This report from international non-profit GRAIN analyses all food and agriculture grants made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aiming to understand how the Foundation is influencing the food system. It finds that while most of the grants are supposedly targeted towards African farmers, most of the funding actually goes to groups in North America and Europe, including research, development and policy organisations. The report argues that the Foundation has a harmful influence and that its activities gloss over the knowledge, technologies and biodiversity that farmers in the Global South already possess.

This discussion paper from UN Nutrition examines the role that livestock can play in contributing to nutrition, particularly for young children and in low-income settings, and the impacts of livestock on the environment. It aims to go beyond blanket messages about livestock-derived food and instead provide a nuanced overview of how the role of livestock in sustainable healthy diets depends on local context and specific production methods. It concludes that some groups of people - such as those already eating high levels of livestock-derived foods - could improve both health and environmental impacts by reducing their consumption.

This paper presents two qualitative narratives for possible futures of seafood production: a transition from fisheries towards aquaculture, and the co-existence of both fisheries and aquaculture. Within each narrative, the authors examine what could happen in the presence or absence of regulation.

This paper models the resource use of solar-powered single-cell protein (SCP) production and finds that SCP can produce 10 times more protein and double the calories per unit of land, compared to conventional crop production. SCP is any form of edible biomass from microbes such as algae, fungi or bacteria.

US-based startup BIOMILQ says it has produced the world’s first milk made from lab-cultured human mammary cells. The product, made by culturing human mammary cells in the laboratory, has a similar composition of “proteins, complex carbohydrates, fatty acids and other bioactive lipids” to breast milk. BIOMILQ stresses that its product is not identical to breastmilk, the composition of which can be influenced by hormones, baby behaviour, skin contact and so on. Furthermore, it does not contain the antibodies that breast milk does.

This short film from the Consumer Council explores the difficulties that low-income households in Northern Ireland face in accessing healthy and affordable food, particularly with the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It features parents, academics and people working in local communities.

This free online book explores how consumers, nations, and international organisations can work together to improve food systems and restore ecosystems and their ability to provide for people.

This book outlines historical revolutions in the global food system and calls for the global food system to become more diverse in many aspects, including crop species, production systems and farming cultures. 

This report from the John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future addresses a common concern among urban farming communities: is food grown in the city safe to eat? Focusing on Baltimore, it finds that soil, water and produce from the urban farms and gardens studied have safe levels of harmful metals, with some rare exceptions. TABLE staff member Matthew Kessler contributed to this project.