future of food essay

The Future of Food Essay

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Food and farming industry has greatly changed over time. For many thousands of years people have used natural ways to grow crops and farm land. The evolution and advancement of technology have influenced the methods of how people grow and consume food. Mass production and industrialization were arranged in such a way that large number of people could be fed. “The Future of Food” talks about the changes that took place in the last hundred years. Previously, there were very many kinds of fruits and vegetables (Lahidjii 75).

For example, there were thousands of types of potatoes and apples. The fact that people started to use pesticides has turned the whole world around. The different strands of fruits and vegetables were lost and presently only four or five types are cultivated and grown.

The pesticides and insecticides had a very detrimental effect on plants (Denham 39). Their use has increased the mutation and immunity for pests and so, more and more chemicals had to be used. The more these chemicals were used, the higher the demand for them rose and plants were rapidly losing their ability to fight on their own. Chemicals like DDT were thought to be safe but in reality, were one of the most harmful things to happen to agriculture.

Animals that would drink the polluted water or eat the seeds would get contaminated and die. This also upset the natural order and pollination, insects have decreased their activity and this in turn affected the crops (Dunlap 47). Another issue that came up is the ownership of plants and species. Mass production of crops has led to an industrial revolution. But a major change came about when corporations started patenting the genes and seed types.

This was thought to be impossible before, as the courts said that any living organism or Nature cannot be patented but it did happen, and this was disastrous to farmers. Many were sued by corporations because there would be plants in farmer’s fields that had same genes as the patents (Williams 23). This happened because the wind blew over some seeds from far away or trucks with seeds would be passing by fields and some would get planted in the fields.

This is an outrageous fact because it is close to impossible to control such type of things. Even if farmers were developing and growing their own seeds, as was the case for decades, there would still be some genetic relevance to the patented genes and the famers would get sued. Many chose to pay for a settlement but many have decided to battle and were deprived of their life savings and crops.

This fact is completely unacceptable because not only do corporations own the land, they now own the living things, Nature itself. For many people it is a way of life and the greed of corporations has destroyed their lives and support. One of the latest and most harmful effects that mass production has had on the food industry is genetic modification.

People started having severe allergies to products that they previously consumed and did not have a reaction. This is because foods are genetically cross bread, so that they receive qualities they did not have before. Some plants are made more resistant to the colder climate; some are made to stay fresh longer. The technology has allowed to modify the natural order of things and it was somewhat beneficial but very detrimental in many other areas (Forman 67).

The changes that people have made to nature are very traceable and their inability to predict the outcome is evidently harmful. The personal lives have changed and the chemicals that were used to preserve food for people have shown how dangerous it is to people’s health. This topic is extremely important in the present days because food is as necessary as oxygen. The natural order was created, so that people benefit from the energy received from fruits and vegetables.

The balance has existed for thousands of years but recently people started to experiment. The inability to consider all factors and predict the outcome of these modifications has created a large array of consequences that are almost irreversible. Not only do such changes to nature affect humans but the animals, plants and general ecosystem are all influenced. The natural balance is upset and the chain of events causes more and more damage to the structure of nature (Deane-Drummond 58).

Everything is very much connected and people have factored in changes that were not expected. Presently, people are aware of the ecological footprint they have made. A better filtration system and more “nature friendly” chemicals are being used today (Lockeretz 45). There are many groups that specialize in determining the effects that new technology or chemicals will have on nature. A better understanding of genetics has educated people on how certain species will react.

The future of technology and health of humanity lies with next generations. The awareness and acknowledgement of the problem has increased the chances at making a change for the better and every effort must be made to reverse the harmful consequences people have put in place.

Works Cited

Deane-Drummond, Celia. The Ethics of Nature . Malden, United States: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Print.

Denham, Timothy. Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological And Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives. Walnut Creek, United States: Left Coast Press, 2009. Print.

Dunlap, Thomas. DDT, Silent Spring, and the Rise of Environmentalism: Classic Texts . Seattle, United States: University of Washington Press, 2008. Print.

Forman, Lillian. Genetically Modified Foods EBook . Edina, United States: ABDO, 2010. Print.

Lahidjii, Reza. The Future of Food: Long-Term Prospects for the Agro-Food Sector . Danvers, United States: OECD Publishing, 1998. Print.

Lockeretz, William. Organic Farming: An International History . Cambridge, United States: CABI, 2007. Print.

Williams, Elizabeth. The A-Z Encyclopedia of Food Controversies and the Law. Santa Barbara, United States: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Print.

• Justices Rule Human Genes cannot be Patented
• Genetically Modified Organisms and Controversial Discussions in Australia
• Exhaustion Doctrine or First Sale
• Patent Law and Patent-Pending Products
• Consequences of Orange Juice on the Germination of Mung Bean Seeds
• Can Genetically Modified Food Feed the World: Agricultural and Biotechnological Perspective
• Agriculture and Genetics Disciplines Relationship
• New discipline in the natural sciences
• Natural Science, Ethics, and Critical Thinking
• Genetically Modified Food Essay
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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The Future of Food

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“The Future of Food” is a Breakthrough research series examining global food consumption, agriculture, and technological innovation. Vital for ensuring a healthy and prosperous global population, and for minimizing humanity’s intrusion into wild nature, building a smart global food system is essential to realizing an ecomodern future.

Achieving Peak Pasture

Pasture expansion has been one of the most significant challenges the world has faced for conserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change. It's been a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon and degradation of many of the world’s natural grasslands, releasing vast amounts of carbon stored in soils and plants into the atmosphere. The problem has been getting worse for centuries, but in the last twenty years, something remarkable occurred: the trend reversed.

The Synthetic-Organic Debate

To address the environmental challenges of nitrogen pollution, many advocate for a universal switch to organic farming, which eliminates the use of synthetic fertilizer. But talking about “organic” as a monolithic category doesn’t make very much sense: organic encapsulates both animal manure and green manure (cover crops), which have very different impacts. While green manure is, overall, carbon-negative, animal manure disproportionately contributes to nitrogen pollution. Instead of one-dimensional debates, we should focus on broader ways to reduce nitrogen pollution from all types of fertilizer.

Fixing Nitrogen

What would be the consequences of massively scaling up organic farming and eliminating synthetic fertilizer use? It’s widely recognized that synthetic fertilizer increases yields. But most people overlook that it also reduces the need to set land aside to replenish the soil’s nutrients, usually by planting legumes. Aiming to simply eliminate synthetic fertilizer would therefore have larger negative consequences than commonly believed. Environmental groups and policy should aim to reduce fertilizers’ negative impacts rather than to stop using it.

The Pasture Problem

Recent decades have seen remarkable developments across the pastures of the world. Even as production of meat and dairy from ruminants (grazing animals such as cattle and sheep) increased by almost a third, the footprint of pasture has begun to decline. And this change is significant, shrinking by nearly 64 million hectares, an area larger than France, between 2000 and 2013. The gains have been considerable for conservation. To the benefit of endangered species from the Asiatic cheetah in Iran to the saiga antelope in Kazakhstan, pastureland is going out of production and returning to nature. While promising, these developments will not be enough to assure that rising demand for meat does not put new pressure on critical habitats.

Plenty of Fish on the Farm

Demand for seafood is growing, but many wild fish stocks are already under strain from overfishing. Instead of harvesting more wild fish, aquaculture—or fish farming—is poised to dominate the future of seafood production. While intensive commercial fish farming has taken a toll on the environment, causing habitat loss and pollution problems, next-generation aquaculture systems have the potential to resolve many of these problems by moving fish farming into indoor tanks or offshore fish farms in the open ocean. More energy, however, will be required for these technologies, meaning that a sustainable future for seafood will depend on cheap, clean, abundant energy.

Food Production and Wildlife on Farmland

Can farmers best protect wildlife by sharing land with animals or sparing land for them? At bottom, the choice between these two approaches implies a stark trade-off when it comes to farmland biodiversity and agricultural productivity: a truly high-yield farm (whether organic or conventional) will have little room to share with wildlife. While opportunities do exist for marginally increasing biodiversity on the farm without reducing productivity—by adopting agroecological practices like crop rotations, for instance, and by employing high-tech tools, synthetic pesticides, and crops with GM traits like Bt—the effectiveness of such management interventions remains limited. As a result, it will be essential to concentrate farmland in locations where biodiversity losses are the least and yield gains the greatest.

The Future of Meat

As global demand for meat grows, the environmental “hoofprint” of livestock production could grow, too. Demand-side strategies are unlikely to reverse the long historical trend of increasing meat consumption as countries develop economically, but there are ways to improve the environmental performance of livestock systems on the production end. Contrary to popular perception, modern, intensive livestock production can offer environmental efficiencies compared to traditional, lower-input systems. In a world where billions of people want meat on their plates, it will be crucial to leverage the efficiency of intensive systems to meet demand and minimize environmental harm.

Is Precision Agriculture the Way to Peak Cropland?

Precision agriculture—a set of technologies that optimize inputs to maximize yields—may be the most important innovation for peaking farming's land footprint in the twenty-first century. In this essay, Breakthrough's conservation director Linus Blomqvist and Applied Innovation's David Douglas examine trends in food demand and crop yields, uncovering how precision technologies like sensors and GPS-guided tractors can help farmers grow more food on less land.

Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have been converting forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems to farmland. While climate change, air and water pollution, and a range of other environmental challenges frequently get the headlines, food production without question represents the single largest human impact upon the environment. Land for crops takes up 12% of Earth’s ice-free land. Add pasture and that percentage climbs to 36%. The long-term conversion of land for agriculture has brought enormous losses to ecosystems and wildlife populations already. The climate impacts are also considerable—15% of global greenhouse emissions come from the agricultural sector. With global food demand expected to grow as much as 70% by 2050, those impacts threaten to grow substantially.

Dan Blaustein-Rejto

Dan Blaustein-Rejto is the Director of the Food and Agriculture program at Breakthrough.

Kenton de Kirby

Kenton de Kirby was a Senior Energy Analyst at Breakthrough.

Linus Blomqvist

Linus Blomqvist is a PhD student at the UCSB Bren School. He was the Director of Conservation and Food & Agriculture at Breakthrough.

Marian Swain

Marian is now an Energy Policy Analyst with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was a Senior Analyst at Breakthrough.

David Douglas

David Douglas is Vice President at Applied Invention, a company that invents, designs and prototypes breakthrough products and services for major industry partners.

Ted Nordhaus

Ted Nordhaus is Founder and Executive Director of Breakthrough.

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Opinion David Wallace-Wells

Food as You Know It Is About to Change

Credit... Alma Haser

Supported by

By David Wallace-Wells

Opinion Writer

• July 28, 2024

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

From the vantage of the American supermarket aisle, the modern food system looks like a kind of miracle. Everything has been carefully cultivated for taste and convenience — even those foods billed as organic or heirloom — and produce regarded as exotic luxuries just a few generations ago now seems more like staples, available on demand: avocados, mangoes, out-of-season blueberries imported from Uruguay.

But the supermarket is also increasingly a diorama of the fragility of a system — disrupted in recent years by the pandemic, conflict and, increasingly, climate change. What comes next? Almost certainly, more disruptions and more hazards, enough to remake the whole future of food.

The world as a whole is already facing what the Cornell agricultural economist Chris Barrett calls a “food polycrisis.” Over the past decade, he says, what had long been reliable global patterns of year-on-year improvements in hunger first stalled and then reversed. Rates of undernourishment have grown 21 percent since 2017. Agricultural yields are still growing, but not as quickly as they used to and not as quickly as demand is booming. Obesity has continued to rise, and the average micronutrient content of dozens of popular vegetables has continued to fall . The food system is contributing to the growing burden of diabetes and heart disease and to new spillovers of infectious diseases from animals to humans as well.

And then there are prices. Worldwide, wholesale food prices, adjusted for inflation, have grown about 50 percent since 1999, and those prices have also grown considerably more volatile, making not just markets but the whole agricultural Rube Goldberg network less reliable. Overall, American grocery prices have grown by almost 21 percen t since President Biden took office, a phenomenon central to the widespread perception that the cost of living has exploded on his watch. Between 2020 and 2023, the wholesale price of olive oil tripled ; the price of cocoa delivered to American ports jumped by even more in less than two years. The economist Isabella Weber has proposed maintaining the food equivalent of a strategic petroleum reserve, to buffer against shortages and ease inevitable bursts of market chaos.

Price spikes are like seismographs for the food system, registering much larger drama elsewhere — and sometimes suggesting more tectonic changes underway as well. More than three-quarters of the population of Africa, which has already surpassed one billion, cannot today afford a healthy diet; this is where most of our global population growth is expected to happen this century, and there has been little agricultural productivity growth there for 20 years. Over the same time period, there hasn’t been much growth in the United States either.

How climate change could transform yields of two major crops

Projected change in corn and wheat yields in 2050, based on an upper-middle scenario for global warming.

Change in crop yield in 2050

Corn production in 2050

Drought conditions have already led Mexico to import a record amount

of corn in recent years. Climate change could further decrease its yields.

China is the world’s second-largest

producer of corn, but yields are projected to decrease across most of the country.

Wheat production in 2050

Pakistan, where wheat accounts for nearly two-thirds

of all calories

consumed, could

see sharp declines.

The U.S., one of the largest exporters of wheat, could see increased yields, especially in more northern latitudes.

Drought conditions have already led Mexico to import a record amount of corn in recent years. Climate change could further decrease its yields.

Rising temperatures could make the highlands of Peru

a more productive area for corn.

Pakistan, where wheat accounts for nearly two-thirds of all calories consumed, could see sharp declines.

producer of corn,

but yields are

projected to decrease across most of the country.

consumed, could see sharp declines.

Sources: Jägermeyr et al. (2021) “ Climate Impacts on Global Agriculture Emerge Earlier in New Generation of Climate and Crop Models ,” Nature Food ; World Bank; U.S.D.A.

Note: Yields shown are for the SSP370 middle-upper warming scenario and are compared with a 1983-2013 baseline.

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News from the Columbia Climate School

Future of Food: Exploring Challenges to Global Food Systems

Mahak Agrawal

Food is fuel to human existence, and in the evolution of human settlements, food— its production, availability, demand and supply — and food systems have steered the development, expansion and decline of human settlements.

In the 21st century, global food systems face dual challenges of increasing food demand while competing for resources — such as land, water, and energy — that affect food supply. In context of climate change and unpredictable shocks, such as a global pandemic, the need for resiliency in global food systems has become more pressing than ever.

With the globalization of food systems in 1950s, the global food production and associated trade has witnessed a sustained growth, and continues to be driven by advancements in transport and communications, reduction in trade barriers and agricultural tariffs. But, the effectiveness of global food system is undermined by two key challenges: waste and nutrition.

Food wastage is common across all stages of the food chain. Nearly 13.8% of food is lost in supply chains — from harvesting to transport to storage to processing. However, limited research and scientific understanding of price elasticity of food waste makes it tough to evaluate how food waste can be reduced with pricing strategy.

When food is wasted, so are the energy, land, and resources that were used to create it . Nearly 23% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions between 2007-2016 were derived from agriculture, forestry and other land uses. Apart from cultivation and livestock rearing, agriculture also adds emissions through land clearance for cultivation. Overfishing, soil erosion, and depletion and deterioration of aquifers threaten food security. At the same time, food production faces increasing risks from climate change — particularly droughts, increasing frequency of storms, and other extreme weather events.

The world has made significant progress in reducing hunger in the past 50 years. Yet there are nearly 800 million people without access to adequate food. Additionally, two billion people are affected by hidden hunger wherein people lack key micronutrients such as iron, zinc, vitamin A and iodine. Apart from nutrient deficiency, approximately two billion people are overweight and affected by chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.

In essence, the global food system is inadequate in delivering the changing and increasing demands of the human population. The system requires an upgrade that takes into account the social-cultural interactions, changing diets, increasing wealth and wealth gap, finite resources, challenges of inequitable access, and the needs of the disadvantaged who spend the greatest proportion of their income on food. To feed the projected 10 billion people by 2050, it is essential to increase and stabilize global food trade and simultaneously align the food demand and supply chains across different geographies and at various scales of space and time.

