Pub Date : 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01238-4
C. Govoni, L. Zhuo, D. M. Marchioni, M. C. Rulli
China’s shift towards greater consumption of animal proteins drove substantial changes in global agricultural dynamics and particularly affected Brazil, a leading exporter of animal feed proteins. Here we examine the environmental consequences of the Sino-Brazilian soybean trade by focusing on land and water resources and the associated deforestation risk. We estimate that Brazil supplies 10% of total protein and 24–29% of animal proteins in the Chinese diet. China’s reliance on Brazilian soybeans to feed its livestock corresponded to 17.8 Mha of virtually imported Brazilian land in 2020. Irrigation is minimal, while rainwater represents an important share of virtual water trade. Although direct deforestation linked to soybean production decreased, indirect deforestation persists and soybean cultivation keeps expanding—often displacing other land uses. These findings underscore the complex interplay between global dietary shifts and environmental burdens. China’s increasing demand for animal proteins drives Brazil’s agricultural expansion and exacerbates environmental pressures in vulnerable ecosystems. Brazil is known to supply an important share of China’s increasing demand for proteins, but the exact pressure on land and water that results from this is unclear. This study addresses this gap, focusing on soybean trade, showing the persistence of indirect deforestation associated with soy cultivation expansion.
{"title":"China’s animal-protein-rich diets are increasingly reliant on Brazil’s land and water resources","authors":"C. Govoni, L. Zhuo, D. M. Marchioni, M. C. Rulli","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01238-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01238-4","url":null,"abstract":"China’s shift towards greater consumption of animal proteins drove substantial changes in global agricultural dynamics and particularly affected Brazil, a leading exporter of animal feed proteins. Here we examine the environmental consequences of the Sino-Brazilian soybean trade by focusing on land and water resources and the associated deforestation risk. We estimate that Brazil supplies 10% of total protein and 24–29% of animal proteins in the Chinese diet. China’s reliance on Brazilian soybeans to feed its livestock corresponded to 17.8 Mha of virtually imported Brazilian land in 2020. Irrigation is minimal, while rainwater represents an important share of virtual water trade. Although direct deforestation linked to soybean production decreased, indirect deforestation persists and soybean cultivation keeps expanding—often displacing other land uses. These findings underscore the complex interplay between global dietary shifts and environmental burdens. China’s increasing demand for animal proteins drives Brazil’s agricultural expansion and exacerbates environmental pressures in vulnerable ecosystems. Brazil is known to supply an important share of China’s increasing demand for proteins, but the exact pressure on land and water that results from this is unclear. This study addresses this gap, focusing on soybean trade, showing the persistence of indirect deforestation associated with soy cultivation expansion.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 10","pages":"954-967"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145296264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-14DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01245-5
Walter C. Willett, Frank B. Hu, Xiao Gu
{"title":"Assessing diet in epidemiologic studies","authors":"Walter C. Willett, Frank B. Hu, Xiao Gu","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01245-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01245-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 10","pages":"927-929"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145294943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-14DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01237-5
Alba Aguión, Xavier Basurto, Simon Funge-Smith, Giulia Gorelli, Edwin Iversen, Maria del Mar Mancha-Cisneros, Nicolas L. Gutierrez
The diversity of small-scale producers is often oversimplified, limiting their contribution to effective food systems transformation and positive impact on global development. Here we analyse data for more than 1,000 small-scale marine fisheries, representing two-thirds of the global marine small-scale fisheries catch, and identify five global archetypes defined by operational, socioeconomic, technological and post-harvest attributes. We then apply the Five Principles of Sustainable Food and Agriculture, developed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, as a guiding framework for policy recommendations that link Sustainable Development Goals targets with context-specific needs and apply to each of these archetypes. This approach recognises the multidimensional contributions of small-scale fisheries and offers a low-cost, easy-to-implement solution that supports decision-making in data-limited contexts, particularly in the global south. Additionally, the approach is potentially transferable to small-scale producers in other food sectors, facilitating targeted policymaking for the benefit of millions globally. Data from the Illuminating Hidden Harvests initiative challenge the small- versus large-scale fisheries dichotomy, identifying five global archetypes to guide targeted policy and food systems transformation.
