This new paper by Chatham House reports on a 12-country survey undertaken into public understanding of the links between  livestock and climate change. Livestock – Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector - Global Public Opinion on Meat and Dairy Consumption finds a major lack of awareness of the meat and dairy sector’s contribution to climate change.

This study aims to assess the effect of five dietary scenarios – designed to promote healthier and more sustainable eating – on the blue water scarcity footprint of UK food consumption. The objectives are to estimate the total blue water consumed in producing food commodities consumed in the UK; the contribution, and geographical concentration, to global blue water scarcity; and the potential impact of alternative healthy eating scenarios on global blue water scarcity.

Dietary deficiencies of zinc and iron are a substantial global public health problem. An estimated two billion people suffer these deficiencies, causing a loss of 63 million life-years annually.

The consumption of milk is regarded as a classic example of gene-culture evolution. Archaeologists and geneticists have been puzzling about where and why people have been drinking milk since it was revealed that the mutations which enable adults to drink milk are under the strongest selection of any in the human genome. Co-author Dr Christina Warinner, from the Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, said: "The study has far-reaching implications for understanding the relationship between human diet and evolution.

A decline in meat production combined with further increase in demand could spur businesses to look for alternative food protein sources, said Media Eghbal, head of countries analysis at Euromonitor International when being interviewed by the Food navigator.  

This website, curated by Geoff Tansey, provides a series of open access online talks, for use by those teaching some aspect of food and farming – but open to anyone to watch. The aim is to provide an overview of the complex and multidisciplinary nature of food systems. Read more about the initiative on their website. 

In light of increasing population growth and competition over land use, the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) is experimenting with collaboration between agronomy experts and companies in the food supply chain.

Discussing how a very small proportion of the world's cocoa producers is responsible for the negative impacts of the industry, Oliver Nieburg of WWF presents options for improving performance.

In recent years, food waste has risen to the top of the political and public agenda, yet until now there has been no scholarly analysis applied to the topic as a complement and counter-balance to campaigning and activist approaches.