The director of nutrition at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Anna Lartey warns that while addressing problems with undernutrition has long been the main focus of African countries and aid organisations, the increasing challenges related to overweight and obesity are not being given sufficient attention.

The certification organisation Rainforest Alliance states that scaled-up efforts to support climate-smart agriculture practices are desperately needed to support the millions of cocoa farmers that are suffering from the negative impacts of climate change.

In this policy briefing, Global Justice Now reports on the alleged “hidden emissions” of three major agribusinesses, the aim being to highlight the real contribution that multinational feed, fertiliser and beef agribusinesses make to climate change.

This report by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future highlights the need to reduce livestock farming and food waste if climate change is to be addressed, and the relative absence of these important mitigation strategies from recent climate talks (e.g. COP21 in Paris).

The FCRN has previously reported on the controversy over the development of the 2015 US dietary guidelines, and in particular the vociferous debate as to whether they should include sustainability considerations.

In this article, researchers from Cranfield University, UK, examine the environmental burden associated with the production, manufacturing and distribution of potatoes, pasta and rice. The aim of the research is to highlight the difference that can be made to an individual’s environmental footprint (here focusing on water use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions) by making dietary changes within food groups, rather than between them.

In this paper, researchers at the National University of Singapore identify the major land use changes associated with mangrove deforestation in Southeast Asia, with an aim of ultimately facilitating appropriately targeted policy interventions to manage the forests. Over a 12-year period, the researchers quantified LULCC in deforested patches, and classified the replacement land uses (e.g. aquaculture).

This paper published in Marketing Science finds that small price differences at the point of purchase (a so-called excise tax) can be highly effective in shifting consumer demand from high calorie to healthier low calorie alternatives.

In this paper, researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Reading compare how effective three different wildlife-friendly farming strategies are at supporting habitat diversity and species richness.