Open research questions in Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact

What the literature leaves open

• It must consider the uncertainty in footprint coefficients across different food categories. The research needs to address the issue of international trade, which is not accounted for in the study.

  Environmental footprint implications of guideline-based dietary transition in China: carbon, water, and interprovincial transfer effects · 2026 · DOI

• The prevailing notion in international research that a healthy diet typically alleviates environmental pressure may not hold true in China. There is a lack of studies on the spatial distribution of environmental pressures within China. The study fills this gap by analyzing carbon and water footprints across provinces.

  Environmental footprint implications of guideline-based dietary transition in China: carbon, water, and interprovincial transfer effects · 2026 · DOI

• Besides the potential benefits, further long-term studies are warranted to confirm these findings and evaluate adherence to such dietary patterns, while also considering the potential implications for nutritional status when shifting to a vegan MedDiet.

  Environmental and economic impact of a vegan versus traditional mediterranean diet: OMNIVEG study · 2026 · DOI

• Previous ECEC-based healthy eating interventions focusing on the entire diet with assessing the total food consumption alongside nutritional and environmental impacts in preschool children are scarce.

  The effect of system-level intervention in early childhood education and care on children’s dietary intake and environmental impact of the diet · 2026 · DOI

• The study notes the challenge of limited representation of certain mitigation strategies in the dataset.

  Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Potential in U.S. Dairy Production: A Meta-Analysis · 2026 · DOI

• The review identifies key gaps in current LCA research, particularly the lack of farm-level economic assessments. The study only included peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2025. The study only considered cradle-to-farm-gate LCA studies.

  Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Potential in U.S. Dairy Production: A Meta-Analysis · 2026 · DOI

• As a meat-centric diet exacerbates environmental challenges and provides health concerns to humans, promoting a plant-based diet is vital for attaining vegetable production and availability. In addition, concerns regarding pesticide residues in various food products were addressed, determining the risk associated with the ingestion of these chemicals.

  Balancing Health and Sustainability: Assessing the Benefits of Plant-Based Diets and the Risk of Pesticide Residues · 2025 · DOI

• Considerable progress has been achieved in demonstrating its potential to reduce environmental burdens, lessen dependence on conventional livestock production, and contribute to global food security; however, significant challenges remain unresolved.

  Innovations, Challenges, and Regulatory Pathways in Cultured Meat for a Sustainable Future · 2025 · DOI

• Though many of the LCAs and their application have been implemented in Global North contexts, i.e., in the UK, North America, and Europe; these findings also have implications for countries in the Global South that may explore applying similar frameworks to their dairy systems.

  Towards an Application of the Life Cycle Assessment Framework for GHG Emissions of the Dairy System: A Literature Review · 2025 · DOI

• By increasing nutrient density, ROA may offer a promising strategy to combat non-communicable diseases, which remain one of the leading global health challenges. Beyond nutritional aspects, ROA has the potential to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration and improved soil structure while reducing the environmental footprint of conventional farming.

  Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Human Health: The Interconnection Between Soil, Food Quality, and Nutrition · 2025 · DOI

• Latvia lacks data on the true GHG reduction effect of the implemented measures, thus far reducing their ability to include the full reduction potential in policy documents.

  The Latvian Experience in Assessing the Potential of Agricultural Decarbonization Measures · 2025 · DOI

• Future research should consider longitudinal and multicentre designs, include validated tools for dietary and psychological assessment, and examine beverage preferences in more detail. Finally, although recruitment spanned nearly two years, no data were collected on seasonal variations in diet, which could influence the frequency of consumption of certain foods.

  Sport Participation and Gender Differences in Dietary Preferences: A Cross-Sectional Study in Italian Adults · 2025 · DOI

• In French hospital settings (like the HCL), the 3 KAB profiles can guide targeted action: improve motivation and perceived control for the knowledge-attitude gap; remove practical barriers and adjust the food environment for high intent, low action; and maintain momentum for behavior-driven alignment.

  Behavioral Profiles and Sociodemographic Predictors of Planetary Health Diet Engagement Among Health Care Professionals to Inform Public Health Promotion: Cross-Sectional Study · 2025 · DOI

• Achieving sustainable food production in the decades to come is a multifaceted challenge that requires comprehensive changes across various aspects of the food supply chain. Embracing crop rotations, organic farming, agroforestry, and vertical farming is crucial for optimizing agricultural productivity and resource management.

  The Future of Food · 2024 · DOI

• Future research should focus on developing these frameworks to make it possible to draw meaningful conclusions and provide actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners. Additionally, the power dynamics between citizens and other stakeholders or between different entities influencing the local food system were rarely addressed.

  Citizen Participation Practices in the Governance of Local Food Systems: A Literature Review · 2024 · DOI

• In a further study on this topic, people who had heard of sustainable nutrition were reported to have first come across the concept through social media.

