The study analyses how crop diversity impacts yield stability at a national scale, and finds that the stabilising effect of crop diversity increases as the land area increases. This doesn’t diminish the importance of field-level diversity, but it has implications for national strategies to diversify crop production. 

Methodology matters. Which figures scientists and researchers choose as benchmarks, what papers they choose, or exclude for their calculations, matter. This is because of the power of statistics to shape narratives and provide arguments that call for distinct solutions. The debate and backlash to the recent FAO report Pathways to Lower Emissions, a global assessment of emissions in livestock agri-food systems is over precisely this point; how the use of a single statistic has the potential to shape ideas about the future of food. 

This book explores the narratives of food systems transformation and how power manifests within food systems manifests. Intended for students, scholars and policymakers, this book deals with the contesting and competing nature of these diverse narratives which tell stories of change and how the food system should work in the future, and what or who might be left out from these imaginations. 

TV and radio presenter Tom Heap explores the various and often conflicting uses of land in the UK. Through interviews and encounters with farmers, scientists, conservationists and labourers, Heap looks at demands on land including food, renewable energy, carbon storage and housing. 

David Asher dives into all things cheese. From the cultural, agricultural practices, biological evolution of cheese and the transformation of milk into cheese. Asher pulls from his experience as a natural cheesemaker and educator to provide both a history of cheesemaking and inspiration for large and small cheesemakers to make their own natural cheeses. 

This report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) calls for the strengthening of urban and peri-urban food systems amidst rapidly expanding urbanisation and rural transformation. It provides detailed and context specific policy recommendations to improve food security and nutrition and is guided by the principles of the right to food and the right to the city. 

The report by the WHO dives into the commercial determinants of noncommunicable diseases and offers guidance to policymakers to take action to curb the efforts of corporate actors pushing unhealthy products in the EU. Products like processed foods and alcohol contribute to millions of deaths each year. This report details the strategies commercial actors use to negatively influence NCD-related policies and how they could be stopped. 

This report by IPES-Food looks at the importance of supply chains and markets which are based on small-scale producers, processors and vendors rooted in territories and communities as components of building a resilient food system which delivers food security. It highlights the damage of the dominant corporate controlled global food supply chain and offers recommendations to support more localised territorial markets.