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Agriculture is the largest single source of environmental degradation, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 70% of freshwater use and 80% of land conversion: it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss (Foley JA, Science 309:570–574, 2005, Nature 478:337–342, 2011; IPBES. Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. IPBES Secretariat, Bonn, 2019; Willett W et al. The Lancet 393:447–492, 2019). Agriculture also underpins poor human health, contributing to 11 million premature deaths annually. While too many still struggle from acute hunger, a growing number of individuals, including in low to middle-income countries (LMICs), struggle to access healthy foods. Greater consideration for, and integration of, biodiversity in agriculture is a key solution space for improving health, eliminating hunger and achieving nature-positive development objectives.This rapid evidence review documents the best available evidence of agriculture’s relationships with biodiversity, drawing on the contributions of leading biodiversity experts, and recommends actions that can be taken to move towards more biodiversity/nature-positive production through the delivery of integrated agricultural solutions for climate, biodiversity, nutrition and livelihoods. The analysis, which takes a whole-of-food-system approach, brings together a large body of evidence. It accounts for aspects not typically captured in a stand-alone primary piece of research and indicates where there are critical gaps.

Background Key nutrient deficits remain widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) whereas noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) now cause one-third of deaths. Easy-to-use metrics are needed to track contributions of diet quality to this double burden. Objectives We evaluated comparative performance of a novel food-based Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS) against other diet metrics in capturing nutrient adequacy and undernutrition in rural SSA adults. Methods We scored the GDQS, Minimum Dietary Diversity–Women (MDD-W), and Alternative Healthy Eating Index–2010 (AHEI-2010) using FFQ data from rural men and nonpregnant, nonlactating women of reproductive age (15–49 y) in 10 SSA countries. We evaluated Spearman correlations between metrics and energy-adjusted nutrient intakes, and age-adjusted associations with BMI, midupper arm circumference (MUAC), and hemoglobin in regression models. Results Correlations between the GDQS and an energy-adjusted aggregate measure of dietary protein, fiber, calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin A, folate, and vitamin B-12 adequacy were 0.34 (95% CI: 0.30, 0.38) in men and 0.37 (95% CI: 0.32, 0.41) in women. The GDQS was associated (P

Managing agricultural landscapes to support biodiversity conservation requires profound structural changes worldwide. Often, discussions are centered on management at the field level. However, a wide and growing body of evidence calls for zooming out and targeting agricultural policies, research, and interventions at the landscape level to halt and reverse the decline in biodiversity, increase biodiversity-mediated ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes, and improve the resilience and adaptability of these ecosystems. We conducted the most comprehensive assessment to date on landscape complexity effects on nondomesticated terrestrial biodiversity through a meta-analysis of 1,134 effect sizes from 157 peer-reviewed articles. Increasing landscape complexity through changes in composition, configuration, or heterogeneity significatively and positively affects biodiversity. More complex landscapes host more biodiversity (richness, abundance, and evenness) with potential benefits to sustainable agricultural production and conservation, and effects are likely underestimated. The few articles that assessed the combined contribution of linear (e.g., hedgerows) and areal (e.g., woodlots) elements resulted in a near-doubling of the effect sizes (i.e., biodiversity level) compared to the dominant number of studies measuring these elements separately. Similarly, positive effects on biodiversity are stronger in articles monitoring biodiversity for at least 2 y compared to the dominant 1-y monitoring efforts. Besides, positive and stronger effects exist when monitoring occurs in nonoverlapping landscapes, highlighting the need for long-term and robustly designed monitoring efforts. Living in harmony with nature will require shifting paradigms toward valuing and promoting multifunctional agriculture at the farm and landscape levels with a research agenda that untangles complex agricultural landscapes’ contributions to people and nature under current and future conditions.

Dietary diversity is an established public health principle, and its measurement is essential for studies of diet quality and food security. However, conventional between food group scores fail to capture the nutritional variability and ecosystem services delivered by dietary richness and dissimilarity within food groups, or the relative distribution (i.e., evenness or moderation) of e.g., species or varieties across whole diets. Summarizing food biodiversity in an all-encompassing index is problematic. Therefore, various diversity indices have been proposed in ecology, yet these require methodological adaption for integration in dietary assessments. In this narrative review, we summarize the key conceptual issues underlying the measurement of food biodiversity at an edible species level, assess the ecological diversity indices previously applied to food consumption and food supply data, discuss their relative suitability, and potential amendments for use in (quantitative) dietary intake studies. Ecological diversity indices are often used without justification through the lens of nutrition. To illustrate: (i) dietary species richness fails to account for the distribution of foods across the diet or their functional traits; (ii) evenness indices, such as the Gini-Simpson index, require widely accepted relative abundance units (e.g., kcal, g, cups) and evidence-based moderation weighting factors; and (iii) functional dissimilarity indices are constructed based on an arbitrary selection of distance measures, cutoff criteria, and number of phylogenetic, nutritional, and morphological traits. Disregard for these limitations can lead to counterintuitive results and ambiguous or incorrect conclusions about the food biodiversity within diets or food systems. To ensure comparability and robustness of future research, we advocate food biodiversity indices that: (i) satisfy key axioms; (ii) can be extended to account for disparity between edible species; and (iii) are used in combination, rather than in isolation.

