Articles in 2025

This study applies a global food and land system modelling framework to quantify the impact of 23 food system measures on 15 outcome indicators related to public health, the environment, social inclusion and the economy—from today until 2050.

Identifying low-cost options for a healthy diet is an essential step towards allowing all people to meet their nutritional needs. This study measures the frontiers of the lowest available cost and greenhouse gas emissions for a healthy diet in 171 countries, as well as healthy diets reflecting consumption patterns in each country.

This study examines associations between sugar- and artificially sweetened beverages or proteomic signatures and adverse liver outcomes using UK Biobank data. The findings highlight the potential benefits of reducing sweetened beverage intake for liver health.

Soil organic matter stability is critical for long-term soil health and carbon sequestration. This study reveals that increased bacterial richness enhances soil organic matter thermostability by driving a trade-off between molecular diversity and thermodynamic stability.

Bovine fibroblast cell line generation without genetic modification is characterized. A technoeconomic analysis demonstrates the potential for price-competitive, scaled-up cultivated beef production.

Nanofibrils constructed from oat protein and carrying iron nanoparticles can increase absorption compared with ferrous sulfate in human studies, offering a promising fortification strategy for treating iron deficiency and improving human nutrition.

Fishmeal and oil derived from forage fish are critical vulnerabilities for stable aquaculture feed supply. A shortfall impact model and scenario analysis explores options for bridging forage fish deficits with alternative aquaculture feeds.

Consensus exists on the urgent need for food systems to be more sustainable, but defining their environmentally safe operating space is challenging. This study proposes food system boundaries as a share of planetary boundaries, defining budgets across nine boundaries and revealing where boundary transgression is most critical.

Brazil is known to supply an important share of China’s increasing demand for proteins, but the exact pressure on land and water that results from this is unclear. This study addresses this gap, focusing on soybean trade, showing the persistence of indirect deforestation associated with soy cultivation expansion.

Data from the Illuminating Hidden Harvests initiative challenge the small- versus large-scale fisheries dichotomy, identifying five global archetypes to guide targeted policy and food systems transformation.

Drought stress threatens global food security. This study shows that drought-induced changes in wheat metabolites selectively enrich drought-tolerant bacteria in the rhizosphere, which enhance plant growth through key functional traits, offering promising avenues to strengthen crop resilience and sustain food production under climate change.

Renewable-fuelled plant factories (RFPFs) offer great promise for resilient food production. This study presents a multidimensional geospatial analysis to devise RFPF deployment schemes that aim to meet the population’s dietary vegetable demand in China’s 369 city-level regions.

Research on sustainable diets has primarily focused on human and planetary health, neglecting workers in food value chains. This study quantifies the risk of forced labour embedded in five different diets in the USA, underscoring the need to integrate such risk in sustainable diet transition efforts.

Reduced dependence on wild-caught fish in favour of crop-based ingredients for feeds has supported aquaculture growth. An analysis of ingredient origins versus feed composition shows that origin must be considered to assess the environmental footprint of feed production.

The traditional structural transformation narrative emphasizes intersectoral labour reallocation out of agriculture. This study presents ten stylized facts about how employment and compensation evolve within agrifood value chains amid structural transformation, offering insights into post-farmgate dynamics and gender pay inequality.

What we eat, as well as where and how it is grown, impacts species extinction risks through agricultural land use. Using a new global biodiversity impact data product, this study estimates how many species extinctions may potentially be caused by the production and consumption of different food types on a country-by-country basis.

A scenario analysis and integrated environmental–economic model demonstrate that repurposing food waste and food processing by-products for animal feed has asymmetric effects on food security and environment sustainability.

An analysis of the EPIC study demonstrates that dietary plant biodiversity presents benefits for human and planetary health, but adverse environmental impacts are associated with dietary animal species richness.

Soil ecosystems are not only reservoirs of food-borne pathogens, but also transmitters through contaminated water and agricultural products. This study examines the survival of food-borne pathogen Escherichia coli O157:H7 across 81 natural soils from eastern China, mapping geographic survival patterns and identifying key abiotic and biotic drivers.

Nitrogen application rates for wheat production in China are ~2.5 times greater than those in the USA. Nitrogen benchmarks can guide smallholder farmers and policymakers towards improved nitrogen use efficiency.