both environmentally and economically viable. 

Banet also visited the Southern States Caucus, where he got to hear state affiliates and other corn growers’ association members debate issues and policies impacting southeastern farmers. Some topics included calculating corn acreage equally across regions which can impact how farmers are paid, how the government uses land, crop insurance and more. 

“What I learned is that having a seat at the table and establishing relationships are very critical,” Banet said. “For instance, the Environment Protection Agency recently launched a new office to improve relationships with U.S. farmers and ranchers . I saw first-hand the importance of working together and across the aisle.” 

The final stop was the NCGA Corn Congress in Washington, D.C. Banet got to see how agricultural organizations operate internally and externally with the public and policymakers. In addition, Banet got to participate in procedural discussions regarding sustainability, funding and agriculture research action teams to help corn farmers. 

Banet was able to join the Kentucky Corn Growers Association in the capital building and met with staffers representing three Kentucky Congressmen including Brett Guthrie, Hal Rogers and Andy Barr. 

Additionally, Banet heard from congressional staffers about Kentucky farmers getting their needs addressed in the Farm Bill renewal. Furthermore, they spoke on important topics including farm base acreage and the Next Generation Fuels Act . 

Because of this experience, Banet said he gained more admiration for sustainable agriculture, farming, meeting people from other corn boards and the other seven research ambassadors representing other colleges.  

“I have a deeper appreciation and learned so much from other peers,” Banet said. “This experience reinforces what I want to do which is working to benefit farmers across the country. They represent a critical part of the economy and lifestyle. It’s something that we have to have, and they must succeed.” 

Hanna Poffenbarger , associate professor of soil nutrient management at Martin-Gatton CAFE, leads the UK Agroecosystem Nutrient Cycling Research Group and has mentored Banet since he began his graduate research studies in 2020. 

“Travis has been studying how corn plants, especially corn root systems, have changed due to breeding and how these changes affect soil health,” Poffenbarger said. “His knowledge and appreciation of corn, along with his outstanding communication skills, made him the ideal candidate for this corn research ambassador experience. This opportunity helped prepare him for the next phase of his career.” 

After graduation, Banet remains focused on using his research in graduate school and experiences as a NCGA ambassador to help more farmers improve their ability to apply nutrients to get high quality grain yield and promote environmental sustainability. Banet is slated to graduate from the University of Kentucky in May of 2025. 

The Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment is an Equal Opportunity Organization with respect to education and employment and authorization to provide research, education information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function without regard to economic or social status and will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, marital status, genetic information, age, veteran status, physical or mental disability or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity.

Contact: Travis Banet, [email protected]    Media Requests: C.E. Huffman, [email protected]

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Can microbes that devour plastic waste be transformed into food for humans?

By Sara Talpos/Undark

Posted on Aug 22, 2024 8:33 AM EDT

7 minute read

This article was originally featured on Undark .

In 2019, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense released  a call  for research projects to help the military deal with the copious amount of plastic waste generated when troops are sent to work in remote locations or disaster zones. The agency wanted a system that could convert food wrappers and water bottles, among other things, into usable products, such as fuel and rations. The system needed to be small enough to fit in a Humvee and capable of running on little energy. It also needed to harness the power of plastic-eating microbes.

“When we started this project four years ago, the ideas were there. And in theory, it made sense,” said Stephen Techtmann, a microbiologist at Michigan Technological University, who leads one of the three research groups receiving funding. Nevertheless, he said, in the beginning, the effort “felt a lot more science-fiction than really something that would work.”

That uncertainty was key. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, supports high-risk, high-reward projects. This means there’s a good chance that any individual effort will end in failure. But when a project does succeed, it has the potential to be a true scientific breakthrough. “Our goal is to go from disbelief, like, ‘You’re kidding me. You want to do what?’ to ‘You know, that might be actually feasible,’” said Leonard Tender, a program manager at DARPA who is overseeing the plastic waste projects.

The problems with plastic production and disposal are well known. According to the United Nations Environment Program, the world creates about  440 million tons  of plastic waste per year. Much of it ends up in  landfills  or in the ocean, where  microplastics ,  plastic pellets , and  plastic bags  pose a threat to wildlife. Many governments and experts agree that solving the problem will require  reducing  production, and some countries and U.S. states have additionally introduced  policies  to encourage recycling.

For years,  scientists  have also been  experimenting  with  various species  of  plastic-eating bacteria . But DARPA is taking a slightly different approach in seeking a compact and mobile solution that uses plastic to create something else entirely: food for humans.

