Toward sustainable food systems: global initiatives and innovations

Highlights

● Utilizing optimization technology in crop and livestock systems can enhance food production.

● Numerous technologies have the potential to contribute to the mitigation of environmental impacts within food systems.

● Three potential pathways are proposed that could transform the current food system to align with SDGs and agricultural green development.

Abstract

A recent UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) analysis indicated a significant regression in the global SDG goal scores, particularly in SDG 2—Zero Hunger. The emissions of environmental pollution caused by meeting food demands have prompted some countries to intensify their climate change mitigation efforts. These circumstances have introduced significant uncertainty to the future global sustainable food development. Additionally, a notable global challenge is the persistence of hidden hunger, primarily characterized by the insufficient consumption of high-quality animal protein. Addressing this issue would necessitate increased environmental costs to attain high-quality food security. The future food system presents a significant challenge in coordinating food security, food quality and environmental quality. This article presents a comprehensive review and proposes a three-step strategy for future agricultural development based on food security, quality, and environmental aspects. This is a novel food system transfer strategy, as it concurrently addresses both global food security and environmental thresholds. It involves the construction of an efficient food system that operates within the constraints of environmental limits. The objective is to align with global SDG indicators and to maintain natural resource consumption and pollutant emissions within planetary boundaries.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Agricultural green development / food system / food production / optimization / transform pathways

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Compliance with ethics guidelines

Xiangwen Fan, Xiaomeng Zhang, Xiaofei Wu, Wenqi Ma, Zhaohai Bai, and Lin Ma declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)