Governments are updating national strategies to meet global goals on biodiversity, climate change and food systems proposed in the Convention on Biological Diversity post-2020 framework and agreed at the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference (COP26) and Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). This represents a unique and crucial opportunity to integrate and accelerate food system actions to tackle interconnected global challenges. In this context, agroecology is a game-changing approach that can provide the world’s growing population with nutritious, healthy afordable food, ensure fair incomes to farmers and halt and reverse the degradation of the natural environment. Here, we explore agroecological transition pathways in four case studies from low- and middle- income countries and identify catalysts for change. We fnd that enabling policy and market environments, participatory action research and local socio-technical support each plays a critical role in stimulating transitions towards agroecology. We propose strategies and priorities for research to better support agroecological transitions using these catalysts of change as entry points. Engagement of governments, private sector, civil society, farmers and farm workers in this research agenda is essential., Sustainability Science, 17 (6), ISSN:1862-4065, ISSN:1862-4057

Own production contributes much of the food supply in smallholder production systems in low‐ and middle‐income countries like Ethiopia. Understanding the potential as well as constraints of these production systems in terms of nutrient supplies is thus a critical step to design interventions to improve nutrient intakes. The objectives of this study were (1) to assess the usual total intakes of vitamin A, iron and zinc among rural children and (2) to investigate whether the intakes these nutrients are associated with differences in the dominant farming systems between spatial clusters. Using nationally representative intake data of 4,902 children 6–35 months of age, usual intake and the proportion of inadequate intakes of vitamin A, iron and zinc were calculated. A multi‐level model was used to examine the association between individual‐level and cluster‐level variables with the usual total dietary intakes of these nutrients. The diet was dominated by starchy foods. Consumption of animal source foods, vitamin A‐rich fruits and vegetables was low. We found a high prevalence of inadequate intake of vitamin A and zinc (85.4% and 49.5%, respectively). Relatively, low prevalence of inadequate intake of iron (8.4%) was reported. The spatial farming systems diversity across the rural clusters explained 48.2%, 57.2% and 26.7% of the observed variation in the usual total dietary intakes of vitamin A, iron and zinc, respectively. Our findings indicated the importance of farming system diversity at the landscape level as one of the determinant factors for individual usual total dietary intakes of vitamin A, iron and zinc.

International audience; Indicators of agricultural production diversity and market access and/or participation have often been used to try to understand how agricultural production and markets influence dietary diversity of rural smallholder households. Based on a standardized search strategy, 37 studies investigating the association between an indicator of agricultural production diversity and any indicator of dietary diversity were reviewed. The characteristics of the indicators of agricultural production diversity, as well as indicators of market access and/or participation, were assessed. This review demonstrated the wide range of indicators; four types and 14 subtypes of indicators of agricultural production diversity were found in the 37 studies, and three types and 14 subtypes of indicators of market access and/or participation were found in 25 studies. While diversity of measurement ideas allows flexibility, it precludes comparability with other studies and might make it difficult to build a robust body of evidence of the impact of agriculture at farm household level on food security, diet, and nutrition.

Assessing progress towards healthier people, farms and landscapes through nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) requires transdisciplinary methods with robust models and metrics. Farm-household models could facilitate disentangling the complex agriculture-nutrition nexus, by jointly assessing performance indicators on different farm system components such as farm productivity, farm environmental performance, household nutrition, and livelihoods. We, therefore, applied a farm-household model, FarmDESIGN, expanded to more comprehensively capture household nutrition and production diversity, diet diversity, and nutrient adequacy metrics. We estimated the potential contribution of an NSA intervention targeting the diversification of home gardens, aimed at reducing nutritional gaps and improving livelihoods in rural Vietnam. We addressed three central questions: (1) Do ‘Selected Crops’ (i.e. crops identified in a participatory process) in the intervention contribute to satisfying household dietary requirements?; (2) Does the adoption of Selected Crops contribute to improving household livelihoods (i.e. does it increase leisure time for non-earning activities as well as the dispensable budget)?; and (3) Do the proposed nutrition-related metrics estimate the contribution of home-garden diversification towards satisfying household dietary requirements? Results indicate trade-offs between nutrition and dispensable budget, with limited farm-household configurations leading to jointly improved nutrition and livelihoods. FarmDESIGN facilitated testing the robustness and limitations of commonly used metrics to monitor progress towards NSA. Results indicate that most of the production diversity metrics performed poorly at predicting desirable nutritional outcomes in this modelling study. This study demonstrates that farm-household models can facilitate anticipating the effect (positive or negative) of agricultural interventions on nutrition and the environment, identifying complementary interventions for significant and positive results and helping to foresee the trade-offs that farm-households could face. Furthermore, FarmDESIGN could contribute to identifying agreed-upon and robust metrics for measuring nutritional outcomes at the farm-household level, to allow comparability between contexts and NSA interventions.