{"title":"Five archetypes of small-scale fisheries reveal a continuum of production strategies to guide governance and policymaking","authors":"Alba Aguión, Xavier Basurto, Simon Funge-Smith, Giulia Gorelli, Edwin Iversen, Maria del Mar Mancha-Cisneros, Nicolas L. Gutierrez","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01237-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01237-5","url":null,"abstract":"The diversity of small-scale producers is often oversimplified, limiting their contribution to effective food systems transformation and positive impact on global development. Here we analyse data for more than 1,000 small-scale marine fisheries, representing two-thirds of the global marine small-scale fisheries catch, and identify five global archetypes defined by operational, socioeconomic, technological and post-harvest attributes. We then apply the Five Principles of Sustainable Food and Agriculture, developed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, as a guiding framework for policy recommendations that link Sustainable Development Goals targets with context-specific needs and apply to each of these archetypes. This approach recognises the multidimensional contributions of small-scale fisheries and offers a low-cost, easy-to-implement solution that supports decision-making in data-limited contexts, particularly in the global south. Additionally, the approach is potentially transferable to small-scale producers in other food sectors, facilitating targeted policymaking for the benefit of millions globally. Data from the Illuminating Hidden Harvests initiative challenge the small- versus large-scale fisheries dichotomy, identifying five global archetypes to guide targeted policy and food systems transformation.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 11","pages":"1020-1031"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-025-01237-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145288260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-13DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01251-7
We devised two deployment schemes for renewable-fuelled plant factories to meet the dietary vegetable demand across China’s 369 city-level regions. Our results indicate that renewable-fuelled plant factories ensure sufficient vegetable supply and offer multifaceted benefits, such as land saving and pollutant reduction, but also increase greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting the need for a low-carbon transition.
{"title":"Transitioning to sustainable vegetable production using renewable-fuelled plant factories","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01251-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01251-7","url":null,"abstract":"We devised two deployment schemes for renewable-fuelled plant factories to meet the dietary vegetable demand across China’s 369 city-level regions. Our results indicate that renewable-fuelled plant factories ensure sufficient vegetable supply and offer multifaceted benefits, such as land saving and pollutant reduction, but also increase greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting the need for a low-carbon transition.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 10","pages":"918-919"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145283997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-10DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01248-2
Qian Xiang, Kai Yang, Li Cui, An-Qi Sun, Cai-Yu Lu, Jun-Qi Gao, Yi-Long Hao, Bin Ma, Hang-Wei Hu, Brajesh K. Singh, Qing-Lin Chen, Yong-Guan Zhu
Drought stress impacts plant–microbe interactions, reshaping microbial community composition and biogeochemical cycling, thereby reducing crop productivity and threatening food security. However, the specific microbial responses and roles of plant-derived metabolites remain underexplored. Here we reveal that drought stress shifts the composition of wheat-associated microbiota across the phyllosphere, rhizosphere and root endosphere by favouring Actinobacteria and Ascomycota while depleting Proteobacteria and Basidiomycota. Targeted single-cell sorting and sequencing identified 21 active drought-tolerant bacteria (DTB) enriched in genes related to plant fitness and nutrient cycling. These DTB showed significant positive correlations with drought-enriched plant phytochemicals such as jasmonic acid and pipecolic acid. Moreover, the inoculation of synthetic community including four identified drought-tolerant taxa significantly stimulates the wheat growth under drought stress. A global exploration confirmed the widespread distribution of DTB, underscoring their promising potential to enhance crop resilience. This study provides new insights into drought-induced microbiome shifts and highlights microbial candidates for improving crop resilience in a changing climate. Drought stress threatens global food security. This study shows that drought-induced changes in wheat metabolites selectively enrich drought-tolerant bacteria in the rhizosphere, which enhance plant growth through key functional traits, offering promising avenues to strengthen crop resilience and sustain food production under climate change.