Back in 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus, in his essay on the principle of population, concluded that “ the power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must come in some shape or other visit the human race .” Malthus projected that short-term gains in living standards would eventually be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production, thereby pushing back living standards towards subsistence.

Malthus’ projections were based on a model where population grew geometrically, while food production increased arithmetically. While Malthus emphasized the importance of land in population-food production dynamics, he understated the role of technology in augmenting total production and family planning in reducing fertility rates. Nonetheless, one cannot banish the Malthusian specter; food production and population are closely intertwined. This close relationship, however, is also affected by changing and improving diets in developing countries and biofuel production — factors that increase the global demand for food and feed.

Around the world, enough food is produced to feed the planet and provide 3,000 calories of nutritious food to each human being every day. In the story of global food systems once defined by starvation and death to now feeding the world, there have been a few ratchets — technologies and innovations that helped the human species transition from hunters and gatherers to shoppers in a supermarket . While some of these ratchets have helped improve and expand the global food systems, some create new opportunities for environmental damage.

To sum it up, the future of global food systems is strongly interlinked to the planning, management and development of sustainable, equitable and healthy food systems delivering food and nutrition security for all. A bundle of interventions and stimulus packages are needed at both the supply and demand ends to feed the world in the present as well as the future — sustainably, within the planetary boundaries defining a safe operating space for humanity. It requires an intersectoral policy analysis, multi-stakeholder engagement — involving farms, retailers, food processors, technology providers, financial institutions, government agencies, consumers — and interdisciplinary actions.

This blog post is based on an independent study — Future of Food: Examining the supply-demand chains feeding the world — led by Mahak Agrawal in fall 2020 under the guidance of Steven Cohen.

Mahak Agrawal is a medical candidate turned urban planner, exploring innovative, implementable, impactful solutions for pressing urban-regional challenges in her diverse works. Presently, she is studying environmental science and policy at Columbia University as a Shardashish Interschool Fellow and SIPA Environmental Fellow. In different capacities, Mahak has worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Town and Country Planning Organization-Government of India, Institute of Transport Economics, Oslo. In 2019, she founded Spatial Perspectives as an initiative that uses the power of digital storytelling and open data to dismantle myths and faulty perspectives associated with spaces around the world. In her spare time, Mahak creates sustainable artwork to tell tales of environmental crisis.

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I’m doing an assignment on food production, ad I just happened to come across this article! Wow, what a lucky find! I’m going to use it for some information in my paragraphs.

it’s more better to have new fruits and reduce human and other thing more thing that you can do.

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Fishing for carp at Qiandao Lake, Zhejiang province, a major aquaculture production centre for Eastern China. Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty

Here’s to blue foods

With care for the social and ecological consequences, foods from the ocean should provide sustainable protein to billions.

by Madhura Rao   + BIO

Having lived nowhere other than the western coast of India for the first 21 years of my life, seafood was an indispensable part of my diet growing up. When the family business was prospering, we’d feast on plump pomfrets and juicy tiger prawns. When it wasn’t, there’d be smaller, bonier fish like anchovies and sardines. Or the less popular bycatch at least. If nothing else, my mum would bring out wares she’d stashed away for the greyer days; a jar of spicy pickled shrimp or salted, sundried mackerel perhaps. But fruits of the Arabian Sea always featured prominently in most meals. In fact, the act of procuring seafood was almost as delightful as consuming it. My Saturday mornings were often spent at the fish market with my mum, watching her negotiate with Hira – our family’s favourite fishmonger. ‘I saved these for you, I know your kids enjoy them,’ I remember Hira saying, trying to sell us her most formidable pair of mud crabs. She wasn’t wrong, I do love a good mud crab curry.

These days, my Saturday mornings are spent shopping for the week’s groceries at the supermarket in my neighbourhood in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Every week, I spend several minutes eyeing squeaky-clean salmon steaks and delicate basa fillets packed in the most sterile-looking plastic boxes I’ve ever seen. The stickers on the box tell me so much about the fish – freshness, origin, environmental impact, recyclability of the packaging. Yet I long to run my fingers through its non-existent scales and inspect its long-discarded gills for tactile cues about quality. Without the sights, sounds and serendipitous communal life of a coastal fish market, buying seafood has lost its allure for me. I guiltily move to the meat section to check for other protein options for the week.

Like me, many have ‘upgraded’ to consuming more meat than previous generations did. By factory farming livestock, we are now able to produce meat at unbelievably low costs. We also have more money to spend than we ever did. Data show a strong positive correlation between a country’s GDP per capita and the amount of meat the average citizen consumes in a year. Collectively, we eat three times the meat we did just 50 years ago. In rapidly industrialising countries like China and Brazil , meat consumption has doubled in a span of two to three decades. Meanwhile, developed countries continue to consume meat in even more copious amounts than they did before. For many, eating more meat means improved food security and nutritional status. But it also pushes against our planet’s boundaries like few other anthropogenic activities do. With cow flatulence enveloping Earth in temperature-raising gases and the Amazon losing its cover to cattle feed, the current ways of producing and consuming meat have been pronounced detrimental to the planet’s health. In fact, it isn’t particularly good for human health, either. Consuming meat excessively, especially the red and processed kinds, exposes us to higher risks for various lifestyle-related diseases.

We are currently at a point in time where the evidence against the ills of factory-farmed meat are simply too jarring to ignore. Results from scientific studies are clear – we cannot keep eating this way without inducing a climate apocalypse. There’s a strong push to find new ways to feed billions of protein-hungry mouths without destroying the planet. With the area of arable land available to us remaining limited, scientists have urged policymakers and decision-takers to turn their attention towards ‘blue foods’ – animals, plants and algae harvested from natural and artificial aquatic environments.

T he logic of blue foods, particularly aquatic animals, being less burdensome to the environment is fairly simple. Being cold blooded, they do not use energy gained from their feed to keep their bodies warm. This means more meat per unit of feed compared with warm-blooded terrestrial livestock.

Although incomparable with the rise of meat consumption, global interest in blue foods has been inching upward as well. In 2018, the average person consumed 15.1 kgs of blue foods per year, compared with the 11.5 kg per person per year figure of 1998. The distinction between ‘seafood’ and ‘blue food’ is critical here because close to half of the aquatic plants and animals we consume today do not come from the sea at all. They are farmed under controlled, semi-natural conditions in tanks, ponds, raceways and enclosed sections of the ocean. Even consumers from traditionally seafaring parts of the world have begun to prefer farmed aquatic foods over those from a nearby sea. This would explain the popularity of salmon and basa – neither harvested from the North Sea – in my neighbourhood’s supermarket. After all, there are few things the Dutch like better than economical supermarket offerings and the convenience of semi-prepared foods.

But aquaculture is unlikely to ever completely replace wild-capture fisheries in the foreseeable future. Next to providing protein and micronutrient-rich sustenance, fisheries are a source of livelihood for millions across the globe. The United Nations estimates that around 120 million people are directly and indirectly engaged in wild-capture fisheries, compared with the 15 million in aquaculture. This is unsurprising considering that the act of procuring food from the sea is as old as humanity itself. However, what was once a cornucopia of diverse and delicious foods is increasingly reluctant to share its bounty with us. Fishes that were once captured with ease are becoming elusive, endangered and, in some cases, even extinct. This scarcity pushes fishers to go looking farther into the sea and come into conflict with others doing the same. The conservation zoologist Tim McClanahan and colleagues mention the UK-Iceland Cod Wars of the 1950s and ’70s, the Yellow Croaker dispute between China and Japan in the 1920s and ’30s, and the Canada-Spain Turbot War of 1995 as examples of such conflicts. They explain that these clashes over marine resources have the potential to ‘lead to wider instability, particularly where food insecurity is high, people are vulnerable, and governance is weak or autocratic.’

Up until the 1970s, wild-capture fisheries provided the world with almost the entirety of its blue food supply. It was in the 1980s, when wild-fish harvesting plateaued, that the world started thinking of other ways to procure aquatic foods. Overfishing led to the severe depletion of fish stocks and, consequently, serious disruptions in marine ecosystems. Largescale commercial aquaculture was born of the necessity to continue providing dietary staples to seafood-dependent communities around the world, without endangering marine ecosystems. By making use of the rapidly advancing technology in this sector, we were able to master the art of farming aquatic life efficiently within a relatively short span of time. In fact, we got so good at it that, by 2014, produce from aquaculture had bested wild-caught seafood as a source of food.

The sustainability problems of aquaculture are less complex and more solvable than those of livestock

Like industrialised livestock rearing, aquaculture has become popular for the several commercial benefits it offers. Selecting only the most robust species, eliminating risks from predators, and engineering the perfect environmental conditions allows aquaculturists to produce high-quality blue foods at a lower cost than deep-sea fishing. More control over the production process and clearer rights over the harvested produce also ensure higher profits and fewer geopolitical disputes. The success of aquaculture has not only flooded traditionally seafood-consuming markets with a year-round supply of affordable aquatic foods but also created new markets in regions where these foods weren’t always popular. Next to finfish such as carp, catfish, salmon, tilapia, trout and tuna, other aquatic flora and fauna are farmed as well. Specialised systems cultivating molluscs such as oysters, clams, mussels and abalone, and various species of shrimp, are proliferating. There is also a growing interest in farming crabs, lobsters and other invertebrate animals, like sea urchins and sea cucumbers. Although a minority, some aquatic farms focus on marine plants and algae such as water chestnut and seaweed.

One would think that with the grand success of blue food production from aquaculture, wild-caught seafood will eventually become a thing of the past; like hunting wild animals for sustenance has in most parts of the world. This, however, is far from the truth. Like their counterparts from the natural environment, farmed aquatic creatures thrive only when their diet is rich in all essential nutrients. Often omnivorous, these animals subsist on plants and smaller animals from their natural ecosystems. Prospering aquaculture farms around the world are supported by wild-capture fisheries that harvest forage-fish species, such as anchovies, herring, mackerel and sardines, and turn them into fishmeal and fish oil. Accounting for a third of all wild-capture landings, a sizeable portion of these fish are caught in the waters of developing countries, where they are an important source of sustenance for local populations. Final aquaculture products, especially the premium varieties, are often exported to wealthier countries. This, in sum, results in the removal of proteins and micronutrients from many food-insecure regions.

Thankfully, most aquatic creatures aren’t picky eaters. This means that, with some ingenuity, it is possible to reduce their dependence on fish meal and oil. Like other omnivores such as pigs and chickens, many fish species can be raised on leftovers from the human food chain. Nutrient-rich marine microalgae and insects are great options, too. Sustainably grown terrestrial plants like soybean, engineered to reduce antinutritional components, can also successfully replace at least a part of fish meal and oil in aquafeeds. Innovation in aquafeed could potentially decouple aquaculture from wild fisheries and provide pathways to expand blue-food farming in a sustainable way. So, on the feed front at least, the sustainability problems of aquaculture are less complex and more solvable than those of livestock. However, there’s another aspect of the industry that is much harder to fix: its chronic dependence on exploitative labour practices.

With close to 92 per cent of the total production coming from Asia, the prosperity aquaculture has brought to the continent is often used as a metric to measure its economic potential. But if one were to investigate how Asian aquaculturists are able to sell at low prices while making substantial profits, poor working conditions would be a part of the answer. Of course, technology and knowledge make the system effective too, but it is on the backs of underpaid and overworked primary production workers that the industry has scaled the heights of commercial success. Pioneers of the blue revolution have been so busy overcoming technical and biological challenges that the social impact of producing food this way has remained largely unaddressed.

In Asia and beyond, precariously employed persons belonging to marginalised communities make up a large share of aquaculture workers. This includes women, children, Indigenous people and migrant workers. Borrowing from the worst practices of the wild-fisheries industry , aquaculture workers are routinely coerced into debt bondage, discriminated against, denied rights of association, and employed in facilities that lack adequate occupational safety and health standards. Reporting, and therefore statistics, on injuries and diseases among workers is a rarity in the sector but, from whatever little is available through journalistic and investigative records, we know that musculoskeletal disorders, skin infections and respiratory diseases are rampant.

Like many other areas of the food system, the only way to create better conditions for aquaculture workers is through stricter regulation; both public and private. Governments of countries like China, Indonesia, India and Vietnam, where the blue revolution is thriving, need to do more to protect workers’ rights. Buyers with big market muscle must demand social sustainability audits and certification from producers. The industry at present is well-enough rooted for its custodians to move beyond biotechnical hurdles and invest in setting up ethically sound supply chains.

I n addition to its dependence on wild-caught fisheries and questionable labour practices, it is important to acknowledge and improve upon the ecological issues inherent to aquaculture production systems. Producing high-quality aquatic foods at low costs requires the use of genetic-engineering techniques that create aquatic species with special physiological characteristics. Often more resilient than their wild counterparts, aquaculture species that manage to escape or are released from their enclosures end up taking over the natural habitats of wild fish. This disrupts entire ecosystems and threatens the existence of wild populations that are already vulnerable. Escapees also spread diseases that wild aquatic populations have no immunity against. In aquaculture systems, these diseases are prevented through the use of antibiotic medication, residues of which may end up on our plates.

Aquatic production systems are no panacea for all our food security and sustainability concerns. They’re fraught with ethical and practical problems and need considerable work to be sustainable in the long run. Yet they present much promise with regard to improving food security in the face of climate change. A study in 2020 exploring the future of food from the sea concludes that, because aquatic foods are nutritionally diverse and avoid many of the environmental burdens of land-based food production, they are uniquely positioned to contribute to future global food and nutrition security. Particularly, it emphasises the role in this endeavour of mariculture – farming aquatic foods in a cordoned-off section of the sea. It also recommends that we produce more low-impact bivalves, such as mussels, clams and oysters, to sustainably meet the growing protein demand. But the big question is, are we, as consumers, ready for our plates to be bluer in the near-future?

Many studies and policies on blue foods are so focused on production capacity that they forget to account for the biggest incentive for expansion – consumer demand. Unlike poultry, beef and pork, blue foods have thus far been limited by geographic restraints. As culturally and nutritionally critical as they are for communities living in close proximity to water bodies, the idea of eating creatures that grow underwater may feel outlandish to natives of other terrains. While there are studies that confirm this, I personally found this out not too long ago. At a restaurant in Marseille in France, my friend and travel companion – who doesn’t eat seafood and comes from a land-locked country – asked one of the most baffling questions I’ve ever been asked. ‘Doesn’t this feel like you’re eating little aliens?’ they enquired, while watching me demolish a large bowl of luscious bouillabaisse dotted with clam shells and chunks of beautiful white fish. ‘Aliens?’ I asked, perplexed. ‘Seafood is so different from all other meats, you see,’ they explained. ‘With their patterned shells, long, wriggly tentacles and shiny scales, I think they look a lot like little alien creatures.’ The writer H P Lovecraft , creator of Cthulhu – a monster with an octopus head, scaly body, and claws at the end of its limbs – would probably agree.

Other than being affordable, blue foods also need to be amiable

So, next to technical, biological, economic and social concerns, those in charge of expanding blue-food production are tasked with an additional mission – convincing the unacquainted that blue foods are not little alien creatures from a distant aqueous planet. Will they succeed? Perhaps not with the entirety of our population. But there’s a good chance that those among us with an even slightly adventurous palate and an appetite for sustainable consumption could be brought into the fold. After all, so many of the popular blue foods we eat today were once considered unappealing. The lobster, now a luxury item, was once thought of as the poor man’s food by European settlers in North America. Milkfish, once rejected because of its numerous intermuscular bones, is among the most popular fish in Southeast Asia today. Crayfish – once disdained by many as a swamp-dwelling, paddy field-infesting crustacean – is now a favourite in many countries. And, as various Asian cuisines gain popularity, seaweed products have been popping up in kitchens around the world.

Like any other strategy seeking to assuage the effects of climate change and ensure the future habitability of our planet, increasing consumers’ acceptance of blue foods is a long and arduous process that demands concerted efforts from several parties. The cornerstone of this undertaking must be the availability of affordable blue foods. This is a bit of a chicken-or-egg dilemma because, to achieve economies of scale, demand is a critical factor. But without being able to purchase these foods, especially the novel varieties, there cannot be an increase in consumer demand.