Background Food biodiversity, encompassing the variety of plants, animals, and other organisms consumed as food and drink, has intrinsic potential to underpin diverse, nutritious diets and improve Earth system resilience. Dietary species richness (DSR), which is recommended as a crosscutting measure of food biodiversity, has been positively associated with the micronutrient adequacy of diets in women and young children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the relationships between DSR and major health outcomes have yet to be assessed in any population. Methods and findings We examined the associations between DSR and subsequent total and cause-specific mortality among 451,390 adults enrolled in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study (1992 to 2014, median follow-up: 17 years), free of cancer, diabetes, heart attack, or stroke at baseline. Usual dietary intakes were assessed at recruitment with country-specific dietary questionnaires (DQs). DSR of an individual’s yearly diet was calculated based on the absolute number of unique biological species in each (composite) food and drink. Associations were assessed by fitting multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression models. In the EPIC cohort, 2 crops (common wheat and potato) and 2 animal species (cow and pig) accounted for approximately 45% of self-reported total dietary energy intake [median (P10–P90): 68 (40 to 83) species consumed per year]. Overall, higher DSR was inversely associated with all-cause mortality rate. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) comparing total mortality in the second, third, fourth, and fifth (highest) quintiles (Qs) of DSR to the first (lowest) Q indicate significant inverse associations, after stratification by sex, age, and study center and adjustment for smoking status, educational level, marital status, physical activity, alcohol intake, and total energy intake, Mediterranean diet score, red and processed meat intake, and fiber intake [HR (95% CI): 0.91 (0.88 to 0.94), 0.80 (0.76 to 0.83), 0.69 (0.66 to 0.72), and 0.63 (0.59 to 0.66), respectively; PWald < 0.001 for trend]. Absolute death rates among participants in the highest and lowest fifth of DSR were 65.4 and 69.3 cases/10,000 person-years, respectively. Significant inverse associations were also observed between DSR and deaths due to cancer, heart disease, digestive disease, and respiratory disease. An important study limitation is that our findings were based on an observational cohort using self-reported dietary data obtained through single baseline food frequency questionnaires (FFQs); thus, exposure misclassification and residual confounding cannot be ruled out. Conclusions In this large Pan-European cohort, higher DSR was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality, independent of sociodemographic, lifestyle, and other known dietary risk factors. Our findings support the potential of food (species) biodiversity as a guiding principle of sustainable dietary recommendations and food-based dietary guidelines., Dr. Giles T. Hanley-Cook and colleagues, analyzed data from a prospective cohort study to investigate the association between food biodiversity, and total and cause-specific mortality in nine European countries., Author summary Why was this study done? Facilitating populations to transition to diets that are both nutritious and sustainable is a key challenge for human and environmental health. Dietary (between food group) diversity is increasingly advocated within the framework of dietary recommendations and food-based dietary guidelines. Food biodiversity, defined as the variety of plants, animals, and other organisms that are consumed between and within food groups globally, is a potential lever for improved public and planetary health. Nevertheless, scientific evidence is a prerequisite to understand the associations between metrics of food biodiversity and major health outcomes. Thus far, evidence regarding the positive association between dietary species richness (DSR), i.e., the absolute number of unique species consumed by an individual, and micronutrient adequacy of diets is limited to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). What did the researchers do and find? This study assessed the relationships between DSR and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the large and diverse European population that constitutes the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort, including 451,390 adults from 9 European countries with 46,627 recorded deaths between 1992 and 2014. In addition, this study provides a picture of the usual consumption of food and beverage species across 9 European countries. Higher DSR was inversely associated with total mortality rate and cause-specific deaths due to cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, and digestive disease, independent of other established components of diet quality. Overall, self-reported total energy intake was derived from a narrow range of species. What do these findings mean? Our findings add to the evidence base on the relevance of food biodiversity, both between and within food groups, as a basis for public health strategies championing dietary (species) diversity in European countries. These findings will play a key role in communications about the merits of biodiversity stewardship, in the context of ongoing European/global debate on nutritious and sustainable diets for a stable Earth system.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to develop and evaluate an easily-tabulated metric that is sensitive to diet quality in diverse settings. In this analysis, we examined associations between a novel food-based metric – the Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS) - and diet quality using data from rural Africa. METHODS: The GDQS gives points for higher intake of 16 healthy food groups and lower intake of 9 unhealthy groups, based on 3 intake ranges for each group. We scored the GDQS using food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) data from 1613 men and 1710 nonpregnant nonlactating women ages 15–49 (median: 30) in 12 rural African villages participating in the Millennium Villages Project in 2006 to 2009. We evaluated associations between the GDQS and nutrient intakes calculated from the same FFQ, body mass index (BMI), mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC), hemoglobin, and an overall nutrient adequacy score ranging from 0 to 7 (1 point given for each of 7 nutrients meeting average requirements). Associations were also derived for GDQS submetrics (GDQS+ and GDQS−) computed using only healthy or unhealthy food groups, respectively, and simplified versions of the GDQS and submetrics (scored using 2 intake ranges for each food group). RESULTS: Moderate rank correlations were observed between the GDQS+ and energy-adjusted intakes of fiber (women: 0.43, men: 0.33), folate (0.40, 0.30), vitamin A (0.40, 0.34), and zinc (0.38, 0.30), exceeding correlations with the Minimum Dietary Diversity Score for Women (p for difference between metrics 0.05): women and men in the highest GDQS+ quintile had an OR of anemia of 0.25 (95% CI 0.09, 0.68) and 0.16 (95% CI 0.04, 0.46), respectively, relative to those in the lowest. Metrics were not associated with BMI or MUAC in adjusted analyses. CONCLUSIONS: The GDQS and submetrics were associated with nutrient intakes, hemoglobin, and reduced anemia in rural African adults. FUNDING SOURCES: Intake - Center for Dietary Assessment at FHI Solutions.

Capturing countries&rsquo, commitments for measuring and monitoring progress towards certain goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), remains underexplored. The Agrobiodiversity Index bridges this gap by using text mining techniques to quantify countries&rsquo, commitments towards safeguarding and using agrobiodiversity for healthy diets, sustainable agriculture, and effective genetic resource management. The Index extracts potentially relevant sections of official documents, followed by manual sifting and scoring to identify agrobiodiversity-related commitments and assign scores. Our aim is to present the text mining methodology used in the Agrobiodiversity Index and the calculated commitments scores for nine countries while identifying methodological improvements to strengthen it. Our results reveal that levels of commitment towards using and protecting agrobiodiversity vary between countries, with most showing the strongest commitments to enhancing agrobiodiversity for genetic resource management followed by healthy diets. No commitments were found in any country related to some specific themes including varietal diversity, seed diversity, and functional diversity. The revised text mining methodology can be used for benchmarking, learning, and improving policies to enable conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. This low-cost, rapid, remotely applicable approach to capture and analyse policy commitments can be readily applied for tracking progress towards meeting other sustainability objectives.