The goal, Techtmann hastens to add, is  not  to feed people plastic. Rather, the hope is that the plastic-devouring microbes in his system will themselves prove fit for human consumption. While Techtmann believes most of the project will be ready in a year or two, it’s this food step that could take longer. His team is currently doing toxicity testing, and then they will submit their results to the Food and Drug Administration for review. Even if all that goes smoothly, an additional challenge awaits. There’s an ick factor, said Techtmann, “that I think would have to be overcome.”

The military isn’t the only entity working to turn microbes into nutrition. From Korea to Finland, a small number of researchers, as well as some companies, are exploring whether microorganisms might one day help feed the world’s growing population.

According to Tender, DARPA’s call for proposals was aimed at solving two problems at once. First, the agency hoped to reduce what he called supply-chain vulnerability: During war, the military needs to transport supplies to troops in remote locations, which creates a safety risk for people in the vehicle. Additionally, the agency wanted to stop using  hazardous burn pits  as a means of dealing with plastic waste. “Getting those waste products off of those sites responsibly is a huge lift,” Tender said.

The Michigan Tech system begins with a mechanical shredder, which reduces the plastic to small shards that then move into a reactor, where they soak in ammonium hydroxide under high heat. Some plastics, such as PET, which is commonly used to make disposable water bottles, break down at this point. Other plastics used in military food packaging — namely polyethylene and polypropylene — are passed along to another reactor, where they are subject to much higher heat and an absence of oxygen.

Under these conditions, the polyethylene and polypropylene are converted into compounds that can be upcycled into fuels and lubricants. David Shonnard, a chemical engineer at Michigan Tech who oversaw this component of the project, has developed a startup company called Resurgent Innovation to commercialize some of the technology. (Other members of the research team, said Shonnard, are pursuing additional patents related to other parts of the system.)

After the PET has broken down in the ammonium hydroxide, the liquid is moved to another reactor, where it is consumed by a colony of microbes. Techtmann initially thought he would need to go to a highly contaminated environment to find bacteria capable of breaking down the deconstructed plastic. But as it turned out, bacteria from compost piles worked really well. This may be because the deconstructed plastic that enters the reactor has a similar molecular structure to some plant material compounds, he said. So the bacteria that would otherwise eat plants can perhaps instead draw their energy from the plastic.

After the bacteria consume the plastic, the microbes are then dried into a powder that smells a bit like nutritional yeast and has a balance of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, said Techtmann.

Research into edible microorganisms dates back at least 60 years, but the body of evidence is decidedly small. (One  review  estimated that since 1961, an average of seven papers have been published per year.) Still, researchers in the field say there are good reasons for countries to consider microbes as a food source. Among other things, they are rich in protein, wrote Sang Yup Lee, a bioengineer and senior vice president for research at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, in an email to Undark.  Lee  and  others  have noted that growing microbes requires less land and water than conventional agriculture. Therefore, they might prove to be a more sustainable source of nutrition, particularly as the human population grows.

Lee reviewed  a paper  describing the microbial portion of the Michigan Tech project, and said that the group’s plans are feasible. But he pointed out a significant challenge: At the moment, only certain microorganisms are considered safe to eat, namely “those we have been eating thorough fermented food and beverages, such as lactic acid bacteria, bacillus, some yeasts.” But these don’t degrade plastics.

Before using the plastic-eating microbes as food for humans, the research team will submit evidence to regulators indicating that the substance is safe. Joshua Pearce, an electrical engineer at Western University in Ontario, Canada, performed the initial toxicology screening, breaking the microbes down into smaller pieces, which they compared against known toxins.

“We’re pretty sure there’s nothing bad in there,” said Pearce. He added that the microbes have also been fed to C. elegans roundworms without apparent ill-effects, and the team is currently looking at how rats do when they consume the microbes over the longer term. If the rats do well, then the next step would be to submit data to the Food and Drug Administration for review.

At least a  handful of companies  are in various stages of commercializing new varieties of edible microbes. A Finnish startup,  Solar Foods , for example, has taken a bacterium found in nature and created a powdery product with a mustard brown hue that has been  approved  for use in Singapore. In an email to Undark, chief experience officer Laura Sinisalo said that the company has applied for approval in the E.U. and the U.K., as well as in the U.S., where it hopes to enter the market by the end of this year.

Even if the plastic-eating microbes turn out to be safe for human consumption, Techtmann said, the public might still balk at the prospect of eating something nourished on plastic waste. For this reason, he said, this particular group of microbes might prove most useful on remote military bases or during disaster relief, where it could be consumed short-term, to help people survive.

“I think there’s a bit less of a concern about the ick factor,” said Techtmann, “if it’s really just, ‘This is going to keep me alive for another day or two.’”