Other than being affordable, blue foods also need to be amiable. For consumers to be willing to buy them, they need to first like them. And by ‘like’ I don’t mean only the taste, texture, aroma and such. Those are important too but, in order to make the purchase at all, consumers must feel a sense of connectedness with blue foods. Given that opening wet markets and finding our favourite fishmongers is (unfortunately) impractical in many parts of the world where the fisheries industry is not traditional, stakeholders in the food system must find other ways to help consumers get better acquainted with blue foods. This could be done by encouraging restaurants to incorporate blue foods into local gastronomy, educating children and adults about aquaculture and its role in sustainable food production, and publishing accessible recipes. Lastly, putting an assortment of blue foods on the market is essential as well. To avoid replicating the damage inflicted by monocropping on our terrestrial ecosystems, aquaculture must strive to maintain the diversity of aquatic systems. This means that we cannot all be eating salmon fillets and tuna steaks. For blue foods to be able to truly make a difference, we must be willing to expand our gastronomic horizons considerably and give new foods a chance.

However, in the quest to ensure that blue foods are affordable, amiable and assorted, they must not be taken away from the people who truly depend on them. In 1997, the political scientist George Kent wrote : ‘Fish used to be known as poor people’s food. However, when fish supplies deteriorate, fish tends to disappear first from the plates of the poor.’ He explains that, ‘for people with abundant alternatives’, having less or lower-quality fish ‘may be little more than an annoyance’. But for those who live on the margins and heavily depend on fish, insecurity surrounding aquatic foods can be incredibly detrimental to livelihoods and wellbeing. More than 25 years later, his observations remain true. While creating new markets for blue foods is important to improve macro-level food security, it must not be done at the expense of communities who have consumed these foods through the ages; be it Arctic-dwelling Indigenous peoples, artisanal fishers from coasts all around the world, or my family back in India, relying on seafood through thick and thin.

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Princeton’s vital research across the spectrum of environmental issues is today and will continue to be pivotal to solving some of humanity’s toughest problems. Our impact is built on a long, deep, broad legacy of personal commitment, intellectual leadership, perseverance and innovation. This article is part of a series to present the sweep of Princeton’s environmental excellence over the past half-century.

Timothy Searchinger

In 1995, Timothy Searchinger found himself in Washington, D.C., poring over the United States Farm Bill. An environmental lawyer and policy expert on wetlands restoration at the time, Searchinger discovered an obscure provision in the Farm Bill that would allow states to direct funding toward conservation efforts. While his efforts led to the restoration of approximately 2 million acres of land back into environmentally valuable riparian buffers and wetlands, his work on the Farm Bill led to another equally important personal discovery.

“Here was this huge swath of the middle of the country that’s practically all agricultural land, but hardly anyone from the national environmental community was studying the broader impact of agriculture at the time,” recalled Searchinger. This realization drove him to become one of just a handful of experts focusing on agriculture in relation to other pressing global environmental and socioeconomic issues. “Food is a critical and overlooked environmental issue that has a massive impact on planetary health,” said Searchinger. “It’s related to everything from climate change to biodiversity loss to questions of poverty and migration.”

Two decades later, now a research scholar at Princeton’s Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment , Searchinger’s work today combines ecology and economics to analyze the challenge of how to feed a world population that’s expected to grow by 2 billion people over the next 30 years, while reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Searchinger was lead author of a series of five papers in the journals Science and Nature from 2008 to 2018 that recalculated the greenhouse gas emissions of biofuel and food production to include the cost of using land that could otherwise be storing more carbon in natural habitats.

Daniel Rubenstein

In 2019, he was lead author of a monumental report for the World Bank, United Nations and World Resources Institute that firmly establishes food and agriculture as a lynchpin global environment issue. The report provides a comprehensive, detailed “menu” of 22 specific solutions that should be deployed to meet rising food needs in socially equitable ways while avoiding further agricultural land conversion and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “It would be difficult to overestimate the impact of Searchinger’s work in this field,” said Denise Mauzerall , professor of civil and environmental engineering and public and international affairs.

The report also captures the distinctive strength of Princeton’s growing group of researchers who focus on the topic. “We view food and agriculture as part of a larger environmental system where every part of the system affects all the others,” said Daniel Rubenstein , the Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “ How we use land for food production also affects greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, urban sustainability, human migration, and so many other areas. Food touches every part of human existence, providing a way of making people aware that how they eat can do much environmental good. ” In addition to teaching the course “Agriculture, Human Diets and the Environment” at the Princeton Environmental Institute , Rubenstein’s own research on food has explored how humans and animals share landscapes and manage access to food.

“Princeton is unusual in focusing on food primarily from this broad, environmental perspective,” said Searchinger.

Few other universities are able to embed their food research in such a deep and interdisciplinary culture of excellence in the environmental field as Princeton has developed over the last half-century. Food studies may be the newest part of this long-standing environmental focus, but it’s part of a legacy that stretches back more than 50 years.

Food and biodiversity

One of Princeton’s environmental luminaries who attracted Searchinger to the University is David Wilcove , professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs and the Princeton Environmental Institute.

David Wilcove

In the mid-2000s, Wilcove viewed the explosive growth of palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia with alarm. Developers were clear-cutting tropical forests to grow palms that produced an oil commonly used as a cooking oil and  in processed foods and beauty products and, increasingly, as a biofuel . The world’s insatiable appetite for this cheap oil eventually led to millions of acres of deforestation — releasing CO 2 from forests while devastating regional biodiversity.

Wilcove and graduate student Lian Pin Koh were among the first to quantify the extent to which forests were being destroyed for oil palm production and the biodiversity costs associated with converting forests for agricultural purposes. Their research helped prioritize palm oil agriculture as one of the most pressing issues for tropical conservation efforts. Wilcove’s research group continues to study opportunities to work with farmers to support biodiversity across the globe, including some of his most recent work in the Western Amazonia of Peru.

“Land is a finite resource,” said Searchinger. “It needs to serve many growing purposes, including producing far more food for an increasing population, storing more carbon to address climate change and conserving the world’s diverse species . The only way we can do all three is more efficient use of land, meaning more food, more carbon and more biodiversity per acre.”

Food and greenhouse gas emissions

Denise Mauzerall

Other major groups on campus have taken different approaches to studying food. As Searchinger points out, agricultural activities account for about one-quarter of current global greenhouse gas emissions, creating cause for concern in light of growing populations.

“We must find ways to produce more food without expanding agricultural land or using significantly more nitrogen fertilizer in order to both protect biodiversity and reduce air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Denise Mauzerall, whose work as an atmospheric scientist and policy expert spans energy, agriculture, air pollution and human health. Mauzerall’s group has studied the air quality and climate benefits of increasing the efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer use so that yields are maintained while emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases are reduced. Her group is also studying the potential benefits of shifting diets to include less beef and dairy products, the production of which lead to substantial emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

Meanwhile, through the Carbon Mitigation Initiative , interdisciplinary teams of Princeton faculty and researchers are working to develop more nuanced understandings of the mechanics of how plants, water and soils interact across a variety of landscapes. Their emerging research explores how agricultural practices and land management can be harnessed to optimize natural carbon storage in plants and soils, explained Jonathan Levine , professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Amilcare Porporato , the Thomas J. Wu '94 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

“There’s a lot of attention on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector, but way less attention to agricultural emissions,” said Searchinger. “If we don’t aggressively push innovations and link increased crop yields with forest protection, we’ll blow past our overall 2050 emissions targets.”

Food and migration

Michael Oppenheimer

But what happens when the rains slacken and food yields decline where they used to flourish? Increased migration from areas suffering climate impacts , according to Michael Oppenheimer , the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs and the Princeton Environmental Institute.

“ Falling crop yields in certain places will have a big impact on where people live in the future, so it’s critical that governments start to plan for these shifts now, ” Oppenheimer said. “ At the same time some of the most vulnerable people may lack necessary financial resources and are compelled to remain in increasingly perilous circumstances .”

Oppenheimer’s group has studied the potential effects of climate variability on migration within countries and across international borders, including Mexico-US migration and internal migration within South Africa.

In the coming decades, many more people will be migrating to and living in cities. So what might these shifts portend for urban food systems and their environmental footprint?

Food and cities

Anu Ramaswami

With more than two-thirds of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2050, urban sustainability will have an enormous impact on the global environment, especially food systems and land use.

“Food and infrastructure are so important — they’re the anchor sectors. Without them, we just can’t live in cities,” said Anu Ramaswami , the Sanjay Swami ’87 Professor of India Studies and professor of civil and environmental engineering, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, and the Princeton Environmental Institute.

For more than 20 years, Ramaswami has been helping cities map their environmental footprint and develop strategies for climate action. Strategic interventions in urban food systems are critical to achieve environmentally sustainable, healthy, and more equitable cities , says Ramaswami. Her group’s recent research finds that dietary changes and improved food waste management would have the greatest benefits in shrinking cities’ food footprints.

“The way that cities access and consume food is a massive lever for global changes to food systems and their environmental impact,” said Dana Boyer , lead scientist of Urban Food Systems in the Princeton Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Systems Lab .

Cities are interested in improving the sustainability of their food systems, but they don’t always know what changes to make or where to start, says Boyer. Working with cities to gather information and understand their priorities, she and Ramaswami can then help develop concrete recommendations using the latest science and modeling. This approach harnesses both community participation and data-driven research to yield more sustainable outcomes.

Food systems are connected to so many other issues: human health, equity, culture, justice, the economy, and overall resilience, said Boyer. “Our work ties all of these factors together into a food action plan, with the goal of building more sustainable, healthier cities.”

Food resilience

There might have been very few people studying food from a global environmental perspective back when Searchinger began his research in this area, but in the last few years at Princeton, momentum has been building around the study of the food-energy-water nexus.

Recently the Princeton Environmental Institute established a multi-year Food and the Environment Initiative in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Center and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research . This new initiative focuses on the resilience of food systems, including ecological, policy and human dimensions.

“The study of food shows us just how interconnected biological systems and human societies are,” said Simon Levin , the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “Understanding what makes food and agricultural systems resilient will be critical for adapting to growing demand and increased environmental pressures,” he said.

With postdoctoral fellow Andrew Carlson, Levin and Rubenstein have recently studied the resilience of New Jersey dairy farms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across all of these areas, Princeton’s research on food continues to be defined by the central question: How do you feed the world without increasing emissions, fueling biodiversity loss and deforestation, or deepening inequality and poverty?

“Pursuing any one of these goals to the exclusion of the others will likely result in failure to achieve any of them,” said Searchinger.

Princeton’s cross-cutting and interdisciplinary approach to studying food will be key to finding the right solutions in the coming decades.

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The future of food: what we’ll eat in 2028

We’ve all heard that the future menu may involve less meat and dairy. But don’t worry, we could have customised diets, outlandish vegetables, robot chefs and guilt-free gorging to look forward to instead. And we reckon that makes up for missing out on the odd sausage

Dr Stuart Farrimond

Before 1928, no one had tasted bubblegum. In the late 1930s, frozen cream desserts threw off their reputation for being as hard as rock with the US invention of soft-serve ice cream (often called Mr Whippy in the UK). Popping candy introduced children’s mouths to a bizarre effervescence 20 years later. And in the late 1990s, Red Bull showcased a strange medicinal flavour that’s since become synonymous with energy drinks. The foods we eat are always evolving and new tastes are being created. By 2028, you can expect to be tucking into foods unlike anything you’ve experienced before.

In 2028 food will be tailored to your genome

Today, we know that healthy eating is important to keep our bodies in tip-top condition. This link between diet and health was first ‘proved’ in the mid-1800s by Scottish naval surgeon Dr Joseph Lind, who is credited with running one of the earliest ever clinical controlled trials. His study demonstrated that citrus fruits could protect sailors from scurvy. The watershed finding set the stage for lemons and limes to be issued as standard in sailors’ rations, and showed how healthy eating can save untold numbers of lives.

These days, science may have dissected almost every element of our diet, but many of us still feel at sea. Even when sticking to official advice, healthy foods that seem to energise one person can cause another to feel fatigued and bloated. In 2015, a team of scientists from Israel tracked blood sugar levels in the blood of 800 people over several days, making the surprising discovery that individuals’ biological response to identical foods varied wildly. Some people had a blood glucose ‘spike’ after eating sugaryice cream, while others’ glucose levelsonly increased with starchy rice – a finding at odds with conventional wisdom.

In the next 10 years, the emerging field of ‘personalised nutrition’ will offer healthy eating guidance tailored to the individual

Our bodies’ idiosyncratic handling of nutrients seems to be down to our genetics, the microbes in our gut, and variations in our organs’ internal physiology. Clinical trials like those pioneered by Lind have given us general dietary guidelines, but nutrition research tends to assume all humans are the same, and so can miss the nuances and specific needs ofthe individual.

In the next 10 years, the emerging field of ‘personalised nutrition’ will use genetic tests to fill in those gaps to offer healthy eating guidance tailored to the individual. Some companies, so-called ‘nutrigenetics services’, already test your DNA and offer dietary advice – but the advice can be hit-and-miss. By 2028, we will understand much more about our genetics. Dr Jeffrey Blumberg, a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, is one of the most outspoken advocates of this new science. He insists that DNA testing will unlock personalised nutrition. “I’ll be able to tell you what kinds of fruits, what kinds of vegetables and what kinds of wholegrains you should be choosing, or exactly how often,” he says.

Sadly, personalised nutrition looks set to make cooking meals for the whole family just that little bit more taxing.

In 2028 food will be engineered to be more nutritious

‘Natural’ is a buzz term food marketers love to use, but barely any of our current produce ever existed in the natural world. The fruit and vegetables that we enjoy today have been selectively bred over thousands of years, often mutated out of all recognition from the original wild crop. Carrots weren’t originally orange, they were scrawny and white; peaches once resembled cherries and tasted salty; watermelons were small, round, hard and bitter; aubergines used to look like white eggs.

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But the selective breeding for bulky and tasty traits, combined with intensive farming practices, has sometimes come at a nutritional cost. Protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C have all waned in fruit and vegetables over the past century, with today’s vegetables having about two-thirds of the minerals they used to have.

By 2028, genetics and biomolecular science should have redressed the balance, so that DNA from one organism is inserted into another, eliminating the need to undertake generations of selective breeding to acquire desirable traits.

Just last year, researchers from Australia showcased a banana with high levels of provitamin A, an important nutrient not normally present in the fruit. To create this fruit, the researchers snipped out genes from a specific type of Papua New Guinean banana that’s naturally high in provitamin A, then inserted them into the common banana variety.

More controversially, DNA can be transplanted from completely different organisms to create varieties that would never occur with selective breeding. Corn has been successfully given a boost of methionine – a key nutrient missing in the cereal – by splicing in DNA from a bacterium. Even the genetic code itself can be edited to develop ‘superpowers’: in 2008, for example, researchers created modified carrots that increase the body’s absorption of calcium.

There have been hundreds of examples of these incredible botanical creations: potatoes, corn and rice containing more protein; linseed having more omega-3 and omega-6 fats; tomatoes containing antioxidants originally found in snapdragons; and lettuce that carries iron in a form that’s easily digestible by the body.

Over the next ten years, the number of nutritionally enhanced crops will probably explode. Precise DNA-editing technology – namely a technique called CRISPR-Cas9 – now allows alteration of plant genetic code with unprecedented accuracy. Get ready for tasty apples with all the goodness of their bitter forebears, peanuts that don’t trigger allergies, and lentils that have a protein content equivalent to meat. It will be like creating the orange carrot all over again!

