Media outlet Semafor has spotlighted the Philippines’ decision to block the farming of golden rice - the genetically modified, vitamin-A-enriched cereal intended to combat childhood blindness. The Phillipines was the first country to approve golden rice, but Greenpeace successfully overturned the decision in court in April 2024 over “safety fears". The recent ruling has reignited the decade-spanning GMO debate, with environmental writer Mark Lynas accusing Greenpeace of “committing a crime against humanity” for contributing towards child blindness. TABLE’s letterbox series on GMOs and our new podcast on gene-editing showcase the polarised views on the subject and reveal the priorities, assumptions and ideologies that underpin these rigidly-held positions. 

Data scientist Hannah Ritchie provides a hopeful analysis by detailing historical progress related to halting climate change. This book is aimed at a general audience and strives to provide useful information that counters doomsday headlines of climate catastrophe. 

Poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil delves into the world of food in this collection of short essays that explore the intersection of food and nature; evoking memories through the tastes and smells of food.

Marc Edelman details the history and main objectives of global agrarian movements including farmer protests, peasants’ rights debates, and the categorical definition of “peasant” on the global stage.

This report by the World Resources Institute, a global research non-profit funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation, highlights the trade-offs and counterfactual of sourcing less and better meat as a strategy for food companies to mitigate climate impacts in their supply chains. It explores a key tension in the meat debate, also highlighted in TABLE’s Meat the Four Futures podcast, that production systems associated with ‘better meat’ such as organic, often lead to higher land-use and GHG emissions per kilo. 

This report by the Rockefeller Foundation explores recommendations to boost agricultural production and nutrition in line with the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS). The report finds that more than 700 million people globally are undernourished. It calls for investment in underutilised indigenous and traditional food crops as a means to strengthen resilience to climate change and improve nutrition in Africa

This report on the global food crisis, aimed at humanitarian and development stakeholders and policymakers, provides detailed and interactive data related to global food insecurity and food-crisis across 59 countries or territories. 

This review explores the potential of combining two significant conceptual frameworks, the food systems approach (FSA) and the One Health approach (OHA), in aiding the management of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19. Both FSA and OHA take holistic approaches to complex problems, but the authors note they also have blind spots. The researchers seek evidence as to whether the combination of these two approaches could better manage zoonotic disease outbreaks in the future. They conclude noting that the integration of One Health and food system approaches may help overcome challenges of operationalizing One Health and lack of inclusion of health issues and zoonotic diseases in food systems. 

This literature review explores the extent to which gender inequalities are considered in climate change policies, investments, and interventions related to food systems. Climate change has differential impacts on men and women. Whilst the findings suggest a growing body of literature related to potential interventions, more work is required to fully assess the trade offs and barriers of actions aimed at improving gender differentiated climate outcomes. There is also a considerable lack of research on the intersection of gender, climate change and food systems, with most previous research limited to looking at the role of gender in agricultural production.