In the face of global challenges such as climate change, population growth and food insecurity, it is imperative to advance our collective understanding of sustainable food environments and diets that are healthy, accessible, and secure.

The key Sustainable Development Goal, “End hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” (SDG 2), set by the United Nations, addresses the complex linkage between agricultural practices, environmental sustainability, and food security. This collection addresses pressing questions related to sustainable food environments and diets.

How can agri-food systems worldwide become more productive and less wasteful? Which elements of traditional farmer knowledge, enriched by the latest scientific knowledge, can support productive food systems? How can innovative technologies contribute to sustainably increasing agricultural production, improving the global supply chain, decreasing food losses and waste, and ensuring that all who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition have access to nutritious food? How do global economic dynamics affect local food systems? How can community-level food-related decision-making knowledge be integrated to increase decision-making processes at national and regional levels to achieve synergies and decrease food insecurity?  Which policies should be implemented to create more resilient food environments and promote diverse and nutritious diets?

Significant advances have already been made in enhancing the resilience of food production systems to climate change, promoting sustainable agricultural practices, and understanding the impact of food environments on the dietary choices of consumers. However, future research advances can still be made to find novel approaches to mitigate the environmental impact of food production while ensuring food security for all.

This Collection will highlight recent developments focused on: climate-resilient agricultural practices; sustainable food production technologies; the impact of food environments on dietary choices; policies for creating resilient food environments; and reducing food loss and waste for resilient food systems.

As Agriculture & Food Security is calling for submissions to our Collection on ‘Building Resilience through Sustainable Food Environments and Diets’, we invite you to submit your research findings!

The team of guest-editors working on this Collection is: Dr Joana Nazaré Morgado (University of Lisbon, Portugal) and Dr Lerato Phali (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa).

About the Guest Editors

Dr Joana Nazaré Morgado, PhD, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Dr. Morgado has a Masters in veterinary medicine and recently became the first PhD in Sustainability Sciences of the University of Lisbon. She has collaborated with universities from Denmark to Italy and has worked in international organizations and EU agencies, such as FAO-UN and EFSA. Her areas of research are, within sustainability, in line with One Health and related subjects. These encompass: food safety and security, animal health (e.g. zoonoses, emerging pandemic threats) and welfare, healthy diets, socioeconomic determinants’ analysis, consumers' dietary changes and their impact on health (health impact assessment).

Dr Lerato Phali, PhD, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Lerato Phali holds a PhD in agricultural economics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.  She is a former Rotary Global research fellow, and a Young Agricultural Professional Fellow, and lectured at the University of Pretoria before joining the Department of Agricultural Economics as a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has authored peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters in water resource governance, government policy impacts, food waste and loss, and agricultural productivity. Her research interests include climate change (adaptation, mitigation, resilience, carbon accounting), water security, and development policy.