Volume 7 Issue 9, September 2026

Debt-for-food swaps have been presented as instruments that can simultaneously mobilize additional resources for food security and alleviate debt distress in countries with heavy debt burdens. A recently announced large-scale swap deal between Kenya and the US International Development Finance Corporation provides an opportunity to assess the future potential of such instruments and to identify key considerations for maximizing their effectiveness.

Institutional and structural barriers limit the effective use of remote sensing in European Union agricultural governance, constraining its potential to enable fair, resilient and environmentally sound farming practices. We outline financial, academic and policy reforms to address these barriers, linking satellite observation with local knowledge systems and institutional accountability.

Past biofuel expansions reveal that when industrial-scale investment outpaces land governance, independent scrutiny and community participation, low-carbon crop transitions can reproduce land concentration, displacement and ecological simplification. A close examination of an emerging biofuel frontier in Brazil shows why land rights, public accountability and equitable benefit-sharing must guide crop-based decarbonization from the outset.

Systems modelling and power mapping illuminate different dimensions of power in food systems but are rarely used to interrogate one another. This Comment proposes recursive representational revision, a methodological approach that organizes iterative engagement between the two so that each becomes a resource for revising assumptions about power embedded in the other.

A bold proposal to re-embed food systems under democratic control, and within planetary boundaries, uses a long tradition of social security in francophone Europe. Beginning as a grassroots initiative, food social security and the right to food have since made parliamentary advances in France, Belgium and Switzerland, while a first pilot now runs in Spain. The proposal offers lessons for food system reform well beyond Europe.

Timely estimation and forecasting of crop yields at national and global levels is essential to manage market volatility. Yet, better understanding of estimation accuracy and whether and how this impacts market volatility is essential.

Large-scale food fortification can be an effective strategy to address hidden hunger, but only if vulnerable populations actually eat the fortified foods. A systemic framework using publicly available data from ten West African countries reveals that a wider mix of fortified foods than are currently considered for fortification is needed for building more equitable programmes.

Ethiopia’s iodized salt supply was cut off in May 1998, limiting intake to the iodine levels in local foods. We found a significant drop in child survival and academic achievement, especially in rural districts with lower environmental iodine concentrations. Placebo tests confirm that losses were caused by a lack of iodine.

Strong disagreements among stakeholders are common at the intersection of agriculture, food, health and the environment. By engaging constructively in these controversies through transdisciplinary approaches, scientists can better support sustainable food system transformation.

Nutrient profile models (NPMs) underpin front-of-pack nutrition labelling (FOPNL), which can help consumers to make healthier food choices. This systematic review identifies and characterizes existing NPMs for FOPNL systems globally.

Food and beverage manufacturers have the potential to contribute to the transition towards a more nutritious and sustainable food system. By analysing products sold by 44 major food and beverage manufacturers in the UK, this study identifies how, and to what extent, changes to product portfolios could improve the healthiness of food products while reducing their environmental impact.

Low phosphorus use efficiency limits crop production while accelerating the depletion of finite phosphorus resources and environmental pollution. Using a machine learning framework that incorporates feasibility constraints, this study maps global phosphorus use efficiency for major cereal crops and identifies region-specific opportunities and management priorities for improving phosphorus sustainability.

Timely crop-yield estimates are essential for anticipating food-supply risks and informing crop trade policies. This study presents a framework that integrates yield statistics, multi-source remote-sensing and complementary geospatial data and random forest models to estimate major crop yields across global production countries.

This study examines the effects of early-life iodine deficiency on health and educational outcomes following the war-induced disruption of Ethiopia’s salt iodization programme in the late 1990s. Using a quasi-experimental design, it finds that early-life iodine deficiency is associated with higher early-childhood mortality and lower performance on standardized secondary-school exams among rural children.

While staple food fortification is a recognized strategy for addressing micronutrient inadequacy, there is limited localized evidence on whether currently fortified foods, as well as candidate staples for future fortification, reach at-risk populations. This study finds that wheat flour and edible oil have limited coverage, whereas rice, millet and sorghum show greater potential across West Africa.

Inland aquaculture faces varied climate impacts. This systematic review identifies 53 adaptation options and 17 barriers, highlighting the need for tailored strategies, policy coherence, better information sharing and increased financial investment.