News & Comment

Effective agriculture monitoring is vital for food security and achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger. Earth-observations (EO) offer unparalleled potential for scalable data, yet many developing nations, particularly in Africa, face challenges due to limited investments in human capacity and technology. We present a phased framework for EO-based agriculture monitoring systems, emphasizing national commitment and leveraging existing structures for long-term sustainability and adopting and adapting future advancements.

One of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), SDG 7, is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” This goal addresses the need for environmental sustainability while highlighting energy’s vital role in promoting social and economic justice. It calls for sustainable, affordable, modern, and reliable energy usage for the health and well-being of society while mitigating climate change. Here, we briefly review available literature and data to examine how renewable energy, food security, and sustainability are interconnected in Arctic countries and regions, and how these regions can “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” and progress towards achieving food self-sufficiency by integrating renewable energy sources into food production systems. We analyze several case studies to draw conclusions on how Arctic communities can become resilient, sustainable, and economically prosperous by promoting local food production while preserving cultural practices.

The discipline of agricultural science must integrate with moral philosophy to understand and overcome barriers to sustainability. It is exceptionally rare that these fields are adjoined, but doing so reveals implicit assumptions that have shaped our agricultural system and offer opportunities for solutions. Here, I explore our agricultural system through the lens of moral philosophy and propose regenerative agriculture as an integrative framework for progress towards sustainability.

Cultured meat is increasingly promoted as a silver bullet for the environmental challenges of traditional animal agriculture. However, these technologies threaten the pursuit of food sovereignty, a troubling implication for future food systems.

The Green Revolution approaches in Asia (mainly through intensification) and sub-Saharan Africa (through both intensification and extensification) greatly increased food supply in both regions with environmental costs in both settings. To curb further loss of natural ecosystems and associated land degradation, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, sustainable intensification (SI) is redefined as a process in aggregate, comprising a portfolio of interventions at global, regional, and national levels that increase food availability and reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint. To achieve universal food security, SI must be accompanied by complementary investments in market infrastructure, postharvest stewardship, healthy diets, and social protection. The complexity of the food system requires a whole-of-government, multi-sector approach to implementation, enabled by informed, responsive, and courageous leadership.

Developing new varieties of deep-rooted crops may enhance silicon uptake and agroecosystem services. This enhancement is involved in three vital ecosystem processes: (i) increasing crop silicon uptake in deep horizons where it is more readily available as Si(OH₄), (ii) contributing to storing more stable organic carbon at depth via root decomposition and deep pedogenic pathways, and (iii) accelerating CO₂ transformation into stored or leached alkalinity via deep silicate weathering.

This paper is a call to action. By publishing concurrently across journals like an emergency bulletin, we are not merely making a plea for awareness about climate change. Instead, we are demanding immediate, tangible steps that harness the power of microbiology and the expertise of researchers and policymakers to safeguard the planet for future generations.

By maintaining stress factors under optimal low-dose levels, plant performance and productivity can be increased and postharvest produce quality can be improved. Hence, for a sustainable food production, plant stress should not be feared but systematically monitored and embraced. Numerous chemicals as well as stressors have both favorable and unfavorable consequences for plant performance and health in a dose-dependent manner, and here we discuss implications of these phenomena for the practice of sustainable agriculture.

Climate-smart rice (CSR) is the need of the hour to sustainably increase rice production, but most CSR practices and technologies have not yet taken hold. Here we have outlined the main barriers to CSR adoption, explained the key dimensions, and prioritized suitable CSR production technologies. A viable strategy for CSR production is realized through integrated agronomic management, co-cropping, and breeding rice for climate resilience, high yields, and low methane emissions.

Society is increasingly aware of the connection between the health of the land, of animals and of humans. Visions of ‘foodscapes’ and ‘healthscapes’ are eclipsing the conventional view of landscapes focussed solely on production. Livestock production farming systems must co-evolve with this thinking. Lincoln University has designed and is implementing the Integral Health Dairy Farm (IHDF) to test and communicate these new and transformational systems views. Its objective is to innovate, to demonstrate and to manage a tangible transition from current practices to a system designed to enhance health, from the ground up. This includes measured improvements in soil, plant, animal, human and community health. In this ‘comment’, we focus on applied scientific integration of the ‘One health approach’ into agricultural systems of livestock, presenting our initial design and prototyping processes, as well as how it continues as the project moves from the drawing board to implementation, benefiting from a growing network of supporters and collaborators.

Abnormal weather at harvest time results in wheat lodging and post-harvest sprouting in China’s main wheat-producing areas. Measures such as promoting resistant varieties, using mechanical equipment for harvesting, spraying agents to prevent sprouting, timely storage and drying, screening of already sprouted seeds, timely drainage for farmlands, and full utilization of drying sites can salvage wheat losses. In addition, we have publicly released a spray formula consisting of potassium chloride, abscisic acid, organosilicone, and sodium selenite. This formula is effective and economical for inhibiting wheat germination in high-humidity environments.

Although generally presented otherwise organic agriculture (OA) is much less productive per unit area of land than conventional agriculture (CA) for two reasons. First, because the yields of individual crops grown in OA are generally less than those in CA. Second, because the reliance in OA on organic fertilizer, i.e. plant and animal manures, requires that additional land grown to legumes to provide nitrogen (N) must be included in the calculation of relative productivity. Compared with the commonly used crop-yield ratios of OA/CA productivity of 0.75–0.81, new analyses of the relative food productivity of various crop- and crop-livestock systems presented here report lower values in the range 0.30–0.74 with many less than 0.5. The OA/CA system ratios are higher in less favourable areas and lower in productive areas more suited to crop intensification. The implications for food security and nature conservation place OA at a disadvantage because transformation to OA would require substantial expansion of agricultural land, e.g. an OA/CA ratio of 0.5, would require a doubling of area under OA to maintain equal production. By contrast, higher yields in CA reduce the demand for land in agriculture and consequently can conserve land for nature.