This book deals with past legacies and emerging challenges associated with agriculture production, water and environmental management, and local and national development. It offers a critical interpretation of the tensions associated with the failures of mainstream regulatory regimes and the impacts of global agri-food chains.

This month’s issue of Discover Society is entirely dedicated to the topic of food and eating. Tara Garnett has contributed with an article on sustainable healthy eating patterns.

This report provides an update on the fields of synthetic biology and the latest breeding techniques involving molecular biology. It sees modern techniques of creating new cultivars as a continuation of selective breeding which was started by humans around 10,000 years ago.

In a 2013 TED talk entitled ‘How to fight desertification and reverse climate change’ the Zimbabwean ecologist, Allan Savory, claimed that the ‘holistic management’ grazing management method that he has developed and promoted over 40 years, could stop global desertification and reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to preindustrial levels, within a few decades.

In the past few years there has been much interest in consumption behaviours and how these can be influenced for the better of the environment. A huge obstacle faced is that, compared to women, men are much less likely to be eco-friendly in their attitudes, choices and behaviours.

This study explores how fear of climate change affects affluent Swedish individuals in their intentions to reduce or alter meat consumption. Noting that fear appeals form the dominant communications approach used in raising awareness about environmental issues and motivating behavioural change, the authors set out to explore the processes through which such appeals may or may not motivate consumers to change.

Recent research has shown that some foods have a considerably higher emissions-footprints than do others and that changes in average dietary consumption patterns towards lower-emissions foods, has potential as a climate change mitigation measure.

Researchers in California conducted a life cycle assessment to model the climate change mitigation potential of consuming produce grown in household vegetable gardens as opposed to those from stores.

The need to make the best use of agricultural land in the face of growing future demand has made sustainable intensification an important area of food systems research. Previous research which focused on this topic, looked at the spatial distribution of the intensity of agricultural production and how this has changed, but according to the authors, did not provide sufficient insight into the drivers of intensification patterns, especially at subnational scales.