In 2028 food will be different from anything you have tasted before

New flavours arrive unpredictably as food manufacturers create new products. Silicon Valley – well known for attracting the brightest minds – is becoming the global hub for food innovation. A start-up currently making waves is Impossible Foods, which has created a meat-free burger that sizzles in the pan, tastes like meat and ‘bleeds’. Designed to be sustainable and environmentally friendly, the patties are made with wheat protein, coconut oil, potato protein, and flavourings. The secret ingredient is heme – the oxygen-carrying molecule that makes both meat and blood red – and seems to give meat much of its flavour. The heme that Impossible Foods uses has been extracted from plants and produced using fermentation. It’s a growth industry, with competitors such as Beyond Meat and Moving Mountains cooking up similar burgers, and plans are afoot for plant-based steaks andchicken. It doesn’t stop there, however: other start-ups are pioneering animal-free milk and egg whites. Expect to get usedto the new tastes of meat-free meat and dairy-free dairy.

It’s now been more than a decade since chef Heston Blumenthal first served his famous ‘sound of the seas’ dish, for which diners listened to a recording of breaking waves to heighten the salty flavours of seafood. It is well established that all senses inform the flavour of food: desserts taste creamier if served in a round bowl rather than on a square plate; background hissing or humming makes food taste less sweet; and crisps feel softer if we can’t hear them crunching in the mouth. The emerging field of ‘neurogastronomy’ brings together our latest understanding of neurology and food science and will be a big player in our 2028 dining.

Today, you might hear James Blunt crooning in your favourite eatery, but in the restaurant of 2028, there may be aromatic mists, subtle sound effects and controlled lighting, all optimised to make your steak and chips taste better than you thought possible. At home, augmented reality headsets that superimpose digital imagery on the real world could offer a tranquil seascape for a fish dish, or the wilds of Texas for barbecued ribs.

Unusual processed foods will make a splash in the years to come, including novelties like edible spray paint, algae protein snack bars, beer made with wastewater, and even lollipops designed to cure hiccups. We don’t know exactly what will be on tomorrow’s supermarket shelves (if supermarkets still exist, that is) due to the secretive nature of the multinational food corporations. But we do know that ice cream and chocolate that don’t melt in warm weather are definitely under development. Nanotechnology is going to feature: researchers are currently devising nanoparticles that give delayed bursts of flavour in the mouth, and earlier this year, a team of chemists created tiny magnetic particles that bind to and remove off-tasting flavour compounds in red wine while preserving its full aroma.

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Cookbooks in 2028 will have some weird recipes. By analysing foods for their flavour compounds – aroma-carrying substances that convey flavour – ingredients can be paired to create novel experiences. In 2016, researchers from the International Society of Neurogastronomy demonstrated a menu with hitherto untried ingredient blends, designed to be flavourful for people who had lost their sense of taste and smell through chemotherapy.A lip-smacking highlight was: clementine upside-down cake with a dab of basil and pistachio pesto, crowned with a scoop of olive oil gelato.

Perhaps the most outlandish proposal to enhance the eating experience is to ‘hack’ the brain. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is designing implantable ‘neural interfaces’ that aim to boost human senses by transmitting high-resolution audiovisual information, and potentially smells and tastes, directly to the brain.

In 2028 food will be guilt free

We just keep getting heavier. Today around 40 per cent of all adults are overweight or obese and every single nation on Earth is getting fatter. Obesity-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, are soaring on a trajectory that will cripple many health services. Most troublingly, there have been no success stories in the past 33 years – not one country has been able to halt the growth of the bulge. Processed, calorie-dense foods continue to become more widely available worldwide and, short of an international catastrophe like a global famine or mass outbreak of war, turning the tide is going to take some truly innovative thinking.

A short-term solution is to re-engineer calorific ‘junk’ food to have less fat, sugar, salt and fewer calories, while still giving the same satisfaction. There are artificial sweeteners, but they can haveunpleasant side effects and can’t be cooked as sugar can. Low-calorie sugar substitutes, such as sugar-alcohols like sorbitol, taste like the real thing but cause flatulence and diarrhoea if eaten excessively. But food technologists have managed to coat inert mineral particles with sugar, increasing the surface area that contacts the tongue, so that less sugar can be used to provide the same sweetness.

In the longer term, fine-tuning our biology could allow us to eat without guilt. Few people realise that our appetite is precisely regulated. Overeat on a Monday, and you usually eat less on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our hunger is usually set to a level almost identical to the number of calories we need. Unfortunately, the hunger ‘thermostat’ is set a little too high, by an average of about 0.4 per cent (or 11 calories a day). Left to our own devices, we will each tend to eat an extra peanut’s worth of calories each day. That doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up to nearly half a kilogramme weight gain each year. Our unfortunate tendency to develop ‘middle-aged spread’ has presumably evolved as an insurance against the next famine.

The hunt is on to nudge the appetite set point down by 11 calories or more. Many hormones swirl around the blood to tell us when to eat and when to stop. One hormone, CCK, is released by the gut when food enters it, making us feel full. Another hormone, leptin, is released by body fat and apparently tells the body when our fat stores are adequate. It’s a complex picture and attempts at manipulating individual hormone levels have been unsuccessful. Everyone is hoping that we will soon untangle the web of brain-hormone messages and managed to devise supplements, foods or medicine that can make a tiny tweak to the dial.

In 2028 food will be more creative

Kitchen creativity has few limits. From Weetabix ice cream to liquid nitrogen cocktail balls, exciting dishes are made by chefs who love to surprise, but few such culinary masterpieces make it into the home, owing to a reliance on specialist equipment and professional skills. Expect that to change as equipment becomes more affordable. Even today, the sous-vide water bath that was once reserved for fine dining restaurants can be purchased for less than a set of pans. In the coming years, the spiraliser will have been eclipsed by a handheld spherificator or foam-making espuma gun. For the ambitious home cook, getting creative is going to be a lot more fun.

When skills are lacking, a robotic sous-chef may lend a helping hand. Imagine being able to send a message your Robo-Chef while on the commute home to prepare a recipe of your choice. Within moments, android arms will be gathering ingredients from the fridge, julienning the turnips and deboning the chicken.

It’s not completely pie-in-the-sky, either. UK-based Moley Robotics has already developed a ‘robotic kitchen’, set for consumer release this year. Consisting of two articulated arms, cooking hobs, oven and touchscreen interface, this is a robot that can chop, whisk, stir, pour and clean. It’s no clumsy Dalek either: each hand has 20 motors, 24 joints and 129 sensors to mimic the movements of human hands. Skills are ‘learnt’ by replicating the movements of chefs and other cooks, and their recipes can be selected via an iTunes-like recipe catalogue. The speed and dexterity of the robotic kitchen will have foodies salivating at the possibilities. But with the first devices expected to cost around £10,000 each, it might be worth holding out until they throw in a dishwasher.

Elsewhere, 3D-printed food offers endless opportunities for creating intricate dishes that are impossible to create by human hands alone. Everything from toys to aeroplane parts, from prosthetics to clothing – even whole houses – are already being made with 3D printers. And the food frontier has been crossed. Custom sweets can be designed and made using sugar-rich ‘ink’ to construct anything from interlocking candy cubes and chewable animal shapes, to lollipops in the shape of Queen Elizabeth’s head.

Until recently, 3D printing has been sugar-based, but technology is emerging that reliably prints savoury and fresh ingredients. Natural Machines has developed one such kitchen appliance that can be loaded with multiple ingredient capsules to create and cook all manner of weird and wonderful foods. These include: crackers shaped like coral, hexagonal crisps, heart-shaped pizzas and hollow croutons that dissolve in sauce. With the promise of cutting waste by repurposing ‘ugly’ food and offcuts for food capsules, Natural Machines has the potential to drastically reduce packaging and transport costs. Not yet sold on the idea? Imagine wowing your nearest and dearest by serving upthe ultimate romantic meal finished off with a personalised chocolate torte, where an invisible series of grooves in the chocolate surface plays their favourite song when placed in a special ‘record player’. Delicious!

This is an extract from issue 322 of BBC Focus magazine.

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• Published: 19 August 2020

The future of food from the sea

• Christopher Costello   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9646-7806 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Ling Cao 3   na1 ,
• Stefan Gelcich   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5976-9311 4 , 5   na1 ,
• Miguel Á. Cisneros-Mata   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5525-5498 6 ,
• Christopher M. Free 1 , 2 ,
• Halley E. Froehlich 7 , 8 ,
• Christopher D. Golden   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0358-4625 9 , 10 ,
• Gakushi Ishimura 11 , 12 ,
• Jason Maier 1 ,
• Ilan Macadam-Somer 1 , 2 ,
• Tracey Mangin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6111-0914 1 , 2 ,
• Michael C. Melnychuk 13 ,
• Masanori Miyahara 14 ,
• Carryn L. de Moor 15 ,
• Rosamond Naylor 16 , 17 ,
• Linda Nøstbakken 18 ,
• Elena Ojea 19 ,
• Erin O’Reilly 1 , 2 ,
• Ana M. Parma 20 ,
• Andrew J. Plantinga 1 , 2 ,
• Shakuntala H. Thilsted 21 &
• Jane Lubchenco   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3540-5879 22  

Nature volume  588 ,  pages 95–100 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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• Ecosystem services
• Environmental sciences

Matters Arising to this article was published on 09 March 2022

Global food demand is rising, and serious questions remain about whether supply can increase sustainably 1 . Land-based expansion is possible but may exacerbate climate change and biodiversity loss, and compromise the delivery of other ecosystem services 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . As food from the sea represents only 17% of the current production of edible meat, we ask how much food we can expect the ocean to sustainably produce by 2050. Here we examine the main food-producing sectors in the ocean—wild fisheries, finfish mariculture and bivalve mariculture—to estimate ‘sustainable supply curves’ that account for ecological, economic, regulatory and technological constraints. We overlay these supply curves with demand scenarios to estimate future seafood production. We find that under our estimated demand shifts and supply scenarios (which account for policy reform and technology improvements), edible food from the sea could increase by 21–44 million tonnes by 2050, a 36–74% increase compared to current yields. This represents 12–25% of the estimated increase in all meat needed to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050. Increases in all three sectors are likely, but are most pronounced for mariculture. Whether these production potentials are realized sustainably will depend on factors such as policy reforms, technological innovation and the extent of future shifts in demand.

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Human population growth, rising incomes and preference shifts will considerably increase global demand for nutritious food in the coming decades. Malnutrition and hunger still plague many countries 1 , 7 , and projections of population and income by 2050 suggest a future need for more than 500 megatonnes (Mt) of meat per year for human consumption (Supplementary Information section  1.1.6 ). Scaling up the production of land-derived food crops is challenging, because of declining yield rates and competition for scarce land and water resources 2 . Land-derived seafood (freshwater aquaculture and inland capture fisheries; we use seafood to denote any aquatic food resource, and food from the sea for marine resources specifically) has an important role in food security and global supply, but its expansion is also constrained. Similar to other land-based production, the expansion of land-based aquaculture has resulted in substantial environmental externalities that affect water, soil, biodiversity and climate, and which compromise the ability of the environment to produce food 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . Despite the importance of terrestrial aquaculture in seafood production (Supplementary Fig. 3 ), many countries—notably China, the largest inland-aquaculture producer—have restricted the use of land and public waters for this purpose, which constrains expansion 8 . Although inland capture fisheries are important for food security, their contribution to total global seafood production is limited (Supplementary Table 1 ) and expansion is hampered by ecosystem constraints. Thus, to meet future needs (and recognizing that land-based sources of fish and other foods are also part of the solution), we ask whether the sustainable production of food from the sea has an important role in future supply.

Food from the sea is produced from wild fisheries and species farmed in the ocean (mariculture), and currently accounts for 17% of the global production of edible meat 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 (Supplementary Information section  1.1 , Supplementary Tables 1 – 3 ). In addition to protein, food from the sea contains bioavailable micronutrients and essential fatty acids that are not easily found in land-based foods, and is thus uniquely poised to contribute to global food and nutrition security 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 .

Widely publicized reports about climate change, overfishing, pollution and unsustainable mariculture give the impression that sustainably increasing the supply of food from the sea is impossible. On the other hand, unsustainable practices, regulatory barriers, perverse incentives and other constraints may be limiting seafood production, and shifts in policies and practices could support both food provisioning and conservation goals 17 , 18 . In this study, we investigate the potential of expanding the economically and environmentally sustainable production of food from the sea for meeting global food demand in 2050. We do so by estimating the extent to which food from the sea could plausibly increase under a range of scenarios, including demand scenarios under which land-based fish act as market substitutes.

The future contribution of food from the sea to global food supply will depend on a range of ecological, economic, policy and technological factors. Estimates based solely on ecological capacity are useful, but do not capture the responses of producers to incentives and do not account for changes in demand, input costs or technology 19 , 20 . To account for these realities, we construct global supply curves of food from the sea that explicitly account for economic feasibility and feed constraints. We first derive the conceptual pathways through which food could be increased in wild fisheries and in mariculture sectors. We then empirically derive the magnitudes of these pathways to estimate the sustainable supply of food from each seafood sector at any given price 21 . Finally, we match these supply curves with future demand scenarios to estimate the likely future production of sustainable seafood at the global level.

Sustainably increasing food from the sea

We describe four main pathways by which food supply from the ocean could increase: (1) improving the management of wild fisheries; (2) implementing policy reforms of mariculture; (3) advancing feed technologies for fed mariculture; and (4) shifting demand, which affects the quantity supplied from all three production sectors.

Although mariculture production has grown steadily over the past 60 years (Fig. 1 ) and provides an important contribution to food security 22 , the vast majority (over 80%) of edible meat from the sea comes from wild fisheries 9 (Fig. 1b ). Over the past 30 years, supply from this wild food source has stabilized globally despite growing demand worldwide, which has raised concerns about our ability to sustainably increase production. Of nearly 400 fish stocks around the world that have been monitored since the 1970s by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), approximately one third are currently not fished within sustainable limits 1 . Indeed, overfishing occurs often in poorly managed (‘open access’) fisheries. This is disproportionately true in regions with food and nutrition security concerns 1 . In open-access fisheries, fishing pressure increases as the price rises: this can result in a ‘backward-bending’ supply curve 23 , 24 (the OA curve in Fig. 2a ), in which higher prices result in the depletion of fish stocks and reduced productivity—and thus reduced equilibrium food provision.

Data are from ref. 9 . a , b , Harvests (live-weight production) ( a ) are converted to food equivalents (edible production) 10 ( b ). In b , there is also an assumption that 18% of the annual landings of marine wild fisheries are directed towards non-food purposes 47 .

a , Wild fisheries. Curves represent poorly managed (open access) fisheries (OA); management reform for all fisheries (MSY); and economically rational management reform (R). b , Mariculture. Curves represent weak regulations that allow for ecologically unsustainable production (M1); overly restrictive policies (M2); policies that allow for sustainable expansion (M3); and a reduced dependence on limited feed ingredients for fed-mariculture production (M4).

Fishery management allows overexploited stocks to rebuild, which can increase long-term food production from wild fisheries 25 , 26 . We present two hypothetical pathways by which wild fisheries could adopt improved management (Fig. 2a ). First, independent of economic conditions, governments can impose reforms in fishery management. The resulting production in 2050 from this pathway—assuming that fisheries are managed for maximum sustainable yield (MSY)—is represented by the MSY curve in Fig. 2a , and is independent of price. The second pathway explicitly recognizes that wild fisheries are expensive to monitor (for example, via stock assessments) and manage (for example, via quotas)—management reforms are adopted only by fisheries for which future profits outweigh the associated costs of improved management. When management entities respond to economic incentives, the number of fisheries for which the benefits of improved management outweigh the costs increases as demand (and thus price) increases. This economically rational management endogenously determines which fisheries are well-managed, and thus how much food production they deliver, resulting in supply curve designated R in Fig. 2a .

Although the production of wild fisheries is approaching its ecological limits, current mariculture production is far below its ecological limits and could be increased through policy reforms, technological advancements and increased demand 19 , 27 . We present explanations for why food production from mariculture is currently limited, and describe how the relaxation of these constraints gives rise to distinct pathways for expansion (Fig. 2b ). The first pathway recognizes that ineffective policies have limited the supply 28 , 29 . Lax regulations in some regions have resulted in poor environmental stewardship, disease and even collapse, which have compromised the viability of food production in the long run (curve M1 in Fig. 2b ). In other regions, regulations are overly restrictive, convoluted and poorly defined 30 , 31 , and thus limit production (curve M2 in Fig. 2b ). In both cases, improved policies and implementation can increase food production by preventing and ending environmentally damaging mariculture practices (the shift from M1 to M3 in Fig. 2b ) and allowing for environmentally sustainable expansion (the shift from M2 to M3 in Fig. 2b ).