Rollout of development interventions using a one-size-fits-all model can achieve economies of scale but neglects to account for variability in farm and farmer characteristics. A data-driven approach to incorporate farmer diversity in scaling strategies may help to achieve greater development impact. However, interpreting the multiplicity of smallholder characteristics is complex, time-consuming, and the ways in which the insights gained can be implemented is poorly understood. Navigating these tensions, we present a farm typology study carried out in collaboration with a large development organisation (the “scaling partner”) promoting agricultural inputs in Rwanda. This study was conducted late in the scaling pathway, in order to finesse the scaling strategy, rather than to target intervention selection. Drawing on nearly 3000 interviews from 17 districts of the Western, Southern, and Eastern Provinces of Rwanda, the typology differentiates households along two axes: 1. prosperity (a cornerstone of conventional typologies), and 2. adoption of inputs (fertilisers and improved crop varieties). We used an efficient household survey tool, a minimum-variable approach, and concepts from the study of adoption of agricultural innovations. Through an action-research collaboration with the scaling organisation we adapted the methods and the findings to be “actionable. Approximately two-thirds of the study population were using fertilisers and improved seed to some extent. Along each prosperity stratum, however, there were multiple degrees of adoption, demonstrating the value of including adoption information in typology constructions. Ten farm types were identified, where the key differences along the prosperity axis were land area cultivated and livestock owned, and the key differences along the adoption axis were perceptions of input efficacy, access to training, and education level. We also present a simple decision tree model to assign new households to a farm type. The findings were used in three ways by the scaling organisation: (i) characterisation of the population into discrete groups; (ii) prioritisation, of farm types for engagement, and geographical locations for further investment; and (iii) design of decision support tools or re-design of packages to support technology adoption for specific farm types. The need for field-level validation of the typologies was also stressed by the scaling organisation.

Smallholder agriculture is an important source of livelihoods in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In these regions the highest concentrations of nutritionally vulnerable populations are found. Agricultural development needs to be nutrition-sensitive, and contribute simultaneously to improving household nutrition, farm productivity and environmental performance. We explored the windows of opportunities for farm development and the potential of crop diversification options for meeting household dietary requirements, whilst concurrently improving household economic performance in contrasting smallholder farm systems in Kenya and Vietnam. Farm and household features and farmer perspectives and priorities were integrated into a farm-household model that allowed quantification of a diverse set of nutritional, labour and productive indicators. Using a multiobjective optimization algorithm, we generated ‘solution spaces’ comprising crop compositions and management configurations that would satisfy household dietary needs and allowed income gains. Results indicated sitespecific synergies between income and nutritional system yield for vitamin A. Diversification with novel vegetables could cover vitamin A requirements of 10 to 31 extra people per hectare and lead to greater income (25 to 185% increase) for some households, but reduced leisure time. Although the Vietnamese sites exhibited greater nutrient system yields than those in Kenya, the household diets in Kenya had greater nutrient adequacy due to the fact that the Vietnamese farmers sold greater proportions of their on-farm produced foods. We conclude that nutrition-sensitive, multi-method approaches have potential to identify solutions to simultaneously improve household income, nutrition and resource management in vulnerable smallholder farming systems. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche Fil: Timler, Carl. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: Alvarez, Stéphanie. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: DeClerck, Fabrice. Bioversity International; Italia Fil: DeClerck, Fabrice. EAT Foundation, Stockholm Resilience Center; Suecia Fil: Remans, Roseline. Bioversity International; Italia Fil: Remans, Roseline. Ghent University, Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health; Belgica Fil: Raneri, Jessica. Bioversity International; Italia Fil: Raneri, Jessica. Ghent University, Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health; Belgica Fil: Estrada Carmona, Natalia. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: Estrada Carmona, Natalia. Bioversity International; Italia Fil: Mashingaidze, Nester. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: Chatterjee, Shantonu Abe. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: Chiang, Tsai Wei. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: Termote, Celine. Bioversity International; Italia Fil: Yang, Ray-Yu. The World Vegetable Centre; Taiwan Fil: Descheemaeker, Katrien. Wageningen University, Plant Production Systems Group; Holanda Fil: Brouwer, Inge D. Wageningen University. Division of Human Nutrition; Holanda Fil: Kennedy, Gina. Bioversity International; Italia Fil: Tittonell, Pablo Adrian. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche; Argentina Fil: Tittonell, Pablo Adrian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias Bariloche; Argentina Fil: Tittonell, Pablo Adrian. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: Groot, Jeroen C.J. Wageningen University. Farming Systems Ecology Group; Holanda Fil: Groot, Jeroen C.J. Bioversity International; Italia Fil: Groot, Jeroen C.J. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center; Mexico

Yield gaps in banana-based production systems have increased in the past two decades due to declining soil fertility, drought and biotic stresses. Sustainable, environmentally sound and economically viable strategies for intensification in these systems are urgently needed. Agroecological practices, such as the integration of shade- and drought-tolerant crops, nitrogen-fixing and cover crops could potentially improve soil fertility and moisture retention, reduce the weed burden, narrow yield gaps and increase overall plot/farm productivity in these systems. In Malaysia, leguminous crops like Pueraria phaseoloides, Calopogonium caeruleum and Centrosema pubescens are often cultivated as cover crops (to suppress weeds, and reduce moisture loss and soil erosion) in young rubber and oil palm plantations with low shade levels. Even in mature oil palm plantations with less than 30% light intensity, various shade-tolerant crops are grown, e.g., elephant foot yam, turmeric and arrow root. In humid tropical Africa, Colocasia (taro) and Xanthosoma (cocoyam) are reported to tolerate shade conditions and hence often planted under perennial banana/plantain plantations. Drought tolerance is a less common feature of most annual crops grown in the humid tropics. A few root and tuber crops (e.g., cassava, taro, yam and sweetpotato) remain in the field during the dry season in Central Africa and are then harvested according to household needs. This paper also reports on crops (Mucuna, lablab and chickpea) with potential for integration into banana-based systems during the dry season, if planted during the last month of the rainy season. These crops are reported to use the residual soil moisture content for continued growth during the dry season months. The paper concludes with detailed descriptions (from a literature review) on drought- and shade-tolerance characteristics of various crops which have long been integrated in Central African banana-based cropping systems, crops with a more recent cultivation history and crops with potential for system integration.