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Transformation of the Development Model for Kemerovo Oblast as a Resource Territory

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• Published: 16 December 2020
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In Kemerovo oblast—the Kuzbass—together with the change in regional power, the Strategy for the Socioeconomic Development until 2035 (Kuzbass-2035) was developed and adopted. The main drivers of the region’s development are the reindustrialization policy, accelerated rates of socioeconomic growth, and widespread clustering. The idea of a “two-year leap” (2018–2019) was also announced. The Kuzbass, according to the authors of the strategy, should be the leading region outside the Urals in terms of development rates and standard of living. At the same time, this rationale is neither based on the economic realities prevailing in the region or the assessment of its competitiveness. The authors of the article put forward a hypothesis that all Kuzbass development strategies over the past two decades have failed due to the discrepancy between the resource character of the region and its applied development models. The aim of the article is to select models for the development of Kemerovo oblast and to formulate proposals for their transformation and synchronization with the developed regional development strategy. The results of the study can be used for managing Kemerovo oblast, especially in the development and implementation of mechanisms for harmonizing the interests of business, society, and government.

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Friedman, Y.A., Rechko, G.N. & Loginova, E.Y. Transformation of the Development Model for Kemerovo Oblast as a Resource Territory. Reg. Res. Russ. 10 , 467–475 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079970520040048

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Kemerovo Oblast—Kuzbass is situated in southern central Russia. Krasnoyarsk Krai and Khakasiya lie to the east, Tomsk Oblast to the north, Novosibirsk Oblast to the west, and Altai Krai and the Republic of Altai to the south-west. Kemerovo was founded in 1918 as Shcheglovsk. It became the administrative centre of the Oblast upon its formation on 26 January 1943. The city is at the centre of Russia’s principal coal mining area. In 1998 Tuleyev signed a framework agreement with the federal Government on the delimitation of powers, which was accompanied by 10 accords aimed at strengthening the regional economy. The Oblast’s main industrial centres are at Kemerovo, Novokuznetsk, Prokopyevsk, Kiselyovsk and Leninsk-Kuznetskii. Kemerovo Oblast’s agriculture consists mainly of potato and grain production, animal husbandry and beekeeping. The Oblast is the largest producer of coal among the federal subjects, and a principal producer of steel.

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Cabinet approves scheme to boost biotech manufacturing

Internships would be arranged for students in the 11th and 12th grades and fellowships for research at the graduate and post-graduate level.

Updated - August 24, 2024 09:08 pm IST

Published - August 24, 2024 08:21 pm IST - New Delhi

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw addressing the media on Cabinet Decision at National Media Center on Saturday. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

The Union Cabinet on Saturday (August 24, 2024) cleared a proposal to bolster biotechnology-based manufacturing, called BioE3 (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment) Policy for Fostering High Performance Biomanufacturing. To be steered by the Department of Biotechnology, the aim is to have it catalyse a technology revolution “just as the IT industry revolutionised life in the 1990s”, an internal note viewed by The Hindu said.

A financial outlay wasn’t specified for the programme. High performance biomanufacturing is the ability to produce products from medicine to materials, address farming and food challenges, and promote manufacturing of bio-based products through integration of advanced biotechnological processes.

Also Read: Planning for a biosecure future

“To address the national priorities, the BioE3 Policy would broadly focus on the following strategic/thematic sectors: high value bio-based chemicals, biopolymers & enzymes; smart proteins & functional foods; precision biotherapeutics; climate resilient agriculture; carbon capture & its utilisation; marine and space research,” a press statement from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) said.

The six thematic verticals of the policy are: bio-based chemicals and enzymes, functional foods and smart proteins, precision biotherapeutics, climate resilient agriculture, carbon capture and its utilisation, futuristic marine, and space research.

The Cabinet also merged three schemes of the Science Ministry into a single scheme, called Vigyan Dhara, which expects to spend ₹10,579 crore until ‘25-’26 on Science and Technology (S&T) Institutional and Human Capacity Building, Research and Development and, Innovation, Technology Development and Deployment, according to a note from the Ministry.

Internships would be arranged for students in the 11th and 12th grades and fellowships for research at the graduate and post-graduate level.

“The scheme endeavours to promote research in areas such as basic research with access to the international mega facilities, translational research in sustainable energy, water, etc. and collaborative research through international bilateral and multilateral cooperation. It will also contribute to building critical human resource pool to strengthen the science and technology landscape and expand the R&D base of the country towards improving the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) researcher count. Focused interventions will be taken up to enhance the participation of women in the field of Science and Technology (S&T) with the ultimate goal of bringing gender parity in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI). The scheme would reinforce the efforts of the government towards promoting innovations at all levels, starting from school level to higher education, and for the industries and start-ups through targeted interventions. Significant support will be extended to increase collaboration between academia, Government, and also with industries,” the note said. Several of these initiatives form part of the core, historic mandate of the MoST.

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