The second pathway to sustainably increase mariculture production is through further technological advances in finfish feeds. Currently, most mariculture production (75%) requires some feed input (such as fishmeal and fish oil) that is largely derived from wild forage fisheries 1 . If fed mariculture continues using fishmeal and fish oil at the current rate, its growth will be constrained by the ecological limits of these wild fisheries 32 . Alternative feed ingredients—including terrestrial plant- or animal-based proteins, seafood processing waste, microbial ingredients, insects, algae and genetically modified plants—are rapidly being developed and are increasingly used in mariculture feeds 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 . These innovations could decouple fed mariculture from wild fisheries (but may refocus pressure on terrestrial ecosystems) and could catalyse considerable expansion in some regions 37 , 38 . This has already begun for many fed species, such as Atlantic salmon—for which fish-based ingredient use has been reduced from 90% in the 1990s to just 25% at present 39 . A reduced reliance on fishmeal and fish oil is expected to shift the supply curve of fed mariculture to the right (curve M4 in Fig. 2b ).

The final pathway is a shift in demand (aggregated across all global fish consumers), which affects all three production sectors. When the sustainable supply curve is upward-sloping, an increase in demand (rightward shift; for example, from rising population, income or preferences) increases food production.

Estimated sustainable supply curves

We estimate supply curves of food from the sea in 2050 for the three largest food sectors in the ocean: wild fisheries, finfish mariculture and bivalve mariculture. We construct global supply curves for marine wild fisheries using projected future production for 4,702 fisheries under alternative management scenarios (Fig. 3a ). We model future production with a bioeconomic model based on ref. 17 , which tracks annual biomass, harvest and profit, and accounts for costs associated with extraction and management (see Methods and Supplementary Information for details). Managing all fisheries to maximize food production (MSY) would result in 57.4 Mt of food in 2050 (derived from 89.3 Mt of total harvest, hereafter noted as live-weight equivalent), representing a 16% increase compared to the current food production (Fig. 3a ). Under a scenario of economically rational reform (in which the management approach and exploitation rate of fisheries depend on profitability), the price influences production (Fig. 3a ). At current mean global prices, this scenario would result in 51.3 Mt of food (77.4 Mt live-weight equivalent)—a 4% increase compared to current food production. These management-induced shifts in supply are ultimately limited by the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. If current fishing pressure is maintained for each fish stock when profitable ( F  current, referring to the current fishing mortality rate), food production from wild fisheries is lower for most prices than under the two reform scenarios (owing to fishing too intensively on some stocks, and too conservatively on others) 25 : this supply curve is not backward-bending, as it reflects constant fishing pressures.

a – c , Points represent current production and average price in each sector: marine wild fisheries ( a ), finfish mariculture ( b ) and bivalve mariculture ( c ). In a , supply curves for annual steady-state edible production from wild fisheries are shown under three different management scenarios: production in 2050 under current fishing effort assuming that fishing only occurs in fisheries that are profitable ( F current); the economically rational supply curve aimed at maximizing profitability (rational reform); and a reform policy aimed at maximizing food production, regardless of the economic considerations (MSY). In b , supply curves for finfish (fed) mariculture show: future steady-state production under current feed assumptions and policy reform (policy reform); sustainable production assuming policy reform and a 50% reduction in fishmeal and fish oil feed requirements (technological innovation); and sustainable production assuming policy reform and a 95% reduction in fishmeal and fish oil feed requirements (technological innovation (ambitious)). In all cases, feed ingredients are from the economically rational reform of wild fisheries.

We estimate the production potential of mariculture at a resolution of 0.217° around the world for finfish and bivalves. Ecological conditions—sea surface temperature, dissolved oxygen and primary productivity—determine the suitability of each pixel for mariculture production. We build on previous models 19 by including economic considerations (including the capital costs of vessels and equipment, and the operating costs of wages, fuel, feed, insurance and maintenance; Supplementary Tables 5 – 7 ) to determine whether farming an ecologically suitable area is economically profitable at any given price. Summing economically viable production for each sector at the global level for different prices produces two mariculture supply curves. This approach assumes that the most profitable sites will be developed first, but does not explicitly include challenges such as the cost of public regulation and the delineation of property rights. Farm design is based on best practice for sustainable production, and we therefore interpret the results as an environmentally sustainable supply. We examine a range of assumptions regarding production costs, and explore different technological assumptions with respect to the species type farmed for finfish mariculture (Methods, Supplementary Information section  1.3 , Supplementary Table 9 ). The supply curve for finfish mariculture differs substantially among future feed-technology scenarios, although all of these scenarios foretell a substantial increase in annual food supply in the future compared to the current production of the sector (6.8 Mt of food) (Fig. 3b ). However, the policy reform scenario—which assumes mariculture policies are neither too restrictive nor lax (curve M3 in Fig. 2b ), but that fishmeal and fish oil requirements match present-day conditions—produces a modest additional 1.4 Mt of food at current prices. In this scenario, marine-based feed inputs limit mariculture expansion even as the price increases considerably.

Two feed-innovation scenarios—representing policy reform plus a 50% or 95% reduction in fishmeal and fish oil requirements, which we refer to as ‘technological innovation’ and ‘technological innovation (ambitious)’, respectively—can substantially shift the supply curve.

At current prices, future supply under these scenarios is predicted to increase substantially to 17.2 Mt and 174.5 Mt of food for technological innovation and technological innovation (ambitious) scenarios, respectively (Fig. 3b ). Bivalve mariculture is constrained by current policy but not by feed limitations, and is poised to expand substantially under policy reform scenarios. At current prices, economically rational production could lead to an increase from 2.9 Mt to 80.5 Mt of food (Fig. 3c ). Even if our model underestimates costs by 50%, policy reforms would increase the production potential of both fed and unfed mariculture at current prices. For fed mariculture, this remains true even when evaluating mariculture species with different feed demands (Atlantic salmon, milkfish and barramundi).

Estimates of future food from the sea

Our supply curves suggest that all three sectors of ocean food production are capable of sustainably producing much more food than they do at present. The quantity of seafood demanded will also respond to price. We present three demand-curve estimates, shown in Fig. 4 (Methods, Supplementary Information). The intersections of future demand and sustainable supply curves provide an estimate of future food production from the sea. Because it is a substantial contributor to fish supply and—in some instances—acts as a market substitute for seafood, we also account for land-based aquatic food production (from freshwater aquaculture and inland capture fisheries; Supplementary Information section  1.4 , Supplementary Tables 10 – 12 ). Estimates of future production from this fourth sector (‘inland fisheries’) are shown side-by-side in Supplementary Fig. 3 and Supplementary Tables 13 , 14 (for quantities of food) and in Supplementary Tables 15 , 16 (for live-weight equivalents), and are discussed with the results on food from the sea.

a – c , Supply and demand curves for marine wild fisheries ( a ), finfish mariculture ( b ) and bivalve mariculture ( c ) . In each panel, the solid black line is the supply curve from Fig. 3 : for wild fisheries, the rational reform scenario is shown, and for finfish mariculture the technological innovation (ambitious) scenario is shown. Future demand refers to estimated demand in 2050; extreme demand represents a doubling of the estimated demand in 2050. The intersections of demand and sustainable supply curve (indicated with crosses) provide an estimate of the future food from the sea. Points represent current production and average price in each sector.

Even under current demand curves (green curves in Fig. 4 ), the economically rational reform of marine wild fisheries and sustainable mariculture policies (stocking densities consistent with European organic standards 40 ) under the technological innovation (ambitious) scenario could result in a combined total of 62 Mt of food from the sea per year, 5% more than the current levels (59 Mt). But we know that demand will increase as incomes rise and populations expand. Under the ‘future demand’ scenario (purple curves in Fig. 4 ), total food from the sea is projected to increase to 80 Mt. If demand shifts even more (as represented by our ‘extreme demand’ scenario; red curves in Fig. 4 ), the intersection of supply and demand is expected to increase to 103 Mt of food. Using the approach used by the FAO to estimate future needs, the world will require an additional 177 Mt of meat by 2050 (Supplementary Information section  1.1.6 )—our results suggest that additional food from the sea alone could plausibly contribute 12–25% of this need. Another possibility we consider is that future consumers will not distinguish between fish-producing sectors, such that all sources of fish (including land-based) would be substitutes for each other. Adopting that assumption alters the supply-and-demand equilibrium, and implies that the increase among all sources of fish (sea and land) relative to the present could be between 90–212 Mt of food; under this scenario, expansion of aquatic foods alone could possibly exceed the 177-Mt benchmark.

Our results also suggest that the future composition of food from the sea will differ substantially from the present (Fig. 5 ). Although wild fisheries dominate edible marine production at present, we project that by 2050 up to 44% of edible marine production could come from mariculture (rising to 76% when all fish are substitutes and land-based fish are included under extreme demand scenarios (Supplementary Fig. 3 , Supplementary Table 14 )), although all sectors could increase production. Although even more substantial increases are technically possible (for example, fed mariculture alone is capable of generating at least the benchmark 177 Mt of additional meat), actually realizing these gains would require enormous shifts in demand.

a , Composition of current (initial production) food from the sea. b – d , Composition of future (2050) food from the sea under scenarios of current ( b ), future ( c ) and extreme ( d ) demand. The sustainable supply curves assumed for these predictions are: rational reform for wild fisheries; technological innovation (ambitious) for finfish mariculture; and policy reform for bivalve mariculture, as shown in Fig. 3 . The total production of food from the sea per year is shown in the centre in each panel.

Our models rely on a number of assumptions and parameters that are uncertain, and which may interact in nonlinear ways. To test the robustness of our main conclusions, we examine a range of scenarios and run an extensive sensitivity analysis (Supplementary Information). Across a wide range of cost, technology and demand scenarios, we find that sustainably harvested food from the sea: (1) has the potential to increase considerably in the coming decades; (2) will change in composition, with a greater future share coming from mariculture; and (3), in aggregate, could have an outsized role in meeting future meat demands around the world (Supplementary Figs. 1 – 4 , Supplementary Tables 13 – 17 ).

Conclusions

Global food demand is rising, and expanding land-based production is fraught with environmental and health concerns. Because seafood is nutritionally diverse and avoids or lessens many of the environmental burdens of terrestrial food production, it is uniquely positioned to contribute to both food provision and future global food and nutrition security. Our estimated sustainable supply curves of food from the sea suggest substantial possibilities for future expansion in both wild fisheries and mariculture. The potential for increased global production from wild fisheries hinges on maintaining fish populations near their most-productive levels. For underutilized stocks, this will require expanding existing markets. For overfished stocks, this will require adopting or improving management practices that prevent overfishing and allow depleted stocks to rebuild. Effective management practices commonly involve setting and enforcing science-based limits on catch or fishing effort, but appropriate interventions will depend on the biological, socioeconomic, cultural and governance contexts of individual fisheries. Effective management will be further challenged by climate change, species composition changes in marine ecosystems and illegal fishing. Directing resources away from subsidies that enhance fishing capacity towards building institutional and technical capacity for fisheries research, management and enforcement will help to meet these challenges. Increased mariculture production will require management practices and policies that allow for environmentally sustainable expansion, while balancing the associated trade-offs to the greatest extent possible; this principle underpins the entire analysis. We find that substantial expansion is realistic, given the costs of production and the likely future increase in demand.

We have identified a variety of ways that sustainable supply curves can shift outward. These shifts interact with future demand to determine the plausible future equilibrium quantity of food produced from the sea. We find that although supply could increase to more than six times the current level (primarily via expanded mariculture), the demand shift required to engage this level of supply is unlikely. Under more realistic demand scenarios and appropriate reforms of the supply, we find that food from the sea could increase in all three sectors (wild fisheries, finfish mariculture and bivalve mariculture) to a total of 80–103 Mt of food in 2050 versus 59 Mt at present (in live-weight equivalents, 159–227 Mt compared to 102 Mt at present). When combined with projected inland production, this represents an 18–44% per decade increase in live-weight production, which is somewhat higher than the 14% increase that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the FAO project for total fish production during the next decade 41 . Under some scenarios, future production could represent a disproportionate fraction of the estimated total increase in global food production that will be required to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050. Substantial growth in mariculture will rely partly on public perceptions. Although there is some evidence of a negative public perception of aquaculture, it is highly variable by region and by context 42 , 43 , and certifications and the provision of other information can help to alleviate concerns and expand demand 44 .

These global projections will not have uniform implications around the world. For example, improved policies that shift the supply curve outward will decrease prices, but income-induced demand shifts will increase prices. Both effects increase production, but have vastly different consequences for low-income consumers. Bivalves may contribute substantially to food security by providing relatively low-cost and thus accessible food, because they have a high production potential at low costs compared to finfish production (Fig. 3 ). If all seafood is perfectly substitutable, bivalves could contribute 43% and 34% of future aquatic food under future and extreme demand scenarios, respectively (Supplementary Fig. 3 )—which suggests potential large increases in production, provided demand is high enough. Trade also has an important role in distributing seafood from high-production to low-production regions, and in overcoming regional mismatches in price. The rate of international trade of seafood products has increased over past decades, and 27% of seafood products were traded in 2016 1 , although major economic disruptions—such as the COVID-19 pandemic—can jointly reduce both supply and demand of traded seafood. On the other hand, trade may become increasingly relied upon as climate change alters regional productivity.

Substantially expanding the production of food from the sea will bring co-benefits and trade-offs, and will require national and interregional governance, as well as local capacity to ensure equity and sustainability. The improved management of wild fisheries can not only increase fish biomass, but also brings the co-benefit of improved livelihoods of fishers. However, there will be some short-term costs as overfished stocks rebuild to levels that support greater food provision. As mariculture expands, interactions with wild fisheries and other ecosystem services (via spatial overlaps, pollution and so on) must be constantly addressed. Ambitious technical innovation (that is, the substitution of marine ingredients with terrestrial-sourced proteins) can help to decouple fed mariculture from wild fisheries, but will probably refocus some pressure on terrestrial ecosystems. Climate change will further challenge food security. Estimates suggest that active adaptation to climate-induced changes will be crucial in both wild fisheries 45 and mariculture 46 . Climate-adaptive management of wild fisheries and decisions regarding mariculture production (for example, the type of feed used, species produced and farm siting) could improve food provision from the sea under conditions of climate change.

We have shown that the sea can be a much larger contributor to sustainable food production than is currently the case, and that this comes about by implementing a range of plausible and actionable mechanisms. The price mechanism—when it motivates improved fishery management and the sustainable expansion of mariculture into new areas—arises from change in demand, and acts on its own without any explicit intervention. The feed technology mechanism is driven by incentives to innovate, and thus acquire intellectual property rights to new technologies. When intellectual property is not ensured, or to achieve other social goals, there may be a role for public subsidies or other investments in these technologies. The policy mechanism pervades all three production sectors, and could make—or break—the ability of food from the sea to sustainably, equitably and efficiently expand in the future.

Sample size was a census of all available fisheries data. No experiments were conducted.

Here we describe our methods in brief: detailed methods, sensitivity analyses and robustness checks are provided in the Supplementary Information.

Sustainable supply curves

The supply of food from marine wild fisheries is jointly determined by ecosystem constraints, fishery policy and prevailing economic conditions. Estimated supply curves show the projected 2050 production quantity at a given price, incorporating harvesting costs, management costs and fishery-specific engagement decisions for individual fisheries. Current management of the 4,702 marine fisheries included in our study range from open access to strong target-based management 17 . Using data from the RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Database 48 , the FAO 9 and refs. 17 , 49 , 50 , we calculate three supply curves that represent summed global production from established wild fisheries for a range of prices (Fig. 3 ). The first ( F current) assumes that all fisheries in the world maintain their current fishing mortality rate if profitable (that is, fisheries for which current fishing pressure would result in steady-state profit < 0 are not fished). The second (rational reform) assumes that fisheries are reformed to maximize long-term food production (that is, adopt F MSY , the fishing mortality rate that results in maximum sustainable yield (MSY)), but only at prices for which reform results in greater future profit than that of current management. Importantly, adopting reform is associated with greater management costs for fisheries that are currently weakly managed. If a fishery is managed, its production changes, which alters the supply curve. Production occurs in a given fishery only if future profit > 0. The third supply curve (MSY) assumes that all fisheries are managed to maximize sustainable yield, regardless of the cost or benefit of doing so (Fig. 3 ). Supply curves under alternative cost assumptions yield results similar to those presented in Fig. 3 (Supplementary Fig. 1 ).

