This paper models how integrating crop production - specifically maize, wheat and rice - into global land restoration efforts could impact food security, carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions. The paper’s scenarios look at how to achieve the Bonn Challenge, which is a global agreement to restore 350 million hectares of deforested or degraded land by 2030. 

This book looks at how local food biodiversity can help to improve nutrition. Chapters cover the impacts of poor diets, evidence for the role of biodiversity in supporting healthy diets, agroecology, public food procurement, youth-led innovations and reframing food systems narratives.

The COVID-19 pandemic, mitigation measures and the emerging global recession could cause food disruption on a scale not seen for more than half a century, according to this policy brief from the United Nations. The UN calls for large-scale coordinated action to protect health and nutrition.

The Food Systems Dashboard has been developed by Johns Hopkins University and The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. It brings together data on over 150 food system indicators, such as yields, climate, trade, dietary guidelines, non-communicable diseases and income. Users can compare regions and visualise indicators on a map.

This report by UK charity the Soil Association argues that COVID-19 has highlighted the fragility of long supply chains, and that supporting shorter supply chains will make the food system more resilient and sustainable. It also gives examples of localised food supply initiatives in the UK.

The UK’s Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) reports that its members have distributed 175% more emergency food parcels during April 2020 than during April 2019. The data covers 112 organisations operating 213 independent food banks across the UK. The number of people supported by or referred to these food banks was 132% greater when comparing across the same time periods. 

This briefing from UK NGO Sustain examines pressures on land in the UK and overseas, including the impacts of agriculture and the foods we choose to eat. It considers competing land uses such as biodiversity, hedgerows, food production, supporting new entrants into farming, climate mitigation, bioenergy production and land for leisure.

This report from charity Pesticide Action Network UK compares current UK pesticide regulations with those of the US and Australia - both countries are a priority for post-Brexit trade deals - as well as with those of India. It finds that food sold in the UK could soon be allowed to contain significantly higher levels of hazardous pesticides, if the UK agrees to weaken its pesticide standards during trade negotiations.

This systematic review examines the effects of anthropogenic land use change (such as deforestation, urbanisation and agricultural intensification) on the transmission of zoonotic diseases from mammals to humans.