{"title":"Global exploration of drought-tolerant bacteria in the wheat rhizosphere reveals microbiota shifts and functional taxa enhancing plant resilience","authors":"Qian Xiang, Kai Yang, Li Cui, An-Qi Sun, Cai-Yu Lu, Jun-Qi Gao, Yi-Long Hao, Bin Ma, Hang-Wei Hu, Brajesh K. Singh, Qing-Lin Chen, Yong-Guan Zhu","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01248-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01248-2","url":null,"abstract":"Drought stress impacts plant–microbe interactions, reshaping microbial community composition and biogeochemical cycling, thereby reducing crop productivity and threatening food security. However, the specific microbial responses and roles of plant-derived metabolites remain underexplored. Here we reveal that drought stress shifts the composition of wheat-associated microbiota across the phyllosphere, rhizosphere and root endosphere by favouring Actinobacteria and Ascomycota while depleting Proteobacteria and Basidiomycota. Targeted single-cell sorting and sequencing identified 21 active drought-tolerant bacteria (DTB) enriched in genes related to plant fitness and nutrient cycling. These DTB showed significant positive correlations with drought-enriched plant phytochemicals such as jasmonic acid and pipecolic acid. Moreover, the inoculation of synthetic community including four identified drought-tolerant taxa significantly stimulates the wheat growth under drought stress. A global exploration confirmed the widespread distribution of DTB, underscoring their promising potential to enhance crop resilience. This study provides new insights into drought-induced microbiome shifts and highlights microbial candidates for improving crop resilience in a changing climate. Drought stress threatens global food security. This study shows that drought-induced changes in wheat metabolites selectively enrich drought-tolerant bacteria in the rhizosphere, which enhance plant growth through key functional traits, offering promising avenues to strengthen crop resilience and sustain food production under climate change.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 11","pages":"1054-1067"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145277010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01244-6
Ellen Mangnus, Jeroen Candel
Food is increasingly framed as a security issue — not just as an allusion to external shocks that may put it at risk, but also as a reflection of a political agenda that prioritizes increased agricultural output rather than the systemic changes needed to create more just and sustainable food futures. European food policy must align with scientific evidence, sustainability commitments and democratic principles to create true food security.
{"title":"Food securitization and the unmaking of European food policy reform","authors":"Ellen Mangnus, Jeroen Candel","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01244-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01244-6","url":null,"abstract":"Food is increasingly framed as a security issue — not just as an allusion to external shocks that may put it at risk, but also as a reflection of a political agenda that prioritizes increased agricultural output rather than the systemic changes needed to create more just and sustainable food futures. European food policy must align with scientific evidence, sustainability commitments and democratic principles to create true food security.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 10","pages":"910-912"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01240-w
Yihan Wang, Chao Wang, Chen Chen, Peng Wang
Renewable-fuelled plant factories (RFPFs) offer great promise for resilient food production, yet assessing their supply potential and environmental impacts is crucial for wider adoption. Here we conduct a multidimensional geospatial analysis to devise RFPF deployment schemes that aim to meet the population’s dietary vegetable demand in China’s 369 city-level regions. Results indicate that RFPFs provide multifaceted benefits, particularly in a cross-city scenario that ensures a sufficient supply for all regions, saves 51,390 km2 of cropland and maintains an affordable cost at 5.88 Chinese Yuan kg−1. Nevertheless, compared with conventional methods, RFPFs increase greenhouse gas emissions by 1.99–2.55-fold, with the majority being embodied in the manufacturing of power modules and facilities. Adopting a low-carbon transition pathway mitigates these emissions by approximately 70%, enabling RFPFs to achieve environmental gains. These results show the potential of RFPFs to innovate food production systems while underscoring low-carbon transition as a condition for their large-scale implementation. Renewable-fuelled plant factories (RFPFs) offer great promise for resilient food production. This study presents a multidimensional geospatial analysis to devise RFPF deployment schemes that aim to meet the population’s dietary vegetable demand in China’s 369 city-level regions.
