This policy brief from the US non-profit think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics argues that the Amazon rainforest could reach a “tipping point” as soon as 2021, where deforestation means that the forest no longer generates enough rain to support itself and the forest begins to release large amounts of carbon instead of storing it.

According to this report from UK charity the Pesticide Action Network and the Soil Association, mixtures of pesticides can be more harmful to human health than the sum of the toxicity of the individual pesticides would suggest. 

This report explains how the Barilla Centre for Food & Nutrition, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment, and the Santa Chiara Lab of the University of Siena have helped the food industry move towards alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement.

This review article finds that transforming the land sector (including agriculture, forestry, wetlands and bioenergy) could “feasibly and sustainably” contribute around one third of the emissions reductions needed to stay under 1.5°C of climate change. 

FCRN members Laurence Smith and Adrian Williams co-authored this paper, which finds that converting all food production in England and Wales to organic farming would reduce direct agricultural emissions in the UK, but would cause higher emissions from overseas farming due to lower yields in England and Wales.

Taylor & Francis have launched Sustainable Development Goals Online (SDGO), a curated library to support the United Nations' call to action to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and protect the planet. This interdisciplinary collection of digital content includes more than 12,000 selected articles and chapters, including the Zero Hunger collection with nearly 1000 items relating to SDG 2 to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

In this opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper, Jess Fanzo and Mario Herrero argue that food producers, consumers and governments all need to make changes to help reduce the climate impact of the food system. 

This book summarises current best practice in using life cycle assessment to quantify and improve the environmental impacts of different agricultural systems. 

This book questions whether the rising demand for meat is indeed driven mainly by wealth and argues that the consumption of cheap meat is linked to economic insecurity. It also questions the view that the modern human brain evolved because of the consumption of meat.