To construct supply curves for finfish and bivalve mariculture (which account for 83% of current production of edible animal products from mariculture 11 ), we use a previously published 19 global suitability dataset at a resolution of 0.217°. Ecological conditions (that is, surface temperature, dissolved oxygen and primary productivity (bivalves only)) determine the suitability of different areas for production. We build on ref. 19 by including economic considerations (for example, the capital costs of vessels and equipment and operating costs of wages, fuel, feed, insurance and maintenance; see Supplementary Information section  1.3 , Supplementary Tables 5 – 7 for more details) to determine whether an ecologically suitable area is also economically profitable to farm at a given price. For any given price, we estimate the potential production and profitability of each pixel, and determine the global set of economically viable pixels for mariculture production of finfish and bivalves; we allow for production of both kinds of mariculture in the same pixel, provided the pixel is economically suitable for both. Summing production in this manner at the global level provides a point on the supply curve, at which farm design (Supplementary Table 4 ) is based on best practices for sustainable production (that is, stocking densities consistent with European organic standards 40 ). We then derive supply curves under different assumptions regarding mariculture policy and technological innovation, which affect the parameters of the supply model.

We estimate supply curves for finfish mariculture under three scenarios, all of which assume that wild fisheries are rationally managed; this pins down the potential supply of wild fish that can be used as feed in mariculture (Supplementary Table 8 ). We display three supply curves for fed mariculture (Fig. 3 ). The policy reforms scenario represents a future in which regulatory barriers are removed, unsustainable production is prevented and mariculture continues to use feed ingredients from wild fisheries at the current rate (that is, feed conversion ratios remain static, fishmeal and fish oil inclusion rates in feed remain the same, and feed availability depends on production from wild fisheries). This scenario represents the economically rational sustainable production given the current feed context. Two technological innovation scenarios represent policy reform plus a 50% and (a more ambitious) 95% reduction in fishmeal and fish oil requirements for fed mariculture production. The supply curve for bivalve (unfed) mariculture (Fig. 3 ) reflects production in the set of pixels for which unfed mariculture can be profitably produced at any given price.

Supply meets demand

To estimate how food from the sea might help to meet future increases in demand at the global level, we require estimates of the current and future demand curves of food from the sea. The intersection of future demand curves and our estimated sustainable supply curves provides an estimate of food from the sea in 2050. As a benchmark, we assume that the three sectors are independent, but that increases in demand are parametric, so each of the three sectors experiences a proportional increase in future demand—for example, as global population and per capita incomes rise (see Supplementary Information for detailed results, assuming all aquatic foods are perfect substitutes). We assume a straightforward structure in which each sector faces an isoelastic demand (for example, see ref. 51 , with own price elasticity = −0.382; ref. 52 ; and sector-specific income elasticities estimated from ref. 51 ). Using these elasticities, the coefficient on current-demand curve in each sector (current, in Fig. 4 ) is tuned so the demand curve passes through the current price of seafood in that sector (averaged across fish from that sector) given the current global gross domestic product and population. Effectively, this approach assumes that all fish within a sector are substitutes. We do not explicitly estimate a current supply curve because it is not required to perform our calculations and—for reasons stated in the Article—we do not necessarily regard the current supply as sustainable.

To project future demand at the global level, we develop two scenarios that we term future and extreme (Fig. 4 ). The future demand represents the demand curve for food from the sea in each sector given exogenous estimates of future population size and global income in 2050 53 , 54 , which are entered as parameters in the demand curve (Supplementary Information). The extreme scenario doubles the quantity demanded at any given price in 2050, relative to the future scenario; we regard demand shifts larger than this amount as unlikely.

The Supplementary Information contains an extensive set of robustness checks and sensitivity analyses. One important alternative to the model in the Article is to allow all fish to be perfect substitutes in the future. Under that model, land-based fish production (aquaculture and capture) must be accounted for because those fish act as substitutes for food from the sea. Although this tends to increase the final estimates of food production from the sea, our qualitative findings are robust to this assumption and the Supplementary Information reports how this changes the model results described in the Article.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this paper.

Data availability

All datasets analysed during the current study are available in a Dryad repository at https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.25349/D96G6H .

Code availability

All code used to conduct the study are available in a GitHub repository: https://github.com/emlab-ucsb/future_food_from_sea .

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Acknowledgements

This research is adapted from a Blue Paper commissioned by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy entitled ‘The Future of Food from the Sea’. We thank the high-level panel for a sustainable ocean economy, N. Frost, K. Teleki, T. Clavelle and A. Merkl for inspiration and comments. We thank SYSTEMIQ (C.C., C.M.F., T.M., E.O’R. and A.J.P.), World Resources Institute (C.C., C.M.F., T.M., E.O’R. and A.J.P.), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (L.C. and S.G.), the European Research Council (679812) (E.O.), ANID PIA/BASAL 0002 (S.G.) and GAIN-Xunta de Galicia (E.O.) for financial support.

Author information

These authors jointly supervised this work: Christopher Costello, Ling Cao, Stefan Gelcich

Authors and Affiliations

Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Christopher Costello, Christopher M. Free, Jason Maier, Ilan Macadam-Somer, Tracey Mangin, Erin O’Reilly & Andrew J. Plantinga

Environmental Market Solutions Lab, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Christopher Costello, Christopher M. Free, Ilan Macadam-Somer, Tracey Mangin, Erin O’Reilly & Andrew J. Plantinga

School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Stefan Gelcich

Center for the Study of Multiple-Drivers on Marine Socio-Ecological Systems, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Instituto Nacional de Pesca y Acuacultura, Guaymas, Mexico

Miguel Á. Cisneros-Mata

Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Halley E. Froehlich

Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

Christopher D. Golden

Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, Morioka, Japan

Gakushi Ishimura

National Research Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Michael C. Melnychuk

Fisheries Research and Education Agency of Japan, Yokohama, Japan

Masanori Miyahara

Marine Resource Assessment and Management (MARAM) Group, Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa

Carryn L. de Moor

Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

• Rosamond Naylor

Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway

Linda Nøstbakken

Future Oceans Lab, CIM-University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain

Center for the Study of Marine Systems, National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Ana M. Parma

WorldFish, Bayan Lepas, Malaysia

Shakuntala H. Thilsted

Department of Integrative Biology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

Jane Lubchenco

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Contributions

C.C., L.C., S.G. and A.J.P. conceived the study. C.C., L.C., C.M.F., H.E.F., S.G., T.M. and A.J.P. contributed to the study design. C.C., L.C., C.M.F., J.M., T.M., R.N. and A.J.P. contributed to the acquisition and analysis of data. C.C., L.C., M.Á.C.-M., C.M.F., H.E.F., S.G., T.M., R.N., A.J.P. and S.H.T. contributed to the interpretation of results. C.C., L.C., M.A.C., H.E.F., S.G., C.D.G., G.I., I.M.-S., J.M., T.M., M.C.M., M.M., C.L.d.M., R.N., L.N., E.O., E.O’R., A.M.P, A.J.P., J.L. and S.H.T. wrote and edited the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Christopher Costello , Ling Cao or Stefan Gelcich .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

C.C. serves as trustee for Environmental Defense Fund and Global Fishing Watch. H.E.F. serves as a scientific advisor on the Technical Advisory Group for the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. R.N. serves on the scientific advisory board for Oceana and Nature Food . C.L.d.M. has undertaken work funded by government agencies, fishery industry organizations and regional fisheries management organizations. C.D.G. serves on the scientific advisory board for Oceana.

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Supplementary information

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Costello, C., Cao, L., Gelcich, S. et al. The future of food from the sea. Nature 588 , 95–100 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2616-y

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This webinar provides a foundational understanding of farming in the U.S. with relevant information for nutrition professionals to share with consumers. Learn about types of farms, educational backgrounds of farmers and regulations of farms and gain an understanding of the amount and types of foods that are imported and exported and learn more about locally grown foods.

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This webinar provides insight into farming economics to better understand how farming decisions are made and the challenges farms face in running a business. Learn how the Farm Bill has impacted farming, nutrition education and research. A variety of resources will be provided to help nutrition professionals become more knowledgeable about farming, the future of farming and how to get involved in public policy decisions that affect agriculture and nutrition.

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What's in Our Food? The Science and Safety of Food Additives

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Food is the nexus of society. With food we embody our values and connect with nature. We meet our physical needs and nourish creativity and community. Each time we gather around the table, we honor the past, experience the present, and prepare for the future. The importance of thinking about the future has never been greater. Today’s planetary challenges present a call to rethink the food system that we cannot ignore. From breakthroughs in personal health monitoring to the sprouting of rooftop aquaponics, now there are unprecedented opportunities for all of us to remake food and remake the world.

We created Rethink Food to Remake the World , a guide to help you create lasting and impactful change for the food system and beyond. Drawing from our ongoing research on the future of food, we chose five innovation zones to help you find an entry point for change. Use this guide at a hackathon (like we did in partnership with Bibimbap and the Future Food Institute in Bologna), a local food meetup, a city planning meeting, or in schools. Now is your chance to make the future!

To start...

• Governance and policies that shape the food system have the opportunity to promote more participatory, open, equitable practices.
• New models pioneered in the food system have the potential to reshape entire economies .
• Resilient food ecosystems provide the foundation for economic, social, and environmental resilience.
• Ensuring availability and access of food in rapidly growing cities — where the more and more of the population will live — will underpin our future education, work, health, and social structures.
• New food experiences introduce new ways to connect with each other, new opportunities to encourage healthy choices, and help us celebrate  cultures .

Once you choose your entry point, it's time to roll up your sleeves and make the future: 

• Gather ideas, data, information, and a team.
• Peel back the layers of complexity and map the network of stakeholders and potential impacts.
• Chop through existing assumptions and move different pieces of your idea around. What new partnerships can you form? What gaps can you fill? 
• Cook your idea—let it simmer. What new flavors emerge? What’s missing? Ask others to taste your creation and then go back through the process to make it even better.

Rethink Food to Remake the World (PDF)

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• Contact Sean Ness | 650-233-9517 | [email protected]

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Follow YES! For Teachers

Six brilliant student essays on the power of food to spark social change.

Read winning essays from our fall 2018 “Feeding Ourselves, Feeding Our Revolutions,” student writing contest.

For the Fall 2018 student writing competition, “Feeding Ourselves, Feeding Our Revolutions,” we invited students to read the YES! Magazine article, “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,”   by Korsha Wilson and respond to this writing prompt: If you were to host a potluck or dinner to discuss a challenge facing your community or country, what food would you cook? Whom would you invite? On what issue would you deliberate? 

The Winners

From the hundreds of essays written, these six—on anti-Semitism, cultural identity, death row prisoners, coming out as transgender, climate change, and addiction—were chosen as essay winners.  Be sure to read the literary gems and catchy titles that caught our eye.

Middle School Winner: India Brown High School Winner: Grace Williams University Winner: Lillia Borodkin Powerful Voice Winner: Paisley Regester Powerful Voice Winner: Emma Lingo Powerful Voice Winner: Hayden Wilson

Literary Gems Clever Titles

Middle School Winner: India Brown  

A Feast for the Future

Close your eyes and imagine the not too distant future: The Statue of Liberty is up to her knees in water, the streets of lower Manhattan resemble the canals of Venice, and hurricanes arrive in the fall and stay until summer. Now, open your eyes and see the beautiful planet that we will destroy if we do not do something. Now is the time for change. Our future is in our control if we take actions, ranging from small steps, such as not using plastic straws, to large ones, such as reducing fossil fuel consumption and electing leaders who take the problem seriously.

 Hosting a dinner party is an extraordinary way to publicize what is at stake. At my potluck, I would serve linguini with clams. The clams would be sautéed in white wine sauce. The pasta tossed with a light coat of butter and topped with freshly shredded parmesan. I choose this meal because it cannot be made if global warming’s patterns persist. Soon enough, the ocean will be too warm to cultivate clams, vineyards will be too sweltering to grow grapes, and wheat fields will dry out, leaving us without pasta.

I think that giving my guests a delicious meal and then breaking the news to them that its ingredients would be unattainable if Earth continues to get hotter is a creative strategy to initiate action. Plus, on the off chance the conversation gets drastically tense, pasta is a relatively difficult food to throw.

In YES! Magazine’s article, “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” Korsha Wilson says “…beyond the narrow definition of what cooking is, you can see that cooking is and has always been an act of resistance.” I hope that my dish inspires people to be aware of what’s at stake with increasing greenhouse gas emissions and work toward creating a clean energy future.

 My guest list for the potluck would include two groups of people: local farmers, who are directly and personally affected by rising temperatures, increased carbon dioxide, drought, and flooding, and people who either do not believe in human-caused climate change or don’t think it affects anyone. I would invite the farmers or farm owners because their jobs and crops are dependent on the weather. I hope that after hearing a farmer’s perspective, climate-deniers would be awakened by the truth and more receptive to the effort to reverse these catastrophic trends.

Earth is a beautiful planet that provides everything we’ll ever need, but because of our pattern of living—wasteful consumption, fossil fuel burning, and greenhouse gas emissions— our habitat is rapidly deteriorating. Whether you are a farmer, a long-shower-taking teenager, a worker in a pollution-producing factory, or a climate-denier, the future of humankind is in our hands. The choices we make and the actions we take will forever affect planet Earth.

 India Brown is an eighth grader who lives in New York City with her parents and older brother. She enjoys spending time with her friends, walking her dog, Morty, playing volleyball and lacrosse, and swimming.

High School Winner: Grace Williams

Apple Pie Embrace

It’s 1:47 a.m. Thanksgiving smells fill the kitchen. The sweet aroma of sugar-covered apples and buttery dough swirls into my nostrils. Fragrant orange and rosemary permeate the room and every corner smells like a stroll past the open door of a French bakery. My eleven-year-old eyes water, red with drowsiness, and refocus on the oven timer counting down. Behind me, my mom and aunt chat to no end, fueled by the seemingly self-replenishable coffee pot stashed in the corner. Their hands work fast, mashing potatoes, crumbling cornbread, and covering finished dishes in a thin layer of plastic wrap. The most my tired body can do is sit slouched on the backless wooden footstool. I bask in the heat escaping under the oven door.

 As a child, I enjoyed Thanksgiving and the preparations that came with it, but it seemed like more of a bridge between my birthday and Christmas than an actual holiday. Now, it’s a time of year I look forward to, dedicated to family, memories, and, most importantly, food. What I realized as I grew older was that my homemade Thanksgiving apple pie was more than its flaky crust and soft-fruit center. This American food symbolized a rite of passage, my Iraqi family’s ticket to assimilation. 

 Some argue that by adopting American customs like the apple pie, we lose our culture. I would argue that while American culture influences what my family eats and celebrates, it doesn’t define our character. In my family, we eat Iraqi dishes like mesta and tahini, but we also eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. This doesn’t mean we favor one culture over the other; instead, we create a beautiful blend of the two, adapting traditions to make them our own.

 That said, my family has always been more than the “mashed potatoes and turkey” type.

My mom’s family immigrated to the United States in 1976. Upon their arrival, they encountered a deeply divided America. Racism thrived, even after the significant freedoms gained from the Civil Rights Movement a few years before. Here, my family was thrust into a completely unknown world: they didn’t speak the language, they didn’t dress normally, and dinners like riza maraka seemed strange in comparison to the Pop Tarts and Oreos lining grocery store shelves.

 If I were to host a dinner party, it would be like Thanksgiving with my Chaldean family. The guests, my extended family, are a diverse people, distinct ingredients in a sweet potato casserole, coming together to create a delicious dish.

