Extract from book introduction: The growth in global population and more demanding consumption patterns around the world are placing ever increasing pressures on land and its resources. This is resulting in conflicts and the unsustainable use of humanity’s resource base.

The book provides an analysis of impacts of climate change on water for agriculture, and the adaptation strategies in water management to deal with these impacts.

This report by a partnership comprising the International Trade Centre, the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and the International Institute for Sustainable Development summarises the recent market trends and growth in voluntary sustainability standards (VSS), for nine commodities.

This report by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) represents a consensus of more than 30 authors from 19 institutions across four countries. The report brings together modelling and forecasting research on climate change to the year 2100, and explores how these changes will affect food and agricultural systems worldwide, and in particular in the US.

This report by Dutch multinational banking and financial services company, Rabobank, argues for the need for a so-called “smarter food system” – that is, a food system incorporating and harnessing the latest technology at every stage, although they place particular emphasis on production-side measures.

This policy briefing by the Eating Better alliance, aimed at UK Government, Devolved Administrations and the EU, recommends that action be taken to shift eating patterns towards less and better quality meat, and more plant-based foods.

The second SoW-AnGR by the FAO reviews the developments that have been made in the area of using, developing and safeguarding the genetic resources (i.e. the diversity of breeds) of our mammalian and avian livestock since the first SoW-AnGR report was released in 2007.

In this commentary, Thomas Hertel of Purdue University argues that typically-used metrics of food security that are based solely on food production and food prices are incomplete, misleading or in some cases, just wrong.

In this paper, researchers from James Cook University, Australia, assess the impact on the environment and agriculture of 33 planned or existing “development corridors” in sub-Saharan Africa. Development corridors are tracts of land earmarked for large-scale infrastructure expansions (e.g. road access) with the aim of increasing agricultural production.