More than 1,600 multi-stakeholder dialogues were convened in preparation for the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021. These dialogues have helped facilitate inclusive explorations of the complex challenges of transforming food systems and accelerate progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Engaging with people’s realities is key to the success of policies and interventions aimed at achieving better diets for all. Drawing on social practice theory, this Perspective proposes a tool—the full picture—to help researchers, practitioners and policymakers think through the full range of people’s interacting realities that shape the impact of policies and interventions designed to improve diets.

Technological advancements are needed before cultivated meat can supply dietary protein at a competitive cost and with lower environmental impacts than livestock production. This Review explores how techno-economic analyses can guide research towards providing sustainable scaled-up cultivated beef production.

Future yield improvements will require a closer examination of specific production factors and their interactions. This study quantifies potassium (K) limitations in Indonesia’s intensive cereal cropping systems and reveals that current soil K levels and fertilizer applications are inadequate to meet crop needs, exacerbating the existing yield gap in rice–maize systems in Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia.

Alternate wetting and drying (AWD) optimizes water use in rice cultivation. This study shows that a soil water potential-based AWD scheme could minimize yield loss while increasing water productivity in 37% of global irrigated rice areas.

Increased agricultural nitrogen inputs lead to elevated nitrogen losses and may result in detrimental environmental impacts. This study uses meta-analyses to evaluate and predict changes in nitrogen losses to air and water in response to sustainable nutrient, crop and soil management practices.

A model simulating the carbon cycle in low-oxygen aquatic environments suggests a potential pathway to increase alkalinity production and carbon dioxide uptake, offering an affordable and scalable method of carbon capture in aquaculture systems.

Understanding greenhouse gas (GHG) emission patterns in crop production, particularly their spatial and temporal distributions, is key to designing better policies. This study combines secondary data and household survey data to examine the GHG emissions intensity of croplands in China and how it has fluctuated in the past few decades and to identify the factors driving emissions intensity inequality.

Strategies to change meat consumption patterns remain poorly understood. Using decomposition analysis, this study shows that the decline in UK meat consumption is driven by the consumption of smaller portions of meat, followed by reducing the number of days and occasions on which meat is consumed.

A scenario analysis demonstrates that integrated crop–livestock optimization combined with intensive monogastric livestock production could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and redirect cropland use from feed to food production.

Innovation in pesticide application is urgently needed. However, recent approaches, such as employing full-service pesticide contractors or utilizing artificial intelligence for pest control, may prioritize economic and production outcomes over environmental protection and public health. Here, we explore these propositions, their associated risks, and suggest a pathway for sustainable, risk-reduced pesticide decisions.

Land consolidation in China is seen as a key strategy to increase resource use efficiency while maintaining high yields, yet it often reduces crop diversity. Reconciling consolidation, diversity and agricultural technology is key for food and nutrition security.

More than 1,600 multi-stakeholder dialogues were convened in preparation for the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021. These dialogues have helped facilitate inclusive explorations of the complex challenges of transforming food systems and accelerate progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Indigenous peoples are frequently denied the right to own, control and use their traditional lands and resources. Using the example of the Burdekin plum, we explore how this undermines resource access and benefit sharing with Indigenous peoples and hinders scientific research in food innovation.

The framework presented in the Dublin Declaration has generated controversy by advocating for maintaining or increasing livestock numbers. The serious and acute harms associated with global livestock production today bring the goals of the declaration into dispute.