In her article “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” Korsha Wilson writes, “each ingredient that we use, every technique, every spice tells a story about our access, our privilege, our heritage, and our culture.” Voices around the room will echo off the walls into the late hours of the night while the hot apple pie steams at the table’s center.

We will play concan on the blanketed floor and I’ll try to understand my Toto, who, after forty years, still speaks broken English. I’ll listen to my elders as they tell stories about growing up in Unionville, Michigan, a predominately white town where they always felt like outsiders, stories of racism that I have the privilege not to experience. While snacking on sunflower seeds and salted pistachios, we’ll talk about the news- how thousands of people across the country are protesting for justice among immigrants. No one protested to give my family a voice.

Our Thanksgiving food is more than just sustenance, it is a physical representation of my family ’s blended and ever-changing culture, even after 40 years in the United States. No matter how the food on our plates changes, it will always symbolize our sense of family—immediate and extended—and our unbreakable bond.

Grace Williams, a student at Kirkwood High School in Kirkwood, Missouri, enjoys playing tennis, baking, and spending time with her family. Grace also enjoys her time as a writing editor for her school’s yearbook, the Pioneer. In the future, Grace hopes to continue her travels abroad, as well as live near extended family along the sunny beaches of La Jolla, California.

University Winner: Lillia Borodkin

Nourishing Change After Tragedy Strikes

In the Jewish community, food is paramount. We often spend our holidays gathered around a table, sharing a meal and reveling in our people’s story. On other sacred days, we fast, focusing instead on reflection, atonement, and forgiveness.

As a child, I delighted in the comfort of matzo ball soup, the sweetness of hamantaschen, and the beauty of braided challah. But as I grew older and more knowledgeable about my faith, I learned that the origins of these foods are not rooted in joy, but in sacrifice.

The matzo of matzo balls was a necessity as the Jewish people did not have time for their bread to rise as they fled slavery in Egypt. The hamantaschen was an homage to the hat of Haman, the villain of the Purim story who plotted the Jewish people’s destruction. The unbaked portion of braided challah was tithed by commandment to the kohen  or priests. Our food is an expression of our history, commemorating both our struggles and our triumphs.

As I write this, only days have passed since eleven Jews were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. These people, intending only to pray and celebrate the Sabbath with their community, were murdered simply for being Jewish. This brutal event, in a temple and city much like my own, is a reminder that anti-Semitism still exists in this country. A reminder that hatred of Jews, of me, my family, and my community, is alive and flourishing in America today. The thought that a difference in religion would make some believe that others do not have the right to exist is frightening and sickening.  

 This is why, if given the chance, I would sit down the entire Jewish American community at one giant Shabbat table. I’d serve matzo ball soup, pass around loaves of challah, and do my best to offer comfort. We would take time to remember the beautiful souls lost to anti-Semitism this October and the countless others who have been victims of such hatred in the past. I would then ask that we channel all we are feeling—all the fear, confusion, and anger —into the fight.

As suggested in Korsha Wilson’s “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” I would urge my guests to direct our passion for justice and the comfort and care provided by the food we are eating into resisting anti-Semitism and hatred of all kinds.

We must use the courage this sustenance provides to create change and honor our people’s suffering and strength. We must remind our neighbors, both Jewish and non-Jewish, that anti-Semitism is alive and well today. We must shout and scream and vote until our elected leaders take this threat to our community seriously. And, we must stand with, support, and listen to other communities that are subjected to vengeful hate today in the same way that many of these groups have supported us in the wake of this tragedy.

This terrible shooting is not the first of its kind, and if conflict and loathing are permitted to grow, I fear it will not be the last. While political change may help, the best way to target this hate is through smaller-scale actions in our own communities.

It is critical that we as a Jewish people take time to congregate and heal together, but it is equally necessary to include those outside the Jewish community to build a powerful crusade against hatred and bigotry. While convening with these individuals, we will work to end the dangerous “otherizing” that plagues our society and seek to understand that we share far more in common than we thought. As disagreements arise during our discussions, we will learn to respect and treat each other with the fairness we each desire. Together, we shall share the comfort, strength, and courage that traditional Jewish foods provide and use them to fuel our revolution. 

We are not alone in the fight despite what extremists and anti-semites might like us to believe.  So, like any Jew would do, I invite you to join me at the Shabbat table. First, we will eat. Then, we will get to work.  

Lillia Borodkin is a senior at Kent State University majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Child Psychology. She plans to attend graduate school and become a school psychologist while continuing to pursue her passion for reading and writing. Outside of class, Lillia is involved in research in the psychology department and volunteers at the Women’s Center on campus.   

Powerful Voice Winner: Paisley Regester

As a kid, I remember asking my friends jokingly, ”If you were stuck on a deserted island, what single item of food would you bring?” Some of my friends answered practically and said they’d bring water. Others answered comically and said they’d bring snacks like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or a banana. However, most of my friends answered sentimentally and listed the foods that made them happy. This seems like fun and games, but what happens if the hypothetical changes? Imagine being asked, on the eve of your death, to choose the final meal you will ever eat. What food would you pick? Something practical? Comical? Sentimental?  

This situation is the reality for the 2,747 American prisoners who are currently awaiting execution on death row. The grim ritual of “last meals,” when prisoners choose their final meal before execution, can reveal a lot about these individuals and what they valued throughout their lives.

It is difficult for us to imagine someone eating steak, lobster tail, apple pie, and vanilla ice cream one moment and being killed by state-approved lethal injection the next. The prisoner can only hope that the apple pie he requested tastes as good as his mom’s. Surprisingly, many people in prison decline the option to request a special last meal. We often think of food as something that keeps us alive, so is there really any point to eating if someone knows they are going to die?

“Controlling food is a means of controlling power,” said chef Sean Sherman in the YES! Magazine article “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” by Korsha Wilson. There are deeper stories that lie behind the final meals of individuals on death row.

I want to bring awareness to the complex and often controversial conditions of this country’s criminal justice system and change the common perception of prisoners as inhuman. To accomplish this, I would host a potluck where I would recreate the last meals of prisoners sentenced to death.

In front of each plate, there would be a place card with the prisoner’s full name, the date of execution, and the method of execution. These meals could range from a plate of fried chicken, peas with butter, apple pie, and a Dr. Pepper, reminiscent of a Sunday dinner at Grandma’s, to a single olive.

Seeing these meals up close, meals that many may eat at their own table or feed to their own kids, would force attendees to face the reality of the death penalty. It will urge my guests to look at these individuals not just as prisoners, assigned a number and a death date, but as people, capable of love and rehabilitation.  

This potluck is not only about realizing a prisoner’s humanity, but it is also about recognizing a flawed criminal justice system. Over the years, I have become skeptical of the American judicial system, especially when only seven states have judges who ethnically represent the people they serve. I was shocked when I found out that the officers who killed Michael Brown and Anthony Lamar Smith were exonerated for their actions. How could that be possible when so many teens and adults of color have spent years in prison, some even executed, for crimes they never committed?  

Lawmakers, police officers, city officials, and young constituents, along with former prisoners and their families, would be invited to my potluck to start an honest conversation about the role and application of inequality, dehumanization, and racism in the death penalty. Food served at the potluck would represent the humanity of prisoners and push people to acknowledge that many inmates are victims of a racist and corrupt judicial system.

Recognizing these injustices is only the first step towards a more equitable society. The second step would be acting on these injustices to ensure that every voice is heard, even ones separated from us by prison walls. Let’s leave that for the next potluck, where I plan to serve humble pie.

Paisley Regester is a high school senior and devotes her life to activism, the arts, and adventure. Inspired by her experiences traveling abroad to Nicaragua, Mexico, and Scotland, Paisley hopes to someday write about the diverse people and places she has encountered and share her stories with the rest of the world.

Powerful Voice Winner: Emma Lingo

The Empty Seat

“If you aren’t sober, then I don’t want to see you on Christmas.”

Harsh words for my father to hear from his daughter but words he needed to hear. Words I needed him to understand and words he seemed to consider as he fiddled with his wine glass at the head of the table. Our guests, my grandma, and her neighbors remained resolutely silent. They were not about to defend my drunken father–or Charles as I call him–from my anger or my ultimatum.

This was the first dinner we had had together in a year. The last meal we shared ended with Charles slopping his drink all over my birthday presents and my mother explaining heroin addiction to me. So, I wasn’t surprised when Charles threw down some liquid valor before dinner in anticipation of my anger. If he wanted to be welcomed on Christmas, he needed to be sober—or he needed to be gone.

Countless dinners, holidays, and birthdays taught me that my demands for sobriety would fall on deaf ears. But not this time. Charles gave me a gift—a one of a kind, limited edition, absolutely awkward treat. One that I didn’t know how to deal with at all. Charles went home that night, smacked a bright red bow on my father, and hand-delivered him to me on Christmas morning.

He arrived for breakfast freshly showered and looking flustered. He would remember this day for once only because his daughter had scolded him into sobriety. Dad teetered between happiness and shame. Grandma distracted us from Dad’s presence by bringing the piping hot bacon and biscuits from the kitchen to the table, theatrically announcing their arrival. Although these foods were the alleged focus of the meal, the real spotlight shined on the unopened liquor cabinet in my grandma’s kitchen—the cabinet I know Charles was begging Dad to open.

I’ve isolated myself from Charles. My family has too. It means we don’t see Dad, but it’s the best way to avoid confrontation and heartache. Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like if we talked with him more or if he still lived nearby. Would he be less inclined to use? If all families with an addict tried to hang on to a relationship with the user, would there be fewer addicts in the world? Christmas breakfast with Dad was followed by Charles whisking him away to Colorado where pot had just been legalized. I haven’t talked to Dad since that Christmas.

As Korsha Wilson stated in her YES! Magazine article, “Cooking Stirs the Pot for Social Change,” “Sometimes what we don’t cook says more than what we do cook.” When it comes to addiction, what isn’t served is more important than what is. In quiet moments, I like to imagine a meal with my family–including Dad. He’d have a spot at the table in my little fantasy. No alcohol would push him out of his chair, the cigarettes would remain seated in his back pocket, and the stench of weed wouldn’t invade the dining room. Fruit salad and gumbo would fill the table—foods that Dad likes. We’d talk about trivial matters in life, like how school is going and what we watched last night on TV.

Dad would feel loved. We would connect. He would feel less alone. At the end of the night, he’d walk me to the door and promise to see me again soon. And I would believe him.

Emma Lingo spends her time working as an editor for her school paper, reading, and being vocal about social justice issues. Emma is active with many clubs such as Youth and Government, KHS Cares, and Peer Helpers. She hopes to be a journalist one day and to be able to continue helping out people by volunteering at local nonprofits.

Powerful Voice Winner: Hayden Wilson

Bittersweet Reunion

I close my eyes and envision a dinner of my wildest dreams. I would invite all of my relatives. Not just my sister who doesn’t ask how I am anymore. Not just my nephews who I’m told are too young to understand me. No, I would gather all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins to introduce them to the me they haven’t met.

For almost two years, I’ve gone by a different name that most of my family refuses to acknowledge. My aunt, a nun of 40 years, told me at a recent birthday dinner that she’d heard of my “nickname.” I didn’t want to start a fight, so I decided not to correct her. Even the ones who’ve adjusted to my name have yet to recognize the bigger issue.

Last year on Facebook, I announced to my friends and family that I am transgender. No one in my family has talked to me about it, but they have plenty to say to my parents. I feel as if this is about my parents more than me—that they’ve made some big parenting mistake. Maybe if I invited everyone to dinner and opened up a discussion, they would voice their concerns to me instead of my parents.

I would serve two different meals of comfort food to remind my family of our good times. For my dad’s family, I would cook heavily salted breakfast food, the kind my grandpa used to enjoy. He took all of his kids to IHOP every Sunday and ordered the least healthy option he could find, usually some combination of an overcooked omelet and a loaded Classic Burger. For my mom’s family, I would buy shakes and burgers from Hardee’s. In my grandma’s final weeks, she let aluminum tins of sympathy meals pile up on her dining table while she made my uncle take her to Hardee’s every day.

In her article on cooking and activism, food writer Korsha Wilson writes, “Everyone puts down their guard over a good meal, and in that space, change is possible.” Hopefully the same will apply to my guests.

When I first thought of this idea, my mind rushed to the endless negative possibilities. My nun-aunt and my two non-nun aunts who live like nuns would whip out their Bibles before I even finished my first sentence. My very liberal, state representative cousin would say how proud she is of the guy I’m becoming, but this would trigger my aunts to accuse her of corrupting my mind. My sister, who has never spoken to me about my genderidentity, would cover her children’s ears and rush them out of the house. My Great-Depression-raised grandparents would roll over in their graves, mumbling about how kids have it easy nowadays.

After mentally mapping out every imaginable terrible outcome this dinner could have, I realized a conversation is unavoidable if I want my family to accept who I am. I long to restore the deep connection I used to have with them. Though I often think these former relationships are out of reach, I won’t know until I try to repair them. For a year and a half, I’ve relied on Facebook and my parents to relay messages about my identity, but I need to tell my own story.

At first, I thought Korsha Wilson’s idea of a cooked meal leading the way to social change was too optimistic, but now I understand that I need to think more like her. Maybe, just maybe, my family could all gather around a table, enjoy some overpriced shakes, and be as close as we were when I was a little girl.

 Hayden Wilson is a 17-year-old high school junior from Missouri. He loves writing, making music, and painting. He’s a part of his school’s writing club, as well as the GSA and a few service clubs.

 Literary Gems

We received many outstanding essays for the Fall 2018 Writing Competition. Though not every participant can win the contest, we’d like to share some excerpts that caught our eye.

Thinking of the main staple of the dish—potatoes, the starchy vegetable that provides sustenance for people around the globe. The onion, the layers of sorrow and joy—a base for this dish served during the holidays.  The oil, symbolic of hope and perseverance. All of these elements come together to form this delicious oval pancake permeating with possibilities. I wonder about future possibilities as I flip the latkes.

—Nikki Markman, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California

The egg is a treasure. It is a fragile heart of gold that once broken, flows over the blemishless surface of the egg white in dandelion colored streams, like ribbon unraveling from its spool.

—Kaylin Ku, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, Princeton Junction, New Jersey

If I were to bring one food to a potluck to create social change by addressing anti-Semitism, I would bring gefilte fish because it is different from other fish, just like the Jews are different from other people.  It looks more like a matzo ball than fish, smells extraordinarily fishy, and tastes like sweet brine with the consistency of a crab cake.

—Noah Glassman, Ethical Culture Fieldston School,  Bronx, New York

I would not only be serving them something to digest, I would serve them a one-of-a-kind taste of the past, a taste of fear that is felt in the souls of those whose home and land were taken away, a taste of ancestral power that still lives upon us, and a taste of the voices that want to be heard and that want the suffering of the Natives to end.

—Citlalic Anima Guevara, Wichita North High School, Wichita, Kansas

It’s the one thing that your parents make sure you have because they didn’t.  Food is what your mother gives you as she lies, telling you she already ate. It’s something not everybody is fortunate to have and it’s also what we throw away without hesitation.  Food is a blessing to me, but what is it to you?

—Mohamed Omar, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Missouri

Filleted and fried humphead wrasse, mangrove crab with coconut milk, pounded taro, a whole roast pig, and caramelized nuts—cuisines that will not be simplified to just “food.” Because what we eat is the diligence and pride of our people—a culture that has survived and continues to thrive.

—Mayumi Remengesau, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California

Some people automatically think I’m kosher or ask me to say prayers in Hebrew.  However, guess what? I don’t know many prayers and I eat bacon.

—Hannah Reing, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, The Bronx, New York

Everything was placed before me. Rolling up my sleeves I started cracking eggs, mixing flour, and sampling some chocolate chips, because you can never be too sure. Three separate bowls. All different sizes. Carefully, I tipped the smallest, and the medium-sized bowls into the biggest. Next, I plugged in my hand-held mixer and flicked on the switch. The beaters whirl to life. I lowered it into the bowl and witnessed the creation of something magnificent. Cookie dough.

