Humanity is challenged with making progress toward global biodiversity, freshwater, and climate goals, while providing food and nutritional security for everyone. Our current food and land-use systems are incompatible with this ambition making them unsustainable. Papers in this special feature introduce a participatory, integrated modeling approach applied to provide insights on how to transform food and land-use systems to sustainable trajectories in 12 countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Finland, India, Mexico, Rwanda, Sweden, the UK, and USA.

The urgency with which the world needs to combat climate change has led to ambitious commitments by
leading food companies such as Nestlé. Given that a large proportion of emissions in supply chains occur during the
production of commodities, focus has converged on Regenerative Agriculture as a key strategy to achieve
those goals. The Regenerative Agriculture agenda coalesces around three main goals:
• Reduce the Carbon Footprint
• Enhance Soil Health
• Enhance and safeguard Biodiversity

Access to sufficient and clean freshwater is essential for all life. Water is also essential for the functioning of food systems: as a key input into food production, but also in processing and preparation, and as a food itself. Water scarcity and pollution are growing, affecting poorer populations most, and particularly food producers. Malnutrition levels are also on the rise, and this is closely linked to water scarcity. The achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2 and 6 are co-dependent.

In sub-Saharan Africa, maize is one of the most important staple crops, but long-term maize cropping with low external inputs has been associated with the loss of soil fertility. While adding high-quality organic resources combined with mineral fertilizer has been proposed to counteract this fertility loss, the long-term effectiveness and interactions with site properties still require more understanding.

Sesame (locally known as simsim) production in Uganda is increasingly becoming popular because of its wide benefits. Sesame production is equally being affected by several factors including climate change. Climate change is associated with changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures and prolonged dry spells. This manual therefore provides detailed information on sesame growing in times of climate change. The manual is structured in five chapters which are summarized as follows.

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is an important crop in Africa, especially to women who rely on it as a household staple food and source of income. In Tanzania, a recent move toward commercializing the cassava seed system resulted in significantly fewer women than men farmers, known as Cassava Seed Entrepreneurs (CSEs), producing improved seed for sale to fellow farmers.

Micronutrient deficiency remains an enormous problem in refugee settings. Transforming refugees’ food systems through the scaling up of kitchen gardening and fortifying relief food crops with minor food components including nutrient-dense spices can help improve the quality of staple foods. Globally, spices are indispensable in the daily diet and play an important role in the socio-cultural setting of different communities. Forty turmeric and curry powder samples were collected from different market establishments and geographic locations in East Africa.

Wheat is a staple food in many areas around the World. In the 20th century, breeders and scientists were able to boost wheat yield considerably. However, a yield plateau has become a concern and is threatening food security. Investments in cutting-edge technologies, including genomics and precision phenology measurements, can provide valuable tools to drive crop improvement.

This report summarizes findings from the project “Agroecological transitions for building
resilient and inclusive agricultural and food systems (TRANSITIONS)” which is funded by the
European Commission through its Development of Smart Innovation through Research in
Agriculture (DeSIRA) initiative and managed by the International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD). The Digital Tools regional work in Vietnam focused on research and
engagement with digital tools for technical advice and performance assessment in sustainable

Climate and weather shocks pose risks to livelihoods in Southern Africa. We assess the extent to which smallholders are exposed to climate shocks in Zambia and how behavioural choices influence the negative effects of these shocks on vulnerability and resilience. We use household data from the nationally representative Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Survey and employ an instrumental variable probit regression model to control for the endogeneity of key choice variables. There are four main findings.

While significant progress has been made by several international breeding institutions in improving maize nutritional quality, stacking of nutritional traits like zinc (Zn), quality protein, and provitamin A has not received much attention.