Access to sufficient, nutritious food is a basic human right and is necessary to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. We demonstrate that international food trade, in the current global system, is essential to nutrient access and enables some poorer countries to be able to nourish up to hundreds of millions of people. Protectionist trade policies could therefore have serious negative consequences for food security. A balanced diet is vital for human health, and the Sustainable Development Goals codify this aim. This study finds that trade helps ensure the equitable distribution of food nutrients globally, with implications for international trade policies.

Twenty-first-century challenges for food and nutrition security include the spread of obesity worldwide and persistent undernutrition in vulnerable populations, along with continued micronutrient deficiencies. Climate change, increasing incomes and evolving diets complicate the search for sustainable solutions. Projecting to the year 2050, we explore future macronutrient and micronutrient adequacy with combined biophysical and socioeconomic scenarios that are country-specific. In all scenarios for 2050, the average benefits of widely shared economic growth, if achieved, are much greater than the modelled negative effects of climate change. Average macronutrient availability in 2050 at the country level appears adequate in all but the poorest countries. Many regions, however, will continue to have critical micronutrient inadequacies. Climate change alters micronutrient availability in some regions more than others. These findings indicate that the greatest food security challenge in 2050 will be providing nutritious diets rather than adequate calories. Research priorities and policies should emphasize nutritional quality by increasing availability and affordability of nutrient-dense foods and improving dietary diversity. Global environmental change complicates the goal of securing adequate nutrition for a growing world population. This study assesses the per capita availability of food nutrients for various scenarios to the year 2050. Results suggest that economic growth will expand food and macronutrient access more than climate change will suppress it, but that micronutrient inadequacies will plague some regions.

Food systems that support healthy diets in sustainable, resilient, just, and equitable ways can engender progress in eradicating poverty and malnutrition; protecting human rights; and restoring natural resources. Food system activities have contributed to great gains for humanity but have also led to significant challenges, including hunger, poor diet quality, inequity, and threats to nature. While it is recognized that food systems are central to multiple global commitments and goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals, current trajectories are not aligned to meet these objectives. As mounting crises further stress food systems, the consequences of inaction are clear. The goal of food system transformation is to generate a future where all people have access to healthy diets, which are produced in sustainable and resilient ways that restore nature and deliver just, equitable livelihoods. A rigorous, science-based monitoring framework can support evidence-based policymaking and the work of those who hold key actors accountable in this transformation process. Monitoring can illustrate current performance, facilitate comparisons across geographies and over time, and track progress. We propose a framework centered around five thematic areas related to (1) diets, nutrition, and health; (2) environment and climate; and (3) livelihoods, poverty, and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience and sustainability. We hope to call attention to the need to monitor food systems globally to inform decisions and support accountability for better governance of food systems as part of the transformation process. Transformation is possible in the next decade, but rigorous evidence is needed in the countdown to the 2030 SDG global goals.

Tallis, Heather; Kreis, Katharine; Olander, Lydia; Ringler, Claudia; Ameyaw, David; Borsuk, Mark E.; Fletschner, Diana; Game, Edward; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Jeuland, Marc; Kennedy, Gina; Masuda, Yuta J.; Mehta, Sumi; Miller, Nicholas; Parker, Megan; Pollino, Carmel; Rajaratnam, Julie; Wilkie, David; Zhang, Wei; Ahmed, Selena; Ajayi, Oluyede C.; Alderman, Harold; Arhonditsis, George; Azevedo, Ines; Badola, Ruchi; Bailis, Rob; Balvanera, Patricia; Barbour, Emily; Bardini, Mark; Barton, David Nicholas; Baumgartner, Jill; Benton, Tim G.; Bobrow, Emily; Bossio, Deborah; Bostrom, Ann; Braimoh, Ademola; Brondizio, Eduardo; Brown, Joe; Bryant, Benjamin P.; Calder, Ryan S.D.; Chaplin-Kramer, Becky; Cullen, Alison; DeMello, Nicole; Dickinson, Katherine L.; Ebi, Kristie L.; Eves, Heather E.; Fanzo, Jessica; Ferraro, Paul J.; Fisher, Brendan; Frongillo, Edward A.; Galford, Gillian; Garrity, Dennis; Gatere, Lydiah; Grieshop, Andrew P.; Grigg, Nicola J.; Groves, Craig; Gugerty, Mary Kay; Hamm, Michael; Hou, Xiaoyue; Huang, Cindy; Imhoff, Marc; Jack, Darby; Jones, Andrew D.; Kelsey, Rodd; Kothari, Monica; Kumar, Ritesh; Lachat, Carl; Larsen, Ashley; Lawrence, Mark; DeClerck, Fabrice; Levin, Phillip S.; Mabaya, Edward; Gibson, Jacqueline MacDonald; McDonald, Robert I.; Mace, Georgina; Maertens, Ricardo; Mangale, Dorothy I.; Martino, Robin; Mason, Sara; Mehta, Lyla; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth; Merz, Barbara; Msangi, Siwa; Murray, Grant; Murray, Kris A.; Naude, Celeste E.; Newlands, Nathaniel K.; Nkonya, Ephraim; Peterman, Amber; Petruney, Tricia; Possingham, Hugh; Puri, Jyotsna; Remans, Roseline; Remlinger, Lisa; Ricketts, Taylor H.; Reta, Bedilu; Robinson, Brian E.; Roe, Dilys; Rosenthal, Joshua; Shen, Guofeng; Shindell, Drew; Stewart-Koster, Ben; Sunderland, Terry; Sutherland, William J.; Tewksbury, Josh; Wasser, Heather; Wear, Stephanie; Webb, Chris; Whittington, Dale; Wilkerson, Marit; Wittmer, Heidi; Wood, Benjamin D.K.; Wood, Stephen; Wu, Joyce; Yadama, Gautam; Zobrist, Stephanie. Aligning evidence generation and use across health, development, and environment. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2019 ;Volum 39. s. 81-93

