Featured
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Research Highlight |
Your morning coffee is served up by the birds and the bees
Excluding the winged creatures from the branches of coffee plants meant fewer flowers and smaller fruit.
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World View |
Broken bread — avert global wheat crisis caused by invasion of Ukraine
Russia’s war highlights the fragility of the global food supply — sustained investment is needed to feed the world in a changing climate.
- Alison Bentley
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Career Q&A |
Boosting banana nutrition for Ugandans
Government scientist Priver Namanya Bwesigye’s research career is focused on genetic engineering and Uganda’s staple food.
- Christopher Bendana
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Matters Arising |
Aquaculture will continue to depend more on land than sea
- Wenbo Zhang
- , Ben Belton
- & Max Troell
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News |
China’s approval of gene-edited crops energizes researchers
Scientists say newly published guidelines will spur research into crops that have increased yields and greater resilience to climate change.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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Article |
Genome-edited powdery mildew resistance in wheat without growth penalties
Tamlo-R32, an engineered wheat mutant allele of the Mildew resistance locus O (MLO) gene, confers resistance to powdery mildew, retains robust wheat growth, and can be transferred to other agriculturally important wheat varieties.
- Shengnan Li
- , Dexing Lin
- & Caixia Gao
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Where I Work |
Weeding out the issues: preparing Brazil for cannabis growing
Sérgio Rocha breeds fast-growing marijuana plants at Viçosa University.
- Patrícia Maia Noronha
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Where I Work |
Grape expectations: making Australian wine more sustainable
Geoff Gurr is working on an eco-friendly approach to controlling pests in New South Wales vineyards.
- Benjamin Plackett
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News & Views |
A hard graft problem solved for key global food crops
Grafting has long been used to join tissues of different plants in horticulture and research. Methods have now been devised to extend the technique to plants called monocotyledons, which include major crops such as cereals and bananas.
- Colin Turnbull
- & Sean Carrington
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Correspondence |
Countries should boycott Brazil over export-driven deforestation
- Lucas Ferrante
- & Philip M. Fearnside
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News & Views |
From the archive
Nature’s pages feature an example of how science aided the turkey industry, and report observations of a solar eclipse.
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Correspondence |
Half measures in One Health fail people and the environment
- Andrew Peters
- & Carlos das Neves
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Where I Work |
A partridge in hand on the Spanish steppe
As part of his PhD research into the effects of farming and hunting on endangered bird populations in Spain, Xabier Cabodevilla tracked birds and collected faecal samples from roosting sites.
- Jack Leeming
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Where I Work |
‘For a brown invertebrate’: rescuing native UK oysters
Tom Cameron works with local oyster growers to restore native oysters to their natural habitat in the United Kingdom.
- Virginia Gewin
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Research Highlight |
Even organic pesticides spur change in the wildlife next door
A keystone aquatic species develops resistance to compounds used to treat organic fields near its ponds.
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News & Views |
Tracking the origin of Transeurasian languages
A triangulation of linguistic, archaeological and genetic data suggests that the Transeurasian language family originated in a population of grain farmers in China around 9,000 years ago, and that agriculture underpinned its spread.
- Peter Bellwood
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News |
New rules will make UK gene-edited crop research easier
The government’s decision to ease requirements will lower the cost of field trials, but does not yet address the path to market.
- Heidi Ledford
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Correspondence |
Waive CRISPR patents to meet food needs in low-income countries
- John van der Oost
- & Louise O. Fresco
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Comment |
Food systems: seven priorities to end hunger and protect the planet
Here’s how the United Nations should harness science and technology to improve nutrition and safeguard the environment.
- Joachim von Braun
- , Kaosar Afsana
- & Mohamed Hassan
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News & Views |
A cocktail of pesticides, parasites and hunger leaves bees down and out
Pollinators are under threat. A meta-analysis reveals that the combination of agrochemicals, parasites and malnutrition has a cumulative negative effect on bees, and that pesticide–pesticide interactions increase bee mortality.
- Adam J. Vanbergen
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Where I Work |
A race against time to feed the world
Agrochemical scientist Sarah Iveson is excited about digital agriculture’s potential to make crops more resilient to climate change as the global population grows.
- Linda Nordling
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Correspondence |
Europe’s reformed agricultural policy disappoints
- Jeroen J. L. Candel
- , Sebastian Lakner
- & Guy Pe’er
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Correspondence |
Italy: scientists petition against biodynamic farming law
- Giorgio Parisi
- , Maria Pia Abbracchio
- & Alan Schulman
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Editorial |
Does the fight against hunger need its own IPCC?
Any plan to create an intergovernmental science panel on food science and policy must protect its independence.
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Obituary |
Yuan Longping (1930–2021)
Crop scientist whose high-yield hybrid rice fed billions.
- Shellen X. Wu
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Article |
Evaluating microbiome-directed fibre snacks in gnotobiotic mice and humans
Fibre snacks that target distinct features of the microbiomes of donors with obesity transplanted into gnotobiotic mice also lead to fibre-specific changes in the microbiome and physiology when used in controlled-diet human studies.
