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Open research questions in Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact

33 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 705 Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Abstract China’s prioritization of food self-sufficiency is likely to reconfigure global agricultural trade and associated GHG emissions, yet its climate compatibility remains uncertain.

    Food self-sufficiency targets reshape climate trade-offs and synergies in China’s food system · 2026 · DOI

  • This paper is a rapid evidence synthesis, not a full systematic review. It does not perform original hydrological modeling, emissions accounting, spatial land-use analysis, or economic cost-benefit modeling. It relies on published literature, institutional reports, and existing assessments to synthesize relationships among Great Salt Lake decline, agricultural water use, livestock-feed irrigation, cattle-centered food systems, climate impacts, and public-health concerns. The paper also does not claim that livestock-feed irrigation is the only cause of Great Salt Lake decline. The lake’s condition reflects multiple interacting factors, including climate variability, drought, population growth, municipal and industrial water use, legal water allocation, infrastructure, and agricultural withdrawals. The analysis focuses on livestock-feed irrigation because it is a significant and policy-relevant pathway through which food systems affect watershed integrity. The public-health section is also limited. It distinguishes between processed meat, unprocessed red meat, environmental exposure, and antimicrobial resistance pathways, but it does not provide a full nutritional epidemiology review. Health outcomes depend on dietary context, substitution foods, socioeconomic conditions, processing, exposure levels, and regulatory environments. Finally, the paper’s transition discussion is preliminary. It identifies policy directions rather than providing a complete implementation plan. Further research should evaluate the hydrological, economic, ecological, and social outcomes of specific transition pathways in the Great Salt Lake basin and comparable salt-lake and terminal-basin systems.

    Livestock-Feed Irrigation and Great Salt Lake Decline: A Case-Based Evidence Synthesis of Cattle Production, Watershed Depletion, and Ecological Externalities · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite its relevance for livestock-based economies, dedicated life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on hay production in semi-arid environments remain limited, and the influence of interannual climatic fluctuations on environmental performance is poorly documented.

    Life cycle assessment of Mediterranean hay production under variable climatic conditions: a case study · 2026 · DOI

  • The interpretation of our findings is subject to several data and modelling constraints. First, the analysis only covers food and beverages consumed within the canteen, which represents a single meal occasion (lunch) and selected snacks and drinks. Breakfast, dinner, and food consumed outside the canteen may differ substantially in composition and environmental impact but are not captured in the analysis. This means that the results reflect only a subset of the total dietary consumption of staff and students. Notably, items typical of institutional catering, such as coffee and hot drinks, are likely to be reasonably well represented, whereas staple foods and animal products predominantly consumed at home, particularly at dinner, are likely to be underrepresented. The representativeness of canteen meals for overall dietary patterns therefore remains uncertain, and the findings should be interpreted as being indicative of institutional lunch provision rather than total dietary impact. Additionally, grouping heterogeneous food items into broad commodity categories introduces classification uncertainty. While transparent concordance tables and, where feasible, recipe-level disaggregation mitigate this risk, they cannot eliminate it. Second, FABIO resolves trade at the national level. Within‑country heterogeneity in yields, irrigation intensity and nutrient management is not captured, which has consequences for land- and water-related impacts in spatially diverse producing countries. Third, our land-use accounting captures the ongoing occupation of land that has already been converted, but it excludes biodiversity losses associated with indirect land use change and habitat transformation. Consequently, products linked to frontier agriculture (e.g. cattle ranching in the Amazon, oil palm plantations on former rainforest) carry higher landrelated impacts when considering land use change than is reflected here. While the updated country-level land-use intensity levels improve realism relative to defaults, they represent national averages (proxies) that mask within-country variation and system- and management-specific practices such as fertilization regimes (e.g. fertilization practices, see Coelho et al.66 for a scenario analysis of different land use intensities). Reference-state uncertainty further complicates land-use assessments, as results are sensitive to whether occupation or conversion is used as the impact mechanism and to assumptions about the time since conversion. Forth, eutrophication impacts were estimated using uniform field-scale leaching fractions applied globally. This approach does not account for instream nitrogen removal processes97,98, ignores regional controls on leaching (soil properties, climate, hydrology)99 and omits organic nitrogen sources including manure, biological fixation, and atmospheric deposition. Spatially differentiated nitrogen flow data have recently been incorporated into a subsequent FABIO version (Hinz et al., in review) but were unavailable for this study. These limitations are, however, of limited consequence for our primary conclusions: eutrophication contributes 9.2% of total assessed biodiversity impact, and sensitivity analyses ranging from complete removal to doubling of eutrophication impacts produced no rank changes among the top 10 sourcing countries (see Supplementary Tables 12, 13). Using climateand soil-adjusted leaching factors would therefore enhance absolute quantification48,100 but do not change commodity×region hotspot identification. Fifth, the system boundary for climate change differs from that for the other drivers. FABIO does not yet provide emissions data. Therefore, greenhouse gas emissions are derived from product-level carbon footprint data rather than from the shared process-level inventory underlying the remaining indicators. The data cover all life cycle stages up to the supermarket checkout including land-use change via an attributional approach, and represent an average food product sold in Germany, with weighting applied according to domestic and imported proportions, countries of origin, cultivation methods, seasonality, and transport modes. Due to the lack of country-resolved inventory data, climate change impacts could not be disaggregated at the country level. This contrasts with all the other indicators and highlights the need for future work to enable their inclusion in country-specific analyses. Sensitivity analyses across emissions assumptions (±50%), characterization factor variants (±100%), climate scenarios (RCP 2.6–8.5), and time horizons (100–1000 years) produced no changes to the top 10 rankings changes under standard scenarios.