Today, global food production is the largest driver of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss (Willett et al. 2019). Rising global food demand and limited arable land are pushing us to expand agricultural frontiers and production. This often happens without regard to the environment, causing biodiversity loss, land and water degradation (Bioversity International 2017) Climate change is accelerating biodiversity loss. Higher temperatures disrupt pollination and natural pest control, affecting food quality (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN 2017). Equally, the need to feed an additional 2 billion people by 2050 is pushing us to increase yields in a few staple foods, which erodes food and genetic diversity. Biodiversity loss in food systems leaves farmers with fewer options to deal with risks of crop failure, declining soil fertility, or increasingly variable weather (Bioversity International 2017), causing production losses, food insecurity and malnutrition(FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP WHO 2018). The way we produce and consume our food is hurting both people and the planet. This calls upon all of us, from governments to producers to consumers, to put biodiversity back into food (World Economic Forum (WEF) 2017). Food and - more broadly - agricultural biodiversity are essential for sustainable food systems. Agrobiodiversity boosts productivity and nutrition quality, increases soil and water quality, and reduces the need for synthetic fertilizers. It makes farmers’ livelihoods more resilient, reducing yield losses due to climate change and pest damage. Broadening the types of cultivated plants also benefits the environment, increasing the abundance of pollinators and beneficial soil organisms, and reducing the risk of pest epidemics. To sustainably use and conserve agrobiodiversity, governments need dedicated, multi-sectoral and evidence-based policies and strategies. From smallholder farmers to multinational companies, food producers are becoming increasingly important in conserving genetic resources and adopting sustainable agricultural practices. Consumers need to become more aware of the impact of their food choices on the planet and their role in preserving the environment. What actions do we need to put in place to make change happen? To answer, we need to be able to measure biodiversity in food systems. While decades of effort have advanced our understanding of sustainable food systems, biodiversity data remain uneven and oftentimes information is analyzed from sectoral perspectives (i.e.: production, consumption or conservation). To transform food systems, we need to look at the broader picture and understand the systemic linkages between biodiversity, food security and nutrition, agricultural production, and the environment. Bioversity International has developed the Agrobiodiversity Index, an innovative tool that brings together existing data on diets and markets, production and genetic resources, analyzing them under the lens of agricultural biodiversity (Bioversity International 2018). Through open access to agricultural biodiversity data for science and society, the tool crosses disciplinary boundaries and allows users to monitor biodiversity trends in food systems. In particular, it helps food systems actors to measure agrobiodiversity in a selected area or value chain, and understand to what extent their commitments and actions are contributing to its sustainable use and conservation. This user-friendly tool equips food systems actors with the data needed to make informed decisions. For example, it helps governments to formulate evidence-based agricultural, health and food policies and strategies to address today’s global challenges, by providing information on how biological and geographical diversity influence food systems sustainability. Through the Index, companies can understand how to diversify their supply chain and production to reduce risks, and what are the best agricultural practices for their agro-ecological zone. The tool can thereby support best practices dissemination, and track progress towards global goals related to agrobiodiversity, including Sustainable Development Goals 3, 12, 13, 15 and Aichi targets 7.

Sustainable agriculture has multiple objectives, including efficient use of land to produce nutrients for human consumption, climate resilience, and income for farmers. We illustrate an approach to examine trade-offs and synergies among these objectives for monsoon cereal crops in central India. We estimate nutritional yields for protein, energy and iron and examine the sensitivity of yields to monsoon rainfall and temperature. Rice, the dominant crop in the region, is the least land efficient for providing iron and most sensitive to rainfall variability. Sorghum and maize provide high nutritional yields while small millet is most resilient to climate variability. Price incentives are strong for rice. No single crop is superior for all objectives in this region. Instead, understanding which crops, or combinations of crops, are most suitable requires identifying household-, community-, and region-specific priorities coupled with empirical analysis that considers multiple objectives.

Global targets, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and private sector commitments, such as deforestation-free supply chains, are stimulating growing demand for sustainable investment opportunities in the food and agriculture sector. Yet, the supply of such opportunities has been slow to materialize despite a proliferation of impact funds and other sustainability-focused funders seeking to direct global capital flows into the sector. This can be explained, in part, by the heterogeneous, multi-layered, and fragmented nature of agricultural production systems and food value chains and the poorly developed knowledge systems available to inform new types of investment. The volume of sustainability-oriented investment in the food and agriculture sector is likely to be hampered by the absence of a robust scientific evidence base and well-designed tools (e.g. indices and other benchmarking mechanisms) for harnessing knowledge to investment decision processes. At present, indicator-based tools for incorporating sustainability into agricultural value chains are being developed without adequate engagement by scientists. Collaborative co-development of decision tools by researchers and corporate and financial actors, that draws upon their distinct needs and knowledge sets, can improve the utility of these tools for real-world application (e.g. assessing non-financial returns; mitigating reputational risk). This paper proposes new requirements and strategies for the scientific community to contribute to co-development of science-based indicators and other decision tools that better enable agri-sector companies and investors to integrate food system sustainability considerations into management and capital allocation. It will present early lessons from multi-sector engagement in construction of indices, such as the Agrobiodiversity Index (ABDI), and review new modes for research institutions to engage with private sector partners.

