The world’s largest agricultural commodities supplier,  Cargill, obtained its highest profit in six years based on an increasing demand for meat. Animal nutrition and protein were the largest contributor to quarterly earnings for the company.

The research papers presented in this issue on urban food policies provide a selection of the articles that were presented at the 7th Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference in 2015.

Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit organization working with influential investors and companies, has released a new website to help investors when they make decisions to invest in food or agriculture companies. They argue that agricultural commodity trade is highly affected by issues such as climate change, deforestation, water use and pollution, and that companies need to take these into account in order to improve supply chain security and ensure consumer acceptability.

The IFST, a UK-based body for food professionals in Europe, has commissioned a report aimed at identifying areas of future work which they feel would be of most use to their members. The report focuses on food sustainability,  technology and evidence-based practice. 

International trade in critical commodities is growing, which, this report poses, is increasing pressure on a small number of ‘chokepoints’ – critical junctures on transport routes through which exceptional volumes of trade pass. Were a serious interruption at one or more of these chokepoints to occur, this could potentially lead to supply shortfalls and price spikes, both within and outside of the food system.  Smaller disruptions might add to delays, spoilage and transport costs, constraining market responsiveness and contributing to higher prices and increased volatility.

This OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries report employs a meta-analysis/literature review approach to identify and analyse barriers to the adoption of “climate-friendly” policies in agriculture; that is, the adoption of measures to enhance the adaptation of farming to the impacts of climate change, and the mitigation of its contributions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It should be noted that the report does not go into specifics about what constitutes a climate-friendly practice: this is taken to be an understood concept and the focus of the report is on the barriers to adoption of these measures, not the measures themselves.

These are two briefings by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST).

This is a new book by Pingali and Feder on agriculture in the face of rural transformations across the world. A textbook which looks at agriculture and rural development from a variety of angles, it focuses mostly on the developing world. 

The Food Citizenship report is the result of a ten month inquiry led by the New Citizenship Project with the Food Ethics Council, working with six organisations across the food system to explore a future ‘Citizen’ food system. It explores what could happen if the key players in the food system switched from a consumer to a citizen mindset, generating ideas and testing new approaches to food citizenship.