    Multi-driver biodiversity impact assessment reveals hidden hotspots in institutional consumption · 2026 · DOI

  • The scoping review positions nutrition-sensitive climate the broader agriculture-healthchange adaptation within environment nexus. The study resonates strongly with global frameworks such as the IPBES Nexus Report (97) and the planetary boundaries framework (98).

    Safeguarding diet quality in a changing climate: a scoping review · 2026 · DOI

  • In developing the MEET-eaters model we made several conceptual decisions that should be borne in mind when interpret- ing its results. First of all, a major limitation pertains to the fact that price was not considered in the cook-agents’ purchase PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0347961 May 22, 2026 20 / 26 decisions. Based on previous research, price appeared to be a complicated factor in the decision to purchase meat. While the relatively low price of meat compared to plant-based alternatives can serve as a barrier in reducing meat [73], other factors (e.g., status, hospitality, peer affiliation) indicate a less direct relationship between meat price and purchase [72,74–76]. A simulation study by Schenk et al. [77] reported “price” and “assortment” of grocery stores in northern Swe- den as the most significant store attributes in the decision process of customers. Nonetheless, based on household-level market data, Briesch et al. [78], found that “assortments” are more important than “price” for consumer decision-making in a grocery store. These studies were limited, though, to aspects that are apparent inside a grocery store and left out any social influences that could mediate the effect of price and assortment. Secondly, once cook-agents are at the supermar- ket, they do not recall their dinner guests. Instead, the model simulates that cook-agents base their substitution choices on their level of neophobia. The study by Hesselberg et al. [79] found that upholding family harmony plays an essential role in the choice for reducing meat, implying that leaving out the effect of social influence on alternative purchases pro- vides a limitation to our model. In addition, in MEET-eaters we assume that the cook does the groceries, while in real-life another household member may be responsible for this. A third limitation concerns the acquiring of meal ingredients. In the present model these are only purchased at physical supermarkets, excluding online grocery shopping and purchases from greengrocers, butchers, markets, convenience stores, or fast-food outlets. Excluding online grocery shopping may have led to an overestimation of cook-agents purchasing meat alternatives, similar to the effect of modelling supermarkets as offering only four protein source categories. Take-out and ready-to-eat meals are also not included, while these are typ- ically consumed once a week by 38% and 48% of Dutch citizens, respectively [29]. A minor limitation pertains to the fact that during each dinner in MEET-eaters, only one type of meal is prepared, while within some household multiple are pre- pared. For instance, Veen et al. [80] report that commensality in student-only households with mixed dietary preferences (e.g., meat-eaters and vegetarians/vegans) is typically maintained by preparing meals that cater to everyone. Finally, person-agents in MEET-eaters adjust their dietary preference only based on mealtime experiences. Research addresses that communications through social media, including peer messaging, can potentially be another contributor to dietary change, although results are mixed [81–84]. Sudden crises, such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) disease, have been reported to decrease meat consumption, although only temporarily [85]. Thomopoulos et al. [22] simulated the effect of such crises in an agent-based model and found that these lead to the adoption of vegetarian protein sources. In addition, cooking skills were reported to influence the type of meat alternatives consumed at dinner among individuals seeking to reduce meat intake, as well as the perceived meal quality. In this context, ‘authentic’ meals were preferred over meat analogues, although this preference did not necessarily affect the decision to replace meat [14,86].

    MEET-eaters: An agent-based model of food consumption practices at the household level · 2026 · DOI

  • should also be acknowledged. First, the study was based on national annual data for 2011–2020 and therefore could not capture regional heterogeneity within selected because it China’s maize sector.

    Maize industry security in China, 2011–2020: a composite index across supply, market, technology, and environment · 2026 · DOI

  • Limitations This study relies on questionnaire-based information from the na- tional pollution census, which involves large-scale manual reporting and may introduce reporting or estimation uncertainty, particularly for manure management practices and their relative proportions (Table S3). Addressing these co-contaminants would require additional data and modeling frameworks beyond the scope of this study, but represents an important direction for future research.

    Managing livestock farm size to reduce nitrogen loss in China · 2026 · DOI

  • The cross-sectional design and single-site data collection from Eastern Türkiye (characterized by meat-centric culinary culture and limited agricultural diversity) prevent causal inference and limit generalizability across Turkey's diverse regions. Longitudinal studies spanning geographically and culturally distinct regions within Türkiye are needed to establish causal relationships between planetary health diet adherence and environmental outcomes while accounting for regional dietary patterns and socioeconomic variation.

    Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults · 2026 · DOI

  • The study used international environmental databases in the absence of Türkiye-specific carbon footprint and water footprint coefficients, limiting the accuracy of environmental impact estimates. Developing country-specific and region-specific environmental footprint coefficients that account for local agricultural practices, climate conditions, and food production systems is a critical priority for validating planetary health diet recommendations in Turkish populations.

    Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults · 2026 · DOI

  • Vitamin B12 deficiency emerged as a critical nutritional inadequacy associated with high planetary health diet adherence, consistent with French studies, yet the paper does not specify thresholds for B12 intake or identify which populations are at greatest risk. Future research must quantify minimum B12 supplementation or food fortification requirements needed to maintain nutritional adequacy while achieving environmental goals in plant-forward diets.

    Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identified an unexplained environmental trade-off where higher diet quality (HEI-2020 scores) was associated with lower carbon footprint but higher water footprint, potentially due to increased legume and nut consumption. The specific water footprint contribution of individual plant-based protein sources within planetary health diet patterns requires quantification through detailed supply-chain analysis to resolve this sustainability paradox.

    Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults · 2026 · DOI

  • Environmental footprint calculations integrated two different databases (SEL for primary data, SHARP-ID for supplementary values) with inconsistent system boundaries: SEL estimates impacts only to the distribution center while SHARP-ID includes the full cradle-to-plate cycle. This methodological discrepancy introduces uncertainties that could be resolved by establishing unified Türkiye-specific carbon footprint and water footprint coefficients across the full supply chain.

    Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults · 2026 · DOI

  • Data collection was restricted to fall and winter months (October–March) only, preventing evaluation of seasonal dietary diversity and its effects on carbon footprint and water footprint calculations for planetary health diet adherence. Future studies must collect data across all seasons to capture how seasonal food availability influences PHD adherence and environmental footprint variations.

    Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults · 2026 · DOI

  • Dietary intake was assessed using only a single 24-hour recall method, which fails to capture intra-individual day-to-day variability and long-term habitual intake patterns necessary for accurate assessment of planetary health diet adherence and its relationship to environmental footprints. Multiple 24-hour recalls or food frequency questionnaires should be implemented in future studies to better represent individual dietary patterns.

    Planetary health diet adherence, nutritional adequacy, and environmental footprints: a cross-sectional study in Turkish adults · 2026 · DOI

  • However, relatively little is known about the GHG mitigation potential in agriculture, in particular with respect to the combined effects of technological advancements and dietary changes.

    How can the EU climate targets be met? A combined analysis of technological and demand-side changes in food and agriculture · 2016 · DOI

  • At present, there are few studies on systematically and comprehensively evaluating the effects of different production modes on the environmental impact of vegetable production in the North China Plain (NCP).

    Relationship of Rehabilitation Client Outcome to Level of Rehabilitation Counselor Education · 1989 · DOI

  • The environmental and biodiversity benefits of microbial lipids tech- nology should be studied, including their potential to catalyze consumer adoption of plant-based and cultivated meat products.

    Biomethane and biomethanol fermentation can produce microbial lipids at competitive selling prices · 2026 · DOI

  • Gut microbiota diversity may mediate several of these associations, influencing metabolism, inflammation, sleep quality, and cognitive performance, although inter-individual variability and causal pathways remain incompletely understood.

    Early Biomarkers, Risk Factors, and Functional Indicators of Healthy Longevity and Their Relationship with Diet · 2026 · DOI

  • Yet concerted policy action in this area is insufficient and largely absent, pointing to the underlying challenge and complexity of political inertia.

    Nourishing Humanity without Destroying the Planet · 2021 · DOI

  • More recent consumption‐oriented strategies are overdue but limited by a hesitancy to fully address the political problems associated with transitioning away from beef and dairy.

    The Biopolitics of Cattle Methane Emissions Reduction: Governing Life in a Time of Climate Change · 2021 · DOI

  • The global supply of pulses, fruits and vegetables, the primary sources of diversity in most diets, is insufficient to meet recommended population-level intakes.

    A new global agenda for nutrition and health: the importance of agriculture and food systems · 2015 · DOI

  • Curriculum Enhancement The beliefs regarding sustainable agriculture listed in the previous section should be examined and, if agreed on by local stakeholders, infused into the program philosophy.

    Integrating Sustainable Agriculture into the Classroom · 2001

  • A third reason is the lack of evidence t o suggest that, with careful management, the alluvial soils of the coast are gener- ally any less fertile than the soils to be found in the Clarke Range and Blue Mountain-Funnel Creek areas.

    DAIRYING IN THE AUSTRALIAN TROPICS A STUDY OF PROBLEMS AND TRENDS IN THE MACKAY DISTRICT · 1965 · DOI

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33 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 705 Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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