  The Impact of Sustainability Courses: Are They Effective in Improving Diet Quality and Anthropometric Indices? · 2024 · DOI

• Lack of understanding about the composition of contemporary plant-based diets. Uncertainty about the nutritional adequacy of plant-based diets. Limited data on the dietary habits and nutrient intakes of UK adults following plant-based diets.

  Assessing Performance of Contemporary Plant-Based Diets against the UK Dietary Guidelines: Findings from the Feeding the Future (FEED) Study · 2024 · DOI

• There is a need to explore the relationship between diet quality and planetary health diet principles. The research aims to address the increasing adverse effects of unhealthy diets on human health and the environment.

  Adherence to the Planetary Health Diet and Its Association with Diet Quality in the Young Adult Population of Türkiye: A Large Cross-Sectional Study · 2024 · DOI

• There is a lack of data on the nutritional impact of plant-based drinks. There is a need to evaluate the nutritional adequacy of dietary patterns with and without cow's milk. There is a gap in knowledge on the comparison of nutrient content of different plant-based drinks.

  Effects of Replacing Cow’s Milk with Plant-Based Beverages on Potential Nutrient Intake in Sustainable Healthy Dietary Patterns: A Case Study · 2024 · DOI

• Limited sampling intensity and operator bias in traditional field inventories. High costs and access constraints associated with field-based forest carbon inventory.

  Farmers’ actions towards sustainability: an evidence-based methodology for native forest ecosystems supporting low-carbon livestock in grazed dairy systems · 2026 · DOI

• There are several studies that have been conducted on microbial protein-based meat over the last 10 years, as shown in Figure 6. As global food demand increases, microbial proteins have emerged as a sustainable and scalable alternative to conventional protein sources.

  Microbial Proteins: A Green Approach Towards Zero Hunger · 2025 · DOI

• Altitude emerged as a key determinant of soil properties: at higher elevations, organic matter and total nitrogen contents were greater, resulting in lower soil bulk density. Conversely, higher concentrations of nutrients such as boron and magnesium were detected at lower elevations, indicating a distinct altitudinal pattern in element distribution.

  Livestock and Climate Change: How Do Livestock Practices Impact Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Holders Fields in Zamora Chinchipe? · 2025 · DOI

• Traditional field inventories are limited by sampling intensity, operator bias, access constraints and high costs, - The study is limited to the southern Chilean region, - The constraints of field inventories are amplified in agroforestry mosaics where patch size and structure vary over short…

  Farmers’ actions towards sustainability: an evidence-based methodology for native forest ecosystems supporting low-carbon livestock in grazed dairy systems · 2026 · DOI

• Future research could explore these differences, including distinguishing between types of dairy products…

  Differences in plant- and animal-based protein sources consumed across socioeconomic groups in The Netherlands and their associated environmental impact · 2026 · DOI

• Manure management practices, including anaerobic digestion, composting, and precision feeding, can significantly eliminate GHG emissions from livestock systems…

  Manure Management as a Potential Mitigation Tool to Eliminate Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Livestock Systems · 2025 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact

• Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People · Science · 2010 · 9,469 citations
• Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers · Science · 2018 · 5,272 citations
• Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health · Nature · 2014 · 2,930 citations
• Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits · Nature · 2018 · 2,899 citations
• Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions · Nature Food · 2021 · 2,863 citations
• Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets · Science · 2020 · 1,086 citations
• Climate Change and Global Food Systems: Potential Impacts on Food Security and Undernutrition · Annual Review of Public Health · 2017 · 901 citations
• Global greenhouse gas emissions from animal-based foods are twice those of plant-based foods · Nature Food · 2021 · 900 citations
• Where are the best opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food system (including the food chain)? · Food Policy · 2011 · 823 citations
• How sustainable agriculture can address the environmental and human health harms of industrial agriculture. · Environmental Health Perspectives · 2002 · 816 citations

Most recent work

• Food 2050 concept: the trends that shape the future of our food · Journal of Future Foods · 2026
• Cultured Meat: A Multidimensional Review of Technological, Nutritional, Ethical, and Regulatory Advances (2020–2025) · Journal of Food Science · 2026
• Fermentation-Based Strategies for the Feed Industry: Nutritional Augmentation, Environmental Sustainability · Fermentation · 2026
• Nutritional, Functional, and Safety Aspects of Single‐Cell Protein Produced via Microbial Fermentation From Fruit‐Processing Waste: A Comprehensive Review · Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety · 2026
• Review: Sustainable ruminant production: circular systems, nutrition, and methane mitigation · animal · 2026
• Strategies for achieving healthy, sustainable, and equitable dietary transitions · Science · 2026
• Trade-offs in sustainable crop diversification for climate resilience: soil health, emission reduction, and energy use in low-input systems · Journal of Environmental Management · 2026
• Spatially explicit global assessment of cropland greenhouse gas emissions circa 2020 · Nature Climate Change · 2026
• Vegetarian diets and cancer risk: pooled analysis of 1.8 million women and men in nine prospective studies on three continents · British Journal of Cancer · 2026
• China’s agricultural plastic mulch transition is a food security imperative with global implications · Nature Food · 2026

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