Summary
This 2025 modelling study, authored by an international consortium of researchers, examined the scale and scope of food system interventions needed to keep global food production within Earth's planetary boundaries across multiple environmental domains. The authors integrated scenarios for dietary change, agricultural productivity improvements, and supply-chain efficiency to quantify which combinations of interventions can simultaneously mitigate risks to freshwater, nutrient cycling, land use, and climate. As suggested by the title, the paper concludes that incremental changes alone are insufficient; fundamental transformation of both production systems and consumption patterns is required.
UK applicability
Findings are relevant to UK policy-makers designing food security and environmental strategies under the Environment Act and Agriculture Act frameworks. The UK's relatively high per-capita food consumption and reliance on imported calories means dietary and land-use interventions modelled at the global level have direct applicability to domestic food policy and climate commitments.
Key measures
Planetary boundary metrics (freshwater use, nitrogen cycle disruption, phosphorus cycle disruption, land-system change, climate change), food system interventions, dietary shifts, production efficiency gains
Outcomes reported
The study modelled ambitious food system interventions and their capacity to mitigate the risk of exceeding Earth's environmental limits across multiple domains (water, nitrogen, phosphorus, land use, greenhouse gas emissions). It assessed which dietary and production changes are required to achieve sustainability targets.
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