The wealth of national food supply data, collected over decades by member states of the Food and Agriculture Organization, provides intriguing insights into regional transitions.

Significance Current research linking biodiversity and human diets has used metrics without justification from a nutritional point of view. Diet species richness, or a count of the number of different species consumed per day, assesses both nutritional adequacy and food biodiversity of diets for women and children in rural areas. The positive association of food species richness with dietary quality was observed in both the wet and the dry season. Food biodiversity contributes to diet quality in vulnerable populations in areas with high biodiversity. Reporting the number of species consumed during dietary assessment provides a unique opportunity to cut across two critical dimensions of sustainable development—human and environmental health—and complements existing indicators for healthy and sustainable diets., Biodiversity is key for human and environmental health. Available dietary and ecological indicators are not designed to assess the intricate relationship between food biodiversity and diet quality. We applied biodiversity indicators to dietary intake data from and assessed associations with diet quality of women and young children. Data from 24-hour diet recalls (55% in the wet season) of n = 6,226 participants (34% women) in rural areas from seven low- and middle-income countries were analyzed. Mean adequacies of vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium, iron, and zinc and diet diversity score (DDS) were used to assess diet quality. Associations of biodiversity indicators with nutrient adequacy were quantified using multilevel models, receiver operating characteristic curves, and test sensitivity and specificity. A total of 234 different species were consumed, of which

While dietary energy supply has improved, diets in Ethiopia remain low in diversity and provide insufficient amounts of protein, vitamin A, and zinc. Poor dietary quality contributes to the multiple burden of malnutrition in the country, with 38% stunting among children under five years and 24% anemia and 8% overweight among adult women. Recent Ethiopian government policies and programs call for sustainable food systems approaches aimed at achieving better nutrition for all. Such food systems approaches imply actions that include but also go beyond agriculture to consider the many processes and actors involved in food production, processing, storage, transportation, trade, transformation, retailing, and consumption. In this paper, we identify research streams to support the operationalizing of such food systems approaches in Ethiopia. To this end, we engaged with stakeholders, reviewed the literature, and applied a food systems framework to research priorities in the Ethiopian context. We develop an initial food systems profile of Ethiopia and identify 25 priority research questions, categorized into three main areas. A first area focuses on diagnosis and foresight research, for example, to further characterize dietary gaps and transitions in the context of the variety of Ethiopian settings, and to understand and anticipate which food system dynamics contribute positively or negatively to those trends. A second area includes implementation research and focuses on building a base of evidence on the dietary impact of combined demand-, market-, and supply-side interventions/innovations that focus on nonstaples; potential trade-offs in terms of economic, social, and environmental outcomes; and interactions between food system actors. A third area focuses on institutional and policy processes and explores enabling factors and private or public anchors that can take food systems approaches for healthier diets to a regional or national scale. The paper contextualizes the case of Ethiopia within global food systems thinking and thereby aims to stimulate in- and cross-country learning.

We assess whether forests contribute indirectly to the dietary diversity of rural households by supporting diverse agricultural production systems. We applied our study in a landscape mosaic in Southern Ethiopia that was divided into three zones of increasing distance to Munesa Forest—“near,” “intermediate,” and “distant.” A variety of research tools and methods, including remote sensing, participatory methods, farm survey, and yield assessment, were employed. Diets of households were more diverse in the near zone than in the other two zones (6.58 ± 1.21, 5.38 ± 1.02, and 4.41 ± 0.77 food groups consumed daily in the near, intermediate, and distant zones, respectively). This difference was not explained by food items collected from Munesa Forest but by biomass flows from the forest to farmlands. Munesa Forest contributed an average of 6.13 ± 2.90 tons of biomass per farm and per year to the farms in the near zone, in the form of feed and fuelwood. Feed from the forest allowed for larger livestock herds in the near zone compared with the other two zones, and fuelwood from the forest reduced the need to use cattle dung as fuel in the near zone compared with the two other zones. These two biomass flows contributed to the availability of more manure to farmers closer to the forest (908 ± 853 kg farm -1 , 771 ± 717 kg farm -1 , and 261 ± 487 kg farm -1 in the near, intermediate, and distant zones, respectively). In turn, increased manure enabled a larger percentage of farms to cultivate a diversified homegarden (87, 64, and 39% of farms in the near, intermediate, and distant zones, respectively). Homegardens and livestock products provided the greater contribution to household dietary diversity closer to the forest.