{"title":"Renewable-fuelled plant factories ensure large-scale food supply but require low-carbon transition for environmental gains","authors":"Yihan Wang, Chao Wang, Chen Chen, Peng Wang","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01240-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01240-w","url":null,"abstract":"Renewable-fuelled plant factories (RFPFs) offer great promise for resilient food production, yet assessing their supply potential and environmental impacts is crucial for wider adoption. Here we conduct a multidimensional geospatial analysis to devise RFPF deployment schemes that aim to meet the population’s dietary vegetable demand in China’s 369 city-level regions. Results indicate that RFPFs provide multifaceted benefits, particularly in a cross-city scenario that ensures a sufficient supply for all regions, saves 51,390 km2 of cropland and maintains an affordable cost at 5.88 Chinese Yuan kg−1. Nevertheless, compared with conventional methods, RFPFs increase greenhouse gas emissions by 1.99–2.55-fold, with the majority being embodied in the manufacturing of power modules and facilities. Adopting a low-carbon transition pathway mitigates these emissions by approximately 70%, enabling RFPFs to achieve environmental gains. These results show the potential of RFPFs to innovate food production systems while underscoring low-carbon transition as a condition for their large-scale implementation. Renewable-fuelled plant factories (RFPFs) offer great promise for resilient food production. This study presents a multidimensional geospatial analysis to devise RFPF deployment schemes that aim to meet the population’s dietary vegetable demand in China’s 369 city-level regions.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 10","pages":"968-982"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-08DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01242-8
Edgar Rodríguez-Huerta, Brooke M. Bell, Kyra Battaglia, Jessica L. Decker Sparks, Catherine Benoit Norris, Alejandra Sofia Marquez, Zach Conrad, Julia Matteson, Bethany Jackson, Nicole Tichenor Blackstone
Research on sustainable diets has primarily focused on human and planetary health, neglecting workers in food value chains despite their high global employment and forced labour rates. Combining nationally representative food intake data and forced labour risk data for food commodities, we compared the risk of forced labour embedded in five diets in the USA—current diets, three US-specific recommended dietary patterns and the EAT–Lancet Planetary Health Diet. We find that forced labour risk is highest in the Mediterranean-Style and US-Style recommended patterns and lowest in the Planetary Health Diet pattern, with the biggest differences driven by intake of fruit, dairy and red meat. Protein foods account for nearly half of the risk in all patterns, except for the Healthy Vegetarian recommended pattern. These results point to potential synergies and trade-offs between human health, environmental sustainability and social well-being that should be considered in dialogue and action on sustainable diets. Research on sustainable diets has primarily focused on human and planetary health, neglecting workers in food value chains. This study quantifies the risk of forced labour embedded in five different diets in the USA, underscoring the need to integrate such risk in sustainable diet transition efforts.
{"title":"Current and recommended diets in the USA have embedded forced labour risk","authors":"Edgar Rodríguez-Huerta, Brooke M. Bell, Kyra Battaglia, Jessica L. Decker Sparks, Catherine Benoit Norris, Alejandra Sofia Marquez, Zach Conrad, Julia Matteson, Bethany Jackson, Nicole Tichenor Blackstone","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01242-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01242-8","url":null,"abstract":"Research on sustainable diets has primarily focused on human and planetary health, neglecting workers in food value chains despite their high global employment and forced labour rates. Combining nationally representative food intake data and forced labour risk data for food commodities, we compared the risk of forced labour embedded in five diets in the USA—current diets, three US-specific recommended dietary patterns and the EAT–Lancet Planetary Health Diet. We find that forced labour risk is highest in the Mediterranean-Style and US-Style recommended patterns and lowest in the Planetary Health Diet pattern, with the biggest differences driven by intake of fruit, dairy and red meat. Protein foods account for nearly half of the risk in all patterns, except for the Healthy Vegetarian recommended pattern. These results point to potential synergies and trade-offs between human health, environmental sustainability and social well-being that should be considered in dialogue and action on sustainable diets. Research on sustainable diets has primarily focused on human and planetary health, neglecting workers in food value chains. This study quantifies the risk of forced labour embedded in five different diets in the USA, underscoring the need to integrate such risk in sustainable diet transition efforts.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 11","pages":"1042-1053"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145246707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01236-6
Richard S. Cottrell, Benjamin S. Halpern, Marceau Cormery, Helen A. Hamilton, Gage Clawson, Beth Penrose, Louise Adams, John P. Bowman, Duncan D. Cameron, Chris G. Carter, Tom Fox-Smith, Scott Hadley, Alexandra Johne, Catriona Macleod, Sowdamini Sesha Prasad, Xintong Qiu, Camille A. White, Xin Zhan, Julia L. Blanchard
The net environmental implications of shifting aquaculture feed provisioning from wild-caught fishmeal to crop-based ingredients remain understudied, with little attention paid to multiple environmental pressures or the importance of where ingredients are sourced from. Here we model the change in environmental footprint (a cumulative and spatial measure of greenhouse gas emissions, habitat disturbance, excess nutrient and water consumption pressures) of shifting dependence from largely fish-based to plant-based ingredients in feeds for Atlantic salmon farming. We show that average differences exist between feeds in their cumulative and individual environmental pressures, but more importantly, the locations where feed raw materials are produced and processed drives far more variability in footprint within a feed than the typical variation between feeds. We demonstrate that responsible sourcing will be critical for sustainable feed production across all farming systems as the next generation of ingredients is developed. Reduced dependence on wild-caught fish in favour of crop-based ingredients for feeds has supported aquaculture growth. An analysis of ingredient origins versus feed composition shows that origin must be considered to assess the environmental footprint of feed production.
