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In resource-constrained settings, the recovery of nutrients and the production of energy from liquid and solid waste are important. We determined the range and magnitude of potential community health impacts of six solid and liquid waste recovery and reuse business models in Hanoi, Vietnam.We employed a health impact assessment (HIA) approach using secondary data obtained from various sources supplemented with primary data collection. For determining the direction (positive or negative) and magnitude of potential health impacts in the population, a semiquantitative impact assessment was pursued.From a public health perspective, wastewater reuse for inland fish farming, coupled with on-site water treatment has considerable potential for individual and community-level health benefits. One of the business models investigated (i.e. dry fuel manufacturing with agro-waste) resulted in net negative health impacts.In Hanoi, the reuse of liquid and solid waste-as a mean to recover water and nutrients and to produce energy-has considerable potential for health benefits if appropriately managed and tailored to local contexts. Our HIA methodology provides an evidence-based decision-support tool for identification and promotion of business models for implementation in Hanoi.

The stark observation of the co-existence of undernourishment, nutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity, the triple burden of malnutrition, is inviting us to reconsider health and nutrition as the primary goal and final endpoint of food systems. Agriculture and the food industry have made remarkable advances in the past decades. However, their development has not entirely fulfilled health and nutritional needs, and moreover, they have generated substantial collateral losses in agricultural biodiversity. Simultaneously, several regions are experiencing unprecedented weather events caused by climate change and habitat depletion, in turn putting at risk global food and nutrition security. This coincidence of food crises with increasing environmental degradation suggests an urgent need for novel analyses and new paradigms. The sustainable diets concept proposes a research and policy agenda that strives towards a sustainable use of human and natural resources for food and nutrition security, highlighting the preeminent role of consumers in defining sustainable options and the importance of biodiversity in nutrition. Food systems act as complex social–ecological systems, involving multiple interactions between human and natural components. Nutritional patterns and environment structure are interconnected in a mutual dynamic of changes. The systemic nature of these interactions calls for multidimensional approaches and integrated assessment and simulation tools to guide change. This paper proposes a review and conceptual modelling framework that articulate the synergies and tradeoffs between dietary diversity, widely recognised as key for healthy diets, and agricultural biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions, crucial resilience factors to climate and global changes.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted a critical trade-off between agricultural development and climate change mitigation. On the one hand, agriculture, forestry and other kinds of land use (AFOLU) account for about a quarter of net human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These emissions are mainly caused by deforestation, as well as soil and nutrient management practices, and livestock. For example, in the ten years since 2001, agricultural emissions from crop and livestock production – mainly in developing countries – grew from 4.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) to over 5.3 billion tons – a 14 per cent increase (IPCC, 2014). However, agriculture is central to global food and nutrition security, in particular for millions of smallholders for whom it is the main source of livelihood. Smallholders are, therefore, both dependent on agriculture and contributors to related emissions – but they also hold the key to reducing these emissions if supported through innovative and holistic programming

To achieve food security for many in low-income and middle-income countries for whom this is already a challenge, especially with the additional complications of climate change, will require early investment to support smallholder farming systems and the associated food systems that supply poor consumers. We need both local and global policy-linked research to accelerate sharing of lessons on institutions, practices and technologies for adaptation and mitigation. This strategy paper briefly outlines how the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres (CGIAR) is working across research disciplines, organisational mandates, and spatial and temporal levels to assist immediate and longer-term policy actions.

Without a great food system transformation, the world will fail to deliver both on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement. There are five grand challenges to be faced, by science and society, to effect that transformation.

Abstract As humanity’s demand for resources continues to rise and productive arable lands become increasingly scarce, many of Earth’s remaining intact regions are at heightened risk of destruction from agricultural development. In situations where agricultural expansion is inevitable, it is important to manage intact landscape transformation so that impacts on environmental values are minimised. Here, we present a novel, spatially explicit, land use planning framework that addresses the decision making needed to account for different, competing economic-environment objectives (agricultural production value, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem service retention) when land use change is inevitable within an intact landscape. We apply our framework to the globally significant savannahs of the Orinoquia (Colombia), which in a post-conflict era is under increased agricultural development pressure. We show that while negative environmental impacts can be reduced through planning, the total area of land converted to agriculture is the unavoidable principal driver of biodiversity and ecosystem service loss. We therefore identify planning solutions that perform well across all objectives simultaneously, despite trade-offs among them. When 15%, 20%, 30% and 40% of the study area is allowed to be converted to agriculture, on average planning can improve species persistence and ecosystem service retention by up to 16%, 15%, 12%, and 9%, respectively, when compared to agricultural-focused solutions. Development in the region so far has had an unnecessarily large impact on environmental objectives due to a lack of effective land use planning, creating an ‘opportunity debt’. Our study provides an evidence base to inform proactive planning and the development of environmentally sensible agricultural development policy and practice in the region. This framework can be used by stakeholders to achieve agriculture expansion goals and maximise economic profit while minimising impacts on the environment in the Orinoquia, or any relatively intact region that is being developed.

Plant biodiversity is the foundation of our present-day food supply (including functional food and medicine) and offers humankind multiple other benefits in terms of ecosystem functions and resilience to climate change, as well as other perturbations. This Special Issue on ‘Plant Biodiversity and Genetic Resources’ comprises 32 papers covering a wide array of aspects from the definition and identification of hotspots of wild and domesticated plant biodiversity to the specifics of conservation of genetic resources of crop genepools, including breeding and research materials, landraces and crop wild relatives which collectively are the pillars of modern plant breeding, as well as of localized breeding efforts by farmers and farming communities. The integration of genomics and phenomics into germplasm and genebank management enhances the value of crop germplasm conserved ex situ, and is likely to increase its utilization in plant breeding, but presents major challenges for data management and the sharing of this information with potential users. Furthermore, also a better integration of in situ and ex situ conservation efforts will contribute to a more effective conservation and certainly to a more sustainable and efficient utilization. Other aspects such as policy, access and benefit-sharing that directly impact the use of plant biodiversity and genetic resources, as well as balanced nutrition and enhanced resilience of production systems that depend on their increased use, are also being treated. The editorial concludes with six key messages on plant biodiversity, genetic erosion, genetic resources and plant breeding, agricultural diversification, conservation of agrobiodiversity, and the evolving role and importance of genebanks.