Comment

The plastic waste generated by ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is a key driver of the global plastics crisis. Recognizing the integral role of plastics in UPF production is essential to developing a more socio-ecological perspective on these food products. This Comment identifies the linkages between the rise of UPFs and the rise of plastic packaging, calling for a renewed research agenda.

Crop productivity under climate stress remains constrained by conventional agricultural approaches that underuse plant–microbiome interactions. A microbiome-centred, climate-responsive framework was proposed to enhance crop resilience and agro-sustainability by prioritizing targeted manipulation of crop-associated microbiomes, offering a scalable and adaptive pathway to buffer climate stresses and stabilize crop performance.

Artificial intelligence has recently become an invisible infrastructure shaping how knowledge is produced and applied in food systems. From data pipelines to policy modelling, artificial intelligence-mediated workflows are becoming integral to research practice. An analysis of the intersection of agricultural economics, food systems and digitalization suggests that this transformation is reshaping scientific authority, professional competence and governance in ways that demand deliberate institutional design.

Food-system resilience requires more than ecological protection — it must also centre Indigenous peoples’ rights, customs and leadership. With genuine Māori co-governance, the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Act 2025 could become a global model for integrating Indigenous peoples’ food-system justice into marine conservation.

Efforts to mitigate agricultural nitrogen pollution remain focused on the farm level. As a result, farmers bear the regulatory burden while agrifood companies are left out of mitigation discussions, despite influencing farmers’ production decisions and profiting from agricultural intensification. Closing this accountability gap requires a shift from technical reporting metrics to normative governance that holds agrifood companies accountable for nitrogen pollution in their supply chains.

Anglo-Western-dominated food environment research faces transferability challenges for improving dietary health in China and other non-Western countries. Contextualized thinking and approaches are needed to adapt data, measures and theoretical pathways to distinct spatial and sociocultural contexts. Place-specific diet and health issues must be prioritized to advance both local and global food agendas.

Despite strong evidence of dietary fibre’s health benefits and its role in reducing chronic disease risk, it is not considered to be an essential nutrient. Recognizing its essentiality and confirming reference values is a critical step to drive clinical and public health recommendations, policies and interventions.

Given the unique characteristics of the agrifood sector, a review of six potential policy paths for greenhouse gas emission reductions shows innovative green farming practices — such as alternate wetting and drying for rice and better animal feeding techniques — as the most promising and attractive path. These approaches can rapidly and substantially lower emissions, address leakage, raise farmer incomes and reduce food prices through partial repurposing of existing farm support.

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) have adverse effects on health and the environment, but comprehensive and sustained strategies to curb their intake are lacking. While several countries have implemented policies, a broad suite of effective approaches has been challenging to enact and evaluate due to insufficient administrative or political capacity and strong influence from transnational corporations. Continued research, advocacy and support are needed to successfully implement, monitor, evaluate and revise strategies to reduce SSB intakes worldwide.

Extreme heat is intensifying occupational risks across global agriculture, yet adaptation efforts remain disproportionately crop-centric. Existing frameworks largely ignore the physiological limits, economic constraints and structural exposures faced by frontline labourers. A shift towards climate-resilient mechanization, quantified health-loss integration and redistributive adaptation policy is essential to safeguard the human foundation of food systems.

Addressing nutrition and climate resilience together requires transdisciplinary participatory action research with clear impact pathways for systems change that starts from the ground up. The concept of ‘crops that nourish’ is proposed here to offer a new mode of pursuing agricultural development. It involves iterative co-creation between farmers and researchers that prioritizes local needs and agency, human health, resilience and sustainability through a focus on opportunity crops.

Food is increasingly framed as a security issue — not just as an allusion to external shocks that may put it at risk, but also as a reflection of a political agenda that prioritizes increased agricultural output rather than the systemic changes needed to create more just and sustainable food futures. European food policy must align with scientific evidence, sustainability commitments and democratic principles to create true food security.

Agriculture faces pressures from both growing demands for food production under a changing climate and the need to mitigate climate change. Deep soil management is key to achieving a solution.

Discriminatory practices are well documented and deeply rooted in food systems. Systems science methods such as social network analysis, system dynamics modelling and agent-based modelling can help to determine how discriminatory processes arise, interact and accumulate to contribute to diet-related health disparities. Such methodological approaches can reveal leverage points for advancing equity-driven solutions.

Animal welfare lacks sufficient methods for quantitative inclusion in food system impact assessments. The Welfare Footprint Framework addresses this gap, revealing that adopting slower-growing breeds can prevent at least 15–100 hours of intense pain in chickens at an estimated cost of US$1 per kilogram of meat, or US$0.00003–0.00005 for each hour using carbon externality pricing.

A safe food supply is critical to the health and future of nations. The new US administration has issued robustly worded intentions to address unsafe food ingredients, yet with voluntary proposals and conflicting priorities. Additionally, states are rapidly innovating around ingredient bans, warnings and public disclosures. A review of these federal and state actions reveals specific ways they might materially advance food ingredient safety.

Governance is key to the much-needed reorientation of food systems towards better social, environmental and economic outcomes. Yet, food system governance is fraught with competing interests, policy incoherence and power asymmetries. Here, we provide insights into whole-of-food system governance to resolve these issues and propose a governance approach informed by systems thinking that considers paradigms about who should govern food systems.

Foods and diets form the basis for preventative approaches that reduce dependence on health systems and improve human wellbeing. Current food labelling is out of step with healthy diet recommendations but could be improved by including predicted nutrient release rates alongside nutrient contents. These rates can help quantify the effects of food processing on nutritional value and identify the fraction of food-derived nutrients available for nourishing the gut microbiota.

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

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