Publications

O. Care, Julie G. Zaehringer, Michael J. Bernstein, Mollie Chapman, Cecilie Friis, Sonia Graham, L. Jamila Haider, Mónica Hernández-Morcillo, Harry Hoffmann, Maria Lee Kernecker, Hannah Pitt, Verena Seufert. 2025. Reaping what we sow: Centering values in food systems transformations research. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-024-02086-5

In many transdisciplinary research settings, a lack of attention to the values underpinning project aims can inhibit stakeholder engagement and ultimately slow or undermine project outcomes. As a research collective (The Careoperative), we have developed a set of four shared values through a facilitated visioning process, as central to the way we work together: care, reflexivity, inclusivity, and collectivity. In this paper, w...

Anne Charlotte Bunge, Rachel Mazac, Michael Clark, Line Gordon. 2025. Emerging alternatives to coffee, cocoa and palm oil deserve a spot on the research agenda. Nature Food. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01103-w

Mary Scheuermann, Amanda Wood, Line J. Gordon, Elin Röös, Lisen Schultz. 2024. Leverage points for increased grain legume consumption: a Swedish case study. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170524000267

Food production and consumption need to substantially change to meet global environmental and public health goals. Increasing grain legume consumption in most countries is key to providing nourishing food for all while contributing to cropping system sustainability with relatively low environmental impact. But what actions have the potential to increase such consumption? The wide knowledge of how to cultivate grain legumes amo...

Elissa Dickson, Nathan Clay. 2024. "Eat up. Save Earth." Alternative proteins and the myth of inevitable sustainability. Journal of Rural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103447

The emerging agri-food tech sector promises to solve myriad environmental problems. This article considers the sociotechnical imaginaries that animate these claims. We focus on plant-based meat and dairy substitutes, or 'alternative proteins' (APs). To examine how APs are constructed as environmental solutions, we analyzed marketing materials, sustainability reports, and interviews. Our study illustrates how environmental metr...

Jana Moritz, Rachel Mazac, Mariana Hase Ueta, Niko Räty, Hanna L. Tuomisto, Toni Ryynänen. 2024. Prospects of Justice for Cellular Agriculture. Food Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41055-024-00156-8

Transformation in food systems poses new opportunities for improving environmental sustainability and reducing the use of farmed animals. Discussions about transforming current food systems have been centered mostly on replacing animal source proteins with plant-based alternatives and about how to minimize food waste and loss. Products from cellular agriculture are part of a novel food transition and are presented as new, sust...

Jessica A. Gephart, Rahul Agrawal Bejarano, Kelvin Gorospe, Alex Godwin, Christopher D. Golden, Rosamond L. Naylor, Kirsty L. Nash, Michael L. Pace, Max Troell. 2024. Globalization of wild capture and farmed aquatic foods. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51965-8

Aquatic foods are highly traded, with nearly 60 million tonnes exported in 2020, representing 11% of global agriculture trade by value. Despite the vast scale, basic characteristics of aquatic food trade, including species, origin, and farmed vs wild sourcing, are largely unknown due to the reporting of trade data. Consequently, we have a coarse picture of aquatic food trade and consumption patterns. Here, we present results f...

Geoff J. Wells, Casey M. Ryan, Anamika Das, Suman Attiwilli, Mahesh Poudyal, Sharachchandra Lele, Kate Schreckenberg, Brian E. Robinson, Aidan Keane, Katherine M. Homewood, Julia P.G. Jones, Carlos A. Torres-Vitolas, Janet A. Fisher, Sate Ahmad, Mark Mulligan, Terence P. Dawson, Helen Adams, R. Siddappa Setty, Tim M. Daw. 2024. Hundreds of millions of people in the tropics need both wild harvests and other forms of economic development for their well-being. One Earth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.12.001

Local access to “wild,” common-pool terrestrial and aquatic resources is being diminished by global resource demand and large-scale conservation interventions. Many theories suggest the well-being of wild harvesters can be supported through transitions to other livelihoods, improved infrastructure, and market access. However, new theories argue that such benefits may not always occur because they are context dependent and vary...

Maganizo Kruger Nyasulu, Ingo Fetzer, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Fabian Stenzel, Dieter Gerten, Johan Rockström, Malin Falkenmark. 2024. African rainforest moisture contribution to continental agricultural water consumption. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109867

Precipitation is essential for food production in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 80 % of agriculture is rainfed. Although ∼40 % of precipitation in certain regions is recycled moisture from Africa's tropical rainforest, there needs to be more knowledge about how this moisture supports the continent's agriculture. In this study, we quantify all moisture sources for agrarian precipitation (African agricultural precipitatio...

Blanca González-Mon, María Mancilla-García, Örjan Bodin, Willem Malherbe, Nadia Sitas, Catherine B. Pringle, Reinette (Oonsie) Biggs, Maja Schlüter. 2024. The importance of cross-scale social relationships for dealing with social-ecological change in agricultural supply chains. Journal of Rural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2023.103191

Agricultural systems are important for the livelihoods and food security of millions of people. These systems are increasingly interconnected across scales and face challenges in responding to multiple, and coalescing types of environmental, social, and economic change. Most studies on how actors respond to change have focused on farmers and farming communities. In this study, we investigate the connectivity of farming systems...

Marta Tuninetti, Vittorio Giordano, Sara Constantino, Saverio Perri, Juan Rocha, Luana Schwarz, Jonathan F. Donges, Francesco Laio, Simon Levin. 2024. Positive Tipping Points in the Food Systems: the Role of Scales. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-22274

The global food system is at a critical inflection point with rising awareness of the need for change and progress on several fronts, pertaining both human health and the environment. One of the ten critical transitions envisioned by the Food and Land Use Coalitions states that global diets need to converge towards local variations of the “human and planetary healthy diet” which includes more protective foods a diverse protein...