{"title":"The origins of aquaculture feed ingredients matter more than composition for aquafeed environmental footprint assessments","authors":"Richard S. Cottrell, Benjamin S. Halpern, Marceau Cormery, Helen A. Hamilton, Gage Clawson, Beth Penrose, Louise Adams, John P. Bowman, Duncan D. Cameron, Chris G. Carter, Tom Fox-Smith, Scott Hadley, Alexandra Johne, Catriona Macleod, Sowdamini Sesha Prasad, Xintong Qiu, Camille A. White, Xin Zhan, Julia L. Blanchard","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01236-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01236-6","url":null,"abstract":"The net environmental implications of shifting aquaculture feed provisioning from wild-caught fishmeal to crop-based ingredients remain understudied, with little attention paid to multiple environmental pressures or the importance of where ingredients are sourced from. Here we model the change in environmental footprint (a cumulative and spatial measure of greenhouse gas emissions, habitat disturbance, excess nutrient and water consumption pressures) of shifting dependence from largely fish-based to plant-based ingredients in feeds for Atlantic salmon farming. We show that average differences exist between feeds in their cumulative and individual environmental pressures, but more importantly, the locations where feed raw materials are produced and processed drives far more variability in footprint within a feed than the typical variation between feeds. We demonstrate that responsible sourcing will be critical for sustainable feed production across all farming systems as the next generation of ingredients is developed. Reduced dependence on wild-caught fish in favour of crop-based ingredients for feeds has supported aquaculture growth. An analysis of ingredient origins versus feed composition shows that origin must be considered to assess the environmental footprint of feed production.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 10","pages":"942-953"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145240945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-06DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01231-x
Abebe D. Chukalla, Mesfin M. Mekonnen, Dahami Gunathilake, Fitsume T. Wolkeba, Bhawani Gunasekara, Davy Vanham
Agricultural crop production is the largest water user worldwide. Here we compute the blue and green water consumption (WC) of global crop production at 5 arcminutes (~10 km at the equator) for the year 2020, differentiating between 46 crops, using the most recent Spatial Production Allocation Model 2020 crop data. Total crop WC amounts to 6,668 km3, or 6,817 km3 including the flooding phase of paddy rice, of which green WC amounts to 5,588 km3 and blue WC to 1,080 km3 (increasing to 1,228 km3 with paddy flooding). Over a period of 20 years, five major crops increased in total WC by 23–82%. For 2010–2020, global total crop WC increased by 9% from 6,270 km3 (with paddy flooding). Alongside observed increases in cropland area, higher crop WC puts additional pressure on limited water resources. Using the most recent Spatial Production Allocation Model 2020 crop data, agricultural green and blue water consumption is estimated. Water use increased by up to four-fifths for major crops in the past two decades.
{"title":"Global spatially explicit crop water consumption shows an overall increase of 9% for 46 agricultural crops from 2010 to 2020","authors":"Abebe D. Chukalla, Mesfin M. Mekonnen, Dahami Gunathilake, Fitsume T. Wolkeba, Bhawani Gunasekara, Davy Vanham","doi":"10.1038/s43016-025-01231-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s43016-025-01231-x","url":null,"abstract":"Agricultural crop production is the largest water user worldwide. Here we compute the blue and green water consumption (WC) of global crop production at 5 arcminutes (~10 km at the equator) for the year 2020, differentiating between 46 crops, using the most recent Spatial Production Allocation Model 2020 crop data. Total crop WC amounts to 6,668 km3, or 6,817 km3 including the flooding phase of paddy rice, of which green WC amounts to 5,588 km3 and blue WC to 1,080 km3 (increasing to 1,228 km3 with paddy flooding). Over a period of 20 years, five major crops increased in total WC by 23–82%. For 2010–2020, global total crop WC increased by 9% from 6,270 km3 (with paddy flooding). Alongside observed increases in cropland area, higher crop WC puts additional pressure on limited water resources. Using the most recent Spatial Production Allocation Model 2020 crop data, agricultural green and blue water consumption is estimated. Water use increased by up to four-fifths for major crops in the past two decades.","PeriodicalId":94151,"journal":{"name":"Nature food","volume":"6 10","pages":"983-994"},"PeriodicalIF":21.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-025-01231-x.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145235843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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