The intensification of agriculture has provided cheaper more plentiful food, but has also caused declines in farmland wildlife. The introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops may exacerbate this, or offer new ways of mitigating anthropogenic impacts. The potential consequences of the introduction of GM crops have been studied for over a decade, since commercialization. Although the specifi...

Genetically modified (GM) crops have been at the center of a storm of protests in Europe, which has begun to move into the United States. US surveys show increasing consumer concern about food biotechnology and some major food companies have announced decisions to purchase only non-bioengineered products. Recently, the finding of StarLink® corn in taco shells has raised harsh criticisms about t...

Rainfed agriculture occupies 68% of India’s cultivated area and supports 40% of the human and 60% of the livestock population. It produces 445 of the food requirement, thus has and will continue to play a critical role in India’s food security. However, aberrant behaviour of monsoon rainfall, eroded and degraded soils with multiple nutrient and water deficiencies, declining ground water table a...

The narrowing of diversity in crop species contributing to the world's food supplies has been considered a potential threat to food security. However, changes in this diversity have not been quantified globally. We assess trends over the past 50 y in the richness, abundance, and composition of crop species in national food supplies worldwide. Over this period, national per capita food supplies ...

a recent study. The process uses a digester system with microorganisms to break down organic waste into fertiliser. The resultant fertiliser was used in a low-energy greenhouse to produce a range of food crops. The method is a potential way to utilise food waste and reduce the energy consumption of food production as part of a circular economy. New system to convert food waste into fertiliser f...

Agricultural biotechnologies, and especially transgenic crops, have the potential to boost food security in developing countries by offering higher incomes for farmers and lower priced and better quality food for consumers. That potential is being heavily compromised, however, because the European Union and some other countries have implemented strict regulatory systems to govern their producti...

The increase in water productivity is likely to play a vital role in coping with the additional requirement for food production and the growth of the uses of water other than in agriculture in the coming century consistent with the shift from productivity per unit land to productivity per unit water, the nutritional productivity of water is calculated as energy, protein, calcium, fat, Vitamin A...

Food losses caused by pests, contamination and spoilage are enormous. It is estimated1 that 42% of the production of the eight major food and cash crops of the world are lost to pests, with post harvest losses adding a further 10%. Despite the use of modern food processing and distribution systems, food borne diseases still pose a widespread threat to human health as well as being an important ...

Biodiversity is severely declining in intensively managed agriculture worldwide. In response, land-management strategies for biodiversity conservation on farmland are in debate, namely ecological intensification and land sparing vs. land sharing. In parallel, there is a recent food vs. energy debate stimulated by an increasing competition for land resources. Despite clear overlaps between these...

Food security and economic welfare strongly depend on agricultural production, the loss of this production can be a serious challenge for food security and economic welfare. Agricultural production is also influenced by environmental and climatic factors so that the variations of climatic parameters can trigger extensive fluctuations in agricultural production. This study classifies climate cha...