—Cassandra Amaya, Owen Goodnight Middle School, San Marcos, Texas

Biscuits and bisexuality are both things that are in my life…My grandmother’s biscuits are the best: the good old classic Southern biscuits, crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. Except it is mostly Southern people who don’t accept me.

—Jaden Huckaby, Arbor Montessori, Decatur, Georgia

We zest the bright yellow lemons and the peels of flavor fall lightly into the batter.  To make frosting, we keep adding more and more powdered sugar until it looks like fluffy clouds with raspberry seed rain.

—Jane Minus, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

Tamales for my grandma, I can still remember her skillfully spreading the perfect layer of masa on every corn husk, looking at me pitifully as my young hands fumbled with the corn wrapper, always too thick or too thin.

—Brenna Eliaz, San Marcos High School, San Marcos, Texas

Just like fry bread, MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) remind New Orleanians and others affected by disasters of the devastation throughout our city and the little amount of help we got afterward.

—Madeline Johnson, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama

I would bring cream corn and buckeyes and have a big debate on whether marijuana should be illegal or not.

—Lillian Martinez, Miller Middle School, San Marcos, Texas

We would finish the meal off with a delicious apple strudel, topped with schlag, schlag, schlag, more schlag, and a cherry, and finally…more schlag (in case you were wondering, schlag is like whipped cream, but 10 times better because it is heavier and sweeter).

—Morgan Sheehan, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

Clever Titles

This year we decided to do something different. We were so impressed by the number of catchy titles that we decided to feature some of our favorites. 

“Eat Like a Baby: Why Shame Has No Place at a Baby’s Dinner Plate”

—Tate Miller, Wichita North High School, Wichita, Kansas 

“The Cheese in Between”

—Jedd Horowitz, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

“Harvey, Michael, Florence or Katrina? Invite Them All Because Now We Are Prepared”

—Molly Mendoza, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama

“Neglecting Our Children: From Broccoli to Bullets”

—Kylie Rollings, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Missouri  

“The Lasagna of Life”

—Max Williams, Wichita North High School, Wichita, Kansas

“Yum, Yum, Carbon Dioxide In Our Lungs”

—Melanie Eickmeyer, Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Missouri

“My Potluck, My Choice”

—Francesca Grossberg, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

“Trumping with Tacos”

—Maya Goncalves, Lincoln Middle School, Ypsilanti, Michigan

“Quiche and Climate Change”

—Bernie Waldman, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, New York

“Biscuits and Bisexuality”

“W(health)”

—Miles Oshan, San Marcos High School, San Marcos, Texas

“Bubula, Come Eat!”

—Jordan Fienberg, Ethical Culture Fieldston School,  Bronx, New York

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The future of food

Feeding the world sustainably.

T echnology is transforming food production. Cows are no longer essential for meat and milk. Sushi-grade fish is being grown in laboratories. Some newly developed agricultural techniques are better for the environment than traditional methods.

But will novel foods really be accepted by consumers, and what impact will these changes have on the business, and ethics, of eating?

The Economist ’s international editor Josie Delap, who also writes on food for 1843 , and US digital editor Jon Fasman explored the future of food in an exclusive discussion for our subscribers.

You can watch the conversation in full below.

Visit this page to view the schedule for our forthcoming events. Subscribers can also watch recordings of all our previous sessions.

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JSmol Viewer

The future of food.

1. Introduction

2. sustainable food production, 3. digitalization of the food supply chain, 4. food security and climate-resilient food supply chain, 5. alternative protein sources, 6. food processing and food technology, 7. impact of biotechnology, 8. cultural diversity, culinary trends, and sustainable food consumption, 9. personalized nutrition, 10. consumer health and wellness, 11. food production within the circular bioeconomy, 12. conclusions and future perspectives, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Galanakis, C.M. The Future of Food. Foods 2024 , 13 , 506. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13040506

Galanakis CM. The Future of Food. Foods . 2024; 13(4):506. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13040506

Galanakis, Charis M. 2024. "The Future of Food" Foods 13, no. 4: 506. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13040506

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• Curr Dev Nutr

A View to the Future: Opportunities and Challenges for Food and Nutrition Sustainability

Eileen kennedy.

1 Friedman School Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

Daniel Raiten

2 National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

John Finley

3 Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Beltsville, MD, USA

The challenges to achieving sustainability in food and nutrition are daunting. The present paper summarizes 3 individual papers that are part of this special collection. The lynchpin for synthesizing the papers is sustainability and food systems. Within each of these domains are embedded a myriad of factors, each of which are essential for the sustainable transformation of food systems. Controversies surrounding the concepts of a healthy diet, sustainable agricultural production, and maximizing the dietary impacts of food environments are discussed and evaluated in the context of the current food and nutrition landscape.

Food systems globally are changing rapidly. As food systems evolve, there have been burgeoning rates of overweight and obesity. There is now a clarion call for transformational changes in food systems, worldwide, that enhance diet quality and improve nutritional status. The challenges is daunting. Food Systems are expected to improve both under and over nutrition, and to do so in a manner that is respectful of natural resources. This paper assesses challenges for developing sustainable food systems and implications for designing effective strategies.

Introduction

The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a blueprint for sustainable global development for current and future generations ( 1 ). SDG-2 focuses on food security and nutrition, specifically targeting zero hunger, achieving food security, eliminating malnutrition in all its forms, and promoting sustainable agriculture. SDG-12, a related goal, calls for responsible production and consumption. Our ability to achieve these goals will demand on some introspection with regard to the current and future food production, global nutrition, and health.

Advances in agriculture, including biotechnology, have resulted in major gains in food security, nutrition, poverty alleviation, employment, and overall development ( 2 ). Since 1945, total food production has tripled and the average caloric availability has risen by 40% ( 3 ). These advances, by what is commonly called the Green Revolution, have resulted in increased food availability and important public health gains, such as a significant decrease in protein/calorie malnutrition ( 4 ).

However, these successes have come at a cost to agricultural resources and the environment. They have negatively impacted water and land resources and substantially contributed to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ( 5 ). Many public health problems have actually increased as evidenced by dramatic increases in obesity and related comorbidities ( 6 ); moreover, micronutrient malnutrition still plagues a substantial portion of the earth's population ( 7 ). The challenge going forward is to launch a “greener¸ green revolution” that achieves improved agricultural production and public health while respecting natural resources.

Agriculture, public health, and the environment are deeply interconnected and achieving successes in all areas will require a new paradigm of open, frank, yet collegial, cross-disciplinary discourse and interaction that is not simply prescriptive ( 8 ). It will require definitions of boundaries and metrics used to measure success/failure. Discussions of responsible production and consumption cannot be assessed piecemeal and particularly require assessment of tradeoffs between sustainable production and healthy diets. The focus and scope of this special collection are designed to support these important conversations.

Consensus Objectives

The Climate/environmental change, Health, Agriculture, Improving Nutrition (CHAIN) Research Interest Group of the ASN focuses on research, knowledge, and capacity development to support sustainable food systems, health, and nutrition in a changing global environment. CHAIN sponsored 3 sessions at ASN 2019 ( 9–11 ). While the specific objectives of the individual sessions varied somewhat, there were 2 overarching themes that linked the sessions: 1 ) sustainability and 2 ) food systems. This paper is a summary of some of the key messages that emerged from the 3 CHAIN-sponsored sessions.

Nutrients, Foods, Diets, People: Promoting Healthy Eating

Positive growth in agricultural production does not guarantee a healthy, sustainable diet. The EAT Lancet planetary health reference diet discussed in this collection ( 12 ) provides clear recommendations for nutritional adequacy. The reference diet, however, presents serious dilemmas for widespread adoption and the increases in agricultural production that will be required are challenging. The feasibility of these production changes needs to be considered within the context of current national agricultural systems and how and if these strategies will or can be adapted to achieve agricultural production targets. For example, the reference diet would require a >150% increase in nut production ( 12 ). It should be noted that the development of the planetary health diet is based on nutrition considerations, not environmental factors.

The challenges to agriculture are daunting; agriculture will need to meet the food needs of a growing population, for the most part, on the same amount of land and with a declining labor base ( 13 ). Agriculture will be expected to continue to reduce malnutrition by increasing food availability while simultaneously improving food access to keep pace with population growth. Successful, sustainable agricultural strategies will need to increase incomes, particularly for the rural poor, be a major vehicle for employment generation, improve agriculture output, preserve natural resources, and contribute to food security and diets.

Micronutrient Nutrition and Animal-Source Foods

As an omnivore, animal-source foods (ASFs) have been a central component of the human diet throughout evolution. In addition to high-quality protein, ASFs are a rich source of micronutrients, and micronutrient deficiency is a persistent problem across all cultures. In Western cultures, iron deficiency is ubiquitous in some subgroups ( 14 ), and in the global south, poor quality, primarily carbohydrate diets have resulted in severe micronutrient insufficiency (e.g., iron, zinc, vitamin A, or vitamin B-12) ( 15 ). The context-specific options for improving micronutrient status and improving overall diet quality will need to include a role for ASFs ( 10 ).

Because ASFs are a rich source of high-quality protein and a range of micronutrients, there are tradeoffs between sustainable agricultural techniques and the amount of ASFs in dietary patterns. While the potential contribution of ASFs in meeting nutritional needs is incontrovertible, controversies about the role of ASFs include implications for health, social/cultural practice, and sustainability. With specific regard to the latter, the primary issue is around the relative contribution of animal agriculture to GHG emissions, primarily methane. The relative net impact of ASFs in comparison to the nutritional output is not settled science and is complicated by our understanding of net GHG accumulation, resource depletion, and the tradeoff of efficiently meeting nutritional needs while exploiting land resources that would otherwise not be available for food production. Fully understanding the impacts of food production systems such as ASFs requires integrated modeling techniques such as Life Cycle Analysis.

Our ability to provide answers to these questions will have a significant impact on decisions about not only the role of ASFs in meeting nutritional needs domestically and globally but also the sustainability of agricultural enterprises in a changing environment.

Transforming Food Systems

The UN has specified that sustainable food systems are critical for promoting healthy diets ( 16 ). Food systems gather all the elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructure, institutions) and activities related to the production, processing, distribution, preparation, and consumption of food ( 17 ); a sustainable food system takes this definition further to include food systems that ensure food security and nutrition for all, without compromising the socioeconomic, environmental, and social bases for current and future generations ( 17 ). An FAO report has noted, “The way in which agriculture and food systems develop over the next 15 years is key to success in reaching the SDGs” ( 18 ). The challenge for international organizations and national-level governments is to change the trajectories of food systems to maximize the food security and nutrition impacts. This will be a mammoth task given the amount of malnutrition; in addition, by 2050, food systems will need to feed >9 billion and demand for livestock will grow by 70%, with much of this increase occurring in developing countries ( 19 ).

A holistic approach is needed to address challenges of sustainability, environmental degradation, persistent poverty, vulnerability, and hunger and malnutrition. However, the opportunities to respond are enormous, and a new, collective, and integrated approach is imperative. Food systems need to be more efficient and inclusive and the policies and legal frameworks around food systems should address income inequality, supporting livelihoods, and ensuring resilience, while ensuring coherent and effective national and international governance.

Food system theory is well documented and, recently, illustrative conceptual frameworks of these theories have been reported ( 17 ); however, there are few examples of where the impacts of the entire food systems have been tested. There are many food system drivers suggestive of a range of positive and negative impacts across the production to consumption spectrum. One way of evaluating these effects is to decompose them into the 4 domains and basic pillars of health, economics, environment, and society ( 9 ).

The challenge for sustainable diets is to balance nutrient requirements, costs, and cultural acceptance within environmental and societal norms. The papers in this series highlight the fact that cost of food is usually a limiting constraint to accessing a healthy diet ( 9 , 11 ). Nutrient-rich foods cost more ( 9 ); conversely, nutrient-poor foods and diets are cheaper and thus more likely to be consumed ( 9 ).

The challenges for achieving the targets set forth for SDG-2 and SDG-12 have been raised in the previous sections; however, it is clear that these challenges are interconnected and cannot be addressed in isolation. Policies addressing priorities will be needed, but the prevailing model of governance assigns malnutrition to the health sector and food insecurity to agriculture, resulting in a disjointed and uncoordinated framework, which may work at cross-purposes. Choices must be made by the consumer, producer, and those developing policy. Overcoming these challenges, informing policy, and developing a system that promotes optimal health, environmental and economic sustainability, and appeals to consumer choice will require an integrated framework.

Progress has been made over the past 50 y in improving food security, nutrition, and income. Further progress will require concerted efforts to ensure that food security and nutrition continue to be a priority in the development agenda.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors’ responsibilities were as follows—EK: wrote the initial draft of the paper; DR and JF: provided extensive edits to the paper; and all authors: read and approved the final manuscript.

The authors reported no funding received for this study.

Author disclosures: The authors report no conflicts of interest. EK and JF are Editors of Current Developments in Nutrition ; they were not involved in the peer review of this article.

Abbreviations used: ASF, animal-source food; CHAIN, Climate/environmental change, Health, Agriculture, Improving Nutrition; GHG, greenhouse gas; SDG, Sustainable Development Goal.

The future of food?

April 18, 2024 Labels that use recognizable language and easily understood claims about health impacts are the most compelling for enticing people to try a food product with novel ingredients. Senior partner Roberto Uchoa  and colleagues find that vegetarian and vegan terminology, despite being widely recognized, don’t sway consumers’ decisions as much, while production details aren’t well understood or influential. Understanding consumer perceptions can help companies guide the emerging market for novel ingredients and proteins—and could contribute to forging a more sustainable and robust food system.

Image description:

A scatterplot shows different claims about novel ingredients in food products and the claims’ ability to affect consumer behavior. The claims are broken into four distinct types: health, sustainability, animal welfare, and tech or processing. The x-axis shows the share of respondents who have heard each claim and understand it, and the y-axis shows the share of respondents who are likely to try a product based on the same claims. Overall, claims about health are well understood and likely to be tried. Claims about sustainability are generally understood but don’t heavily influence consumers’ willingness to try. Claims about animal welfare are well understood but again don’t influence consumers’ likelihood to try. Claims about tech or processing are poorly understood and unlikely to be tried.

Source: McKinsey Novel Ingredient Survey 2023 (n = 1,551).

End of image description.

To read the article, see “ Novel proteins: Consumer appetite for sustainably made ingredients ,” March 21, 2024.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — The Future of Food — The Film The Future of Food: Main Point, Themes Addressed and Issues Concerned

The Film The Future of Food: Main Point, Themes Addressed and Issues Concerned

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The Future of Food

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Graphic Essay: The Fight Against Global Hunger

Is food insecurity a political issue, or an existential one?

Last year, approximately 30 percent of the world’s population experienced moderate to severe food insecurity. This means some 2.3 billion people “compromised on the quality and quantity of their food” or simply could not eat for a day or more, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. An additional 500 million people – that’s […]

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The Geopolitics of the American President

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Daily Memo: Support for the Kurds, Victory for Poland’s Ruling Party,...

• DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10557
• Corpus ID: 271676921

How fruit moves: Crop systems, culture, and the making of the commercial blueberry, 1870–1930

• Jessica Wang
• Published in Plants, People, Planet 1 August 2024
• History, Agricultural and Food Sciences, Environmental Science

One Citation

The history of crop science and the future of food, 17 references, the fruits of natural advantage: making the industrial countryside in california, agricultural expertise, race, and economic development: small producer ideology and settler colonialism in the territory of hawaiʻi, 1900–1917, peeling back the layers: vidalia onions and the making of a global agribusiness, oranges or "lemons" family farming and product quality in the spanish orange industry, 1870-1960., the fruits of their labor: atlantic coast farmworkers and the making of migrant poverty, 1870-1945, 'wilderness to orchard': the export apple industry in nelson, new zealand 1908-1940, bonded labor: canadian woods workers in the maine pulpwood industry, 1940–55, chile's export diversification since 1960: a free marketmiracleormirage, contract evolution and institutional innovation: marketing pacific-grown apples from 1890 to 1930, la genèse d’une communauté canadienne-française en nouvelle-angleterre : lewiston, maine, 1800-1880, related papers.

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