This report from PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, co-authored by Table’s Jeroen Candel, analyses the current interface between science and policy for global food systems, identifies current gaps and weaknesses, and suggests options for improvement.

US environmental campaign group Mighty Earth and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Centre have jointly released the Cocoa Agroforestry Library. This is a searchable database of scientific literature on cocoa agroforestry aimed at industry, policymakers, researchers, activists, farmer groups and more.

This report for the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), co-authored by Table member Christian Reynolds, reviews how citizen science methods can be applied to food policy. Citizen science means actively involving citizens and communities in collecting data and creating new knowledge.

In this article for the Institute of Food Technologists, Liz Specht of the Good Food Institute explores the role that microbial fermentation can play in the alternative protein sector. Specht groups microbial fermentation techniques into three classes: traditional fermentation such as cheese and yoghurt; biomass fermentation such as Quorn and tempeh; and precision fermentation for producing specific molecules, e.g. the heme protein used by Impossible Foods.

This paper argues that the threats to humanity and the biosphere from environmental damage is much greater than is usually acknowledged, and that current political and economic solutions do not match the scale of the danger. The authors call for scientists to speak “candidly and accurately” to policymakers, businesses and the public about the risks to our future.

UK cultured meat startup Higher Steaks has created one of the world’s first lab-grown pork products (Mission Barns claims to have created, but not publicised, a lab-grown bacon prototype in May 2020). The Higher Steaks pork belly is made of 50% cultivated cells, and the bacon product contains 70% cultivated cells, with the remaining material being plant-based.

This paper, co-authored by the FCRN’s Tara Garnett and John Lynch of the Oxford Livestock, Environment and People programme, identifies and discusses four challenges associated with attributional life cycle assessment.

The Good Food Institute, a US alternative protein nonprofit, has released a collaborative research directory listing researchers who are active in the alternative protein space and those who want to work in the field. The directory lists location, research interests and whether institutions are hiring staff.