- Omar Delannoy-Bruno
- , Chandani Desai
- & Jeffrey I. Gordon
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News Feature |
How ancient people fell in love with bread, beer and other carbs
Well before people domesticated crops, they were grinding grains for hearty stews and other starchy dishes.
- Andrew Curry
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News & Views |
Mapping micronutrients in grain and soil unearths hidden hunger in Africa
A diet containing insufficient micronutrients can harm human health. Maps that pinpoint areas of Africa associated with micronutrient-poor grains now offer a way to target interventions that tackle such deficiencies.
- Ken E. Giller
- & Shamie Zingore
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Article
| Open AccessThe nutritional quality of cereals varies geospatially in Ethiopia and Malawi
Geospatial variation in the micronutrient composition (calcium, iron, selenium and zinc) of staple cereal grains is nutritionally important at subnational scales in Ethiopia and Malawi; these data could be used to improve surveillance of micronutrient deficiencies in the region.
- D. Gashu
- , P. C. Nalivata
- & M. R. Broadley
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Research Highlight |
Meat lovers worldwide pay climate little heed
People are eating more poultry and fish — but they’re not giving up their hamburgers.
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News |
First known gene transfer from plant to insect identified
Discovery that a whitefly uses a stolen plant gene to elude its host’s defences may offer a route to new pest-control strategies.
- Heidi Ledford
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Editorial |
Revamp of UK CRISPR regulation will require public trust
The United Kingdom is considering innovative ways of regulating gene editing in food and farming. Robust processes and public confidence will be vital for success.
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Correspondence |
Reshoring EU agriculture risks undermining SDGs
- Erik Meijaard
- , Douglas Sheil
- & Daniel Murdiyarso
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Article |
Genomic basis of geographical adaptation to soil nitrogen in rice
OsTCP19 is a modulator of the tillering response to nitrogen in rice, and introgression of an allele of OsTCP19 associated with a high tillering response into modern rice cultivars markedly improves their nitrogen-use efficiency.
- Yongqiang Liu
- , Hongru Wang
- & Chengcai Chu
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Outlook |
Will cell-based meat ever be a dinner staple?
Laboratory-grown meat has been stuck in the experimental stage. For it to become a commercially viable industry, tissue needs to be grown efficiently at scale.
- Elie Dolgin
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Outlook |
Research round-up: sustainable nutrition
A way to estimate household food waste, the unintended consequences of environmental interventions and other highlights from research.
- Dyani Lewis
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Outlook |
Natural solutions for agricultural productivity
Scientists are pursuing sustainability strategies for intensifying production to tackle food security and environmental crises.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Comment |
Europe’s Green Deal offshores environmental damage to other nations
Importing millions of tonnes of crops and meat each year undercuts farming standards in the European Union and destroys tropical forests.
- Richard Fuchs
- , Calum Brown
- & Mark Rounsevell
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News & Views |
Prioritizing where to restore Earth’s ecosystems
Targets for ecosystem restoration are usually specified in terms of the total area to be restored. A global analysis reveals that the benefits and costs of achieving such targets depend greatly on where this restoration occurs.
- Simon Ferrier
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Article |
Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy
To promote the recovery of the currently declining global trends in terrestrial biodiversity, increases in both the extent of land under conservation management and the sustainability of the global food system from farm to fork are required.
- David Leclère
- , Michael Obersteiner
- & Lucy Young
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News & Views |
A recipe to reverse the loss of nature
How can the decline in global biodiversity be reversed, given the need to supply food? Computer modelling provides a way to assess the effectiveness of combining various conservation and food-system interventions to tackle this issue.
- Brett A. Bryan
- & Carla L. Archibald
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Editorial |
Why locusts congregate in billion-strong swarms — and how to stop them
Researchers are starting to understand the behaviour of insects ravaging parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This work must be furthered, funded and field-tested.
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Where I Work |
Mighty mites: arachnid soldiers deploy to protect a national treasure
Giuditta Beretta uses predatory mites to wage biowar on thrips, common pests that plague the beloved tulips of the Netherlands.
- Chris Woolston
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Comment |
Averting hunger in sub-Saharan Africa requires data and synthesis
As the United Nations warns of famine on a scale not seen in 50 years, researchers must help to build agile, inclusive data collection and analysis to inform agricultural policy.
- Jaron Porciello
- , Hale Ann Tufan
- & Ronnie Coffman
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News & Views |
Growth-mediated sensing of long-term cold in plants
The prolonged cold of winter is required for the flowering of many plants. Now the identification of a previously unknown long-term cold-sensing mechanism helps to reveal how plants are able to time their flowering correctly.
- Hiroyuki Iida
- & Ari Pekka Mähönen
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News & Views |
Genetic drivers of high-rise rice that survives deep floods
Rice in deepwater paddy fields can survive a slow-rising flood by a remarkably rapid elongation of submerged stem sections. Two genes discovered to affect this process could aid targeted improvements in crop height and flood tolerance.
- Julia Bailey-Serres
- & Laurentius A. C. J. Voesenek
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Correspondence |
Pakistan and India: don’t let squabbling impede locust control
- Muhammad Wajid Javed
- , Mansoor ul Hasan
- & Muhammad Usman