Background: Information about the global structure of agriculture and nutrient production and its diversity is essential to improve present understanding of national food production patterns, agricultural livelihoods, and food chains, and their linkages to land use and their associated ecosystems services. Here we provide a plausible breakdown of global agricultural and nutrient production by farm size, and also study the associations between farm size, agricultural diversity, and nutrient production. This analysis is crucial to design interventions that might be appropriately targeted to promote healthy diets and ecosystems in the face of population growth, urbanisation, and climate change. Methods: We used existing spatially-explicit global datasets to estimate the production levels of 41 major crops, seven livestock, and 14 aquaculture and fish products. From overall production estimates, we estimated the production of vitamin A, vitamin B₁₂, folate, iron, zinc, calcium, calories, and protein. We also estimated the relative contribution of farms of different sizes to the production of different agricultural commodities and associated nutrients, as well as how the diversity of food production based on the number of different products grown per geographic pixel and distribution of products within this pixel (Shannon diversity index [H]) changes with different farm sizes. Findings: Globally, small and medium farms (≤50 ha) produce 51–77% of nearly all commodities and nutrients examined here. However, important regional differences exist. Large farms (>50 ha) dominate production in North America, South America, and Australia and New Zealand. In these regions, large farms contribute between 75% and 100% of all cereal, livestock, and fruit production, and the pattern is similar for other commodity groups. By contrast, small farms (≤20 ha) produce more than 75% of most food commodities in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, south Asia, and China. In Europe, west Asia and north Africa, and central America, medium-size farms (20–50 ha) also contribute substantially to the production of most food commodities. Very small farms (≤2 ha) are important and have local significance in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and south Asia, where they contribute to about 30% of most food commodities. The majority of vegetables (81%), roots and tubers (72%), pulses (67%), fruits (66%), fish and livestock products (60%), and cereals (56%) are produced in diverse landscapes (H>1·5). Similarly, the majority of global micronutrients (53–81%) and protein (57%) are also produced in more diverse agricultural landscapes (H>1·5). By contrast, the majority of sugar (73%) and oil crops (57%) are produced in less diverse ones (H≤1·5), which also account for the majority of global calorie production (56%). The diversity of agricultural and nutrient production diminishes as farm size increases. However, areas of the world with higher agricultural diversity produce more nutrients, irrespective of farm size. Interpretation: Our results show that farm size and diversity of agricultural production vary substantially across regions and are key structural determinants of food and nutrient production that need to be considered in plans to meet social, economic, and environmental targets. At the global level, both small and large farms have key roles in food and nutrition security. Efforts to maintain production diversity as farm sizes increase seem to be necessary to maintain the production of diverse nutrients and viable, multifunctional, sustainable landscapes. Funding: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security and on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health funded by the CGIAR Fund Council, Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, European Union, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Australian Research Council, National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change—Belmont Forum.

South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are two regions of the world with the highest concentration of nutritionally vulnerable populations that depend to a large extent on agriculture as an important source of livelihood (Gillespie et al., 2015). The vast majority of farmers in these regions have small landholdings due to land fragmentation (Jayne et al., 2014; Valbuena et al., 2015) and are often constrained in their access to resources and agricultural inputs (Herrero et al., 2010), especially women (e.g., Cole et al., 2015). As a consequence, productivity levels are low, and because income sources are also limited, dependence on surrounding landscapes and ecosystem services is high in terms of safeguarding supplies of clean water, human and animal foods, construction materials and fuel wood. People shape their physical landscapes (Ellis, 2015), influenced by cultures, values and livelihood opportunities (Horlings, 2015). People’s utilization of their physical landscapes is shaped by various conditions such as soil properties, topography, climate and flooding patterns. People’s dependence on their physical landscapes is strong and expected to increase due to climate change, resulting in gradual but persistent changes including adjustments in frequency, timing and severity of anomalies such as droughts and floods (Naylor et al., 2007; Gornall et al., 2010).

Global challenges—including unsustainable food systems, environmental degradation, and the double burden of malnutrition (under-nutrition and obesity) are interconnected and require a fresh look at how people interact with their environment to fulfill the goals of food and nutrition security. Current agricultural practices are moving toward intensified monocultures, which increase grain yields in the short term, but limit dietary and biological diversity. In addition, population growth, climate change and changing consumer preferences add pressure to these vulnerable systems. A landscape focus on nutrition is called for in order to place greater focus and emphasis on building diversity and ecosystem service based approaches into meeting human dietary and nutritional needs in production landscapes. We provisionally call this the Nutrition Sensitive Landscapes approach (NSL). NSL goes beyond traditional “no harm” approaches toward one that is system and landscape based. The NSL method offers proactive management towards more sustainable diets for vulnerable populations. The approach asks: (1) what are potential synergies and trade-offs between agricultural production, the environment, and food and nutrition security in a given landscape; (2) how do human food choices and food system dynamics have an impact on ecosystem services and human health in a given landscape, and vice versa; (3) how does this relationship change over space and time as landscapes and populations transition, for example, the adoption of agricultural intensification, from subsistence to commercial agriculture, or from rural to urban settings; (4) what are landscape and food system opportunities for enhancing diversity of diets and of the ecosystem and; (5) which system interventions, dietary guidelines, institutions, and incentives can be promoted to create synergies between nutrition, livelihoods, and the environment? In collaboration with the CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS), Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) and Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics), the first phase of NSL research is focusing on pilot projects in three landscapes,: (1) the Barotse floodplain in Western Zambia; (2) Northern Zambia; and (3) Western Kenya. Working in these differing landscapes demonstrates interactions between ecosystems and their populations, and differentiates contextspecific factors from those that can be applied in other similar landscapes. In this session we will present the NSL approach and the methods used to assess landscape nutritional capacity and preliminary results from several of the sites where we have initiated work. We anticipate that the presentation will facilitate the use of the methodology in other sites.

South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are two regions of the world with the highest concentration of nutritionally vulnerable populations that depend to a large extent on agriculture as an important source of livelihood (Gillespie et al., 2015). The vast majority of farmers in these regions have small landholdings due to land fragmentation (Jayne et al., 2014; Valbuena et al., 2015) and are often constrained in their access to resources and agricultural inputs (Herrero et al., 2010), especially women (e.g., Cole et al., 2015). As a consequence, productivity levels are low, and because income sources are also limited, dependence on surrounding landscapes and ecosystem services is high in terms of safeguarding supplies of clean water, human and animal foods, construction materials and fuel wood. People shape their physical landscapes (Ellis, 2015), influenced by cultures, values and livelihood opportunities (Horlings, 2015). People’s utilization of their physical landscapes is shaped by various conditions such as soil properties, topography, climate and flooding patterns. People’s dependence on their physical landscapes is strong and expected to increase due to climate change, resulting in gradual but persistent changes including adjustments in frequency, timing and severity of anomalies such as droughts and floods (Naylor et al., 2007; Gornall et al., 2010).