This article, using satellite data and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, seeks to map the global prevalence and rate of expansion of greenhouse cultivation, or food grown under the cover of thin plastic films or glass roofs. The authors present their method as an improvement to geospatial image analysis for greenhouse cultivation coverage. They claim this new method can aid efforts aiming to better understand the environmental and socio-economic impacts of greenhouse cultivation infrastructure expansion.

Reuters reports on a recent update by the USDA to the WIC program, expanding access to fruits, vegetables, and seafood while reducing allowances for dairy, juice and cheese, in alignment with modern dietary science, marking the first revision since 2014.

This piece from digital exhibition Apples & People explains the history of the apple in Indian cookery. It also features a short book of Indian apples recipes, which can be downloaded for free.

This story on Apples and People - a digital exhibition telling the stories of apples from around the world and their importance to people and culture - draws links between apples and the Sustainable Development Goals, covering health and wellbeing, carbon footprints, production standards, transport, and employment on orchards.

Apples and People is a digital exhibition telling the stories of apples from around the world and their importance to people and culture. The website includes stories about apples, an apple map, apple art, and written pieces. New apple stories will be released throughout 2021 and 2022; to receive these, readers can subscribe to the mailing list.

This open access article examines the impacts of avocado production, specifically water stresses and socio-economic impacts on local communities in production areas. The paper links the increase in popularity of avocados to the conversion of forest to avocado production in Mexico. The avocado trade also supports thousands of jobs that are paid above the average for the main production regions, while subsistence farming has been displaced to more marginal lands.

This paper uses a case study of Sheffield, UK, to explore the area of land potentially available to grow fruit and vegetables within urban areas, including both soil-based horticulture as well as soil-free controlled-environment horticulture on flat roofs. 

FCRN member Margareta Lelea of the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) has co-authored this paper, which uses the example of the pineapple supply chain in Uganda to argue that efforts to reduce post-harvest losses often neglect the uses of waste streams by local people.

This paper reviews literature on the effects of environmental factors on the yields and nutritional qualities of fruit, nuts and seeds. In general, yields are expected to decrease under conditions of reduced water availability, higher ozone concentrations, temperatures above 28°C and higher water salinity. Berry and peanut yields respond positively to higher carbon dioxide levels, but this effect is reduced when temperatures also rise.