Concerns about the sustainability and nutritional quality of the agrifood system are driving crop improvement research toward One Health principles, which recognize the interconnected health of people, animals, and the environment. Advancing global food security within this framework requires integrative approaches that move beyond genomic and phenomic breeding to address the broader consequences of food production and consumption. Foodomics integrates omics technologies to comprehensively characterize the molecular composition of foods and trace connections among crop genetic variation, environmental interactions, food processing, digestion, microbiome-mediated metabolism, and host biological responses. By generating functional molecular phenotypes that connect these processes, foodomics provides a mechanistic framework for incorporating nutritional quality and health-related traits into next-generation crop breeding. In doing so, it can connect molecular variation in crops with downstream effects from field to physiology, positioning foodomics as a strategic component of agrifood system transformation. However, the absence of standardized methods, interoperable data frameworks, together with challenges in accessibility and scalability, currently limits the generation and integration of foodomics data at the scale required to address global challenges. Here, we examine the potential of foodomics as a systems-based framework for connecting crop breeding, environmental interactions, food processing, and health outcomes, and consider the advances needed to realize its contribution to One Health-oriented crop improvement.

Food insecurity and poor diets undermine human health, livelihoods, and aspirations. Climate change further exacerbates the problem of achieving zero hunger. Promoting the production of a diverse portfolio of nutrient-dense, climate-resilient crops enables food supply for healthy diets in the coming years and decades. Many are underutilized even though they are considered opportunity crops, with an unrealized potential to improve food security and dietary quality amid climate change. Limited access to quality seed for these crops is a major bottleneck in their supply, as the current policy environment does not support farmers in broadening their portfolio with these crops. This paper identifies three key challenges that should be addressed to enable farmers to access quality seed of opportunity crops at scale. These are to make the diversity of opportunity crops (i) a priority for policy (ii) available for evaluation and breeding, and (iii) accessible to farmers, especially women and other disadvantaged groups. Six policy actions are recommended to address these challenges, which, if implemented, are likely to have both short- and long-term impacts in increasing farmers’ access to quality seeds of opportunity crops. Adopting these policy actions will help mainstream opportunity crops into seed systems as part of a broader strategy to diversify food systems from seed to plate.

Agrobiodiversity governance, understood as the collective management and conservation of agricultural biodiversity through coordinated multi-stakeholder arrangements, is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of sustainable food systems. When led by farmers, such processes hold potential to enhance rural food security and nutrition, conserve biocultural heritage, and sustain farming traditions over time. The Peruvian Andes, considered an agrobiodiversity hotspot, are the centre of origin for a wide variety of potatoes and tubers that are maintained in-situ by family farmers in the highlands. This study employs a case study approach, focusing on native potato conservationists in Paucartambo, Cusco, to examine collaborative governance mechanisms and their embeddedness in social relations. A mixed methods approach was employed, incorporating a social network analysis, semi-structured and film-based interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observation, to elucidate micro and macro-level dynamics of agrobiodiversity governance amidst the confluence of multiple socio-environmental pressures. The micro-level dynamics are elucidated through the exchange of seeds, the circulation of knowledge, and collaboration within farming communities. The macro-level dynamics are explored through the perceptions of affiliated members of the Association of Native Potato Guardians of Peru (AGUAPAN), a farmer-led trans-local network operating across the Peruvian Andes. Based on our findings, we argue that, as reciprocity norms erode and agrobiodiversity management becomes increasingly individualised, AGUAPAN’s consolidation functions as a simultaneously compensatory, transformative, and potentially erosive response to institutional decline at the local level. Further, we argue that trans-local connectivity is not inherently beneficial, instead, its effects on agrobiodiversity governance depend critically on the institutional form through which it is achieved, and the incentive structures it embeds. Specifically, certain market logics introduced through formalised associations, risk further eroding the reciprocity norms on which informal seed systems depend. This empirical research contributes to debates on adaptive governance, biocultural diversity, and socio-ecological resilience. It does so by advancing a critical understanding of trans-local network formation as an adaptive governance response to the increasing erosion of communal practices sustaining collaborative agrobiodiversity governance.

Context: Effective seed systems must distribute high-performing varieties efficiently, and slow or stop the spread of pathogens and pests. Epidemics increasingly threaten crops around the world, endangering the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Responding to these challenges to food and economic security requires stakeholders to act quickly and decisively during the early stages of pathogen invasions, typically with limited resources. A current threat is the introduction of cassava mosaic virus in Southeast Asia. Objectives: Our goal in this study is to provide a decision-support framework for efficient management of healthy seed systems, applied to cassava mosaic disease. The specific objectives are to (1) evaluate disease risk in disease-free parts of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam; (2) incorporate estimated risk of disease establishment with seed exchange survey data and whitefly spread in the landscape to model epidemic spread; and (3) identify candidate regions to be prioritized in seed system management. Methods: We used machine learning to integrate disease occurrence, climate, topology, and land use, and network meta-population models of epidemic spread. We used scenario analyses to identify candidate priority regions for management. Results and conclusions: The analyses allow stakeholders to evaluate strategic options for allocating their resources in the field, guiding the implementation of seed system programs and responses. Consistently targeting initially high priority locations with clean seed produced more favorable outcomes in this model, as did prioritization of a higher number of districts for the deployment of smaller volumes of clean seed. Significance: The decision-support framework presented here can be applied widely to seed systems challenged by the dual goals of distributing seed efficiently and reducing disease risk. Data-driven approaches support evidence-based identification of optimized surveillance and mitigation areas in an iterative fashion, providing guidance early in an epidemic, and revising recommendations as data accrue over time.

The new potato variety INIA 333–CHUGAYNA, is the result of the joint work of the NGO Asociación Pataz, INIA and the International Potato Center, it was generated through traditional breeding and the use of the participatory varietal selection methodology, as a variety resilient to climate change with frost tolerance, resistance to late blight, compared to the improved variety INIA 302-Amarilis and the native varieties, Huevo de Indio. This new variety is also resilient to climate change, tolerant to frost, with field resistance to late blight, high tuber yield, low glycoalkaloid content and high quality for fresh consumption, adapted up to 4000 m above sea level. It was released in 2023 and officially registered in the national registry of commercial varieties of Peru. The new variety INIA 333-CHUGAYNA requires minimal use of fungicides and has a high economic profitability that will improve the living standards of small and medium-sized farmers in Peru. It can also be used as a parent in breeding programs in other countries in development, to confront climate change, especially frost.

This study assesses the agrobiodiversity richness, traditional knowledge, and conservation status associated with four key crops—banana, taro, pumpkin, and mustard green—in Northwest Vietnam. Using the 5-cell method, 133 farmer varieties were identified in Mai Son and Sa Pa districts. Mai Son showed the highest level of varietal diversity in banana and pumpkin, while Sa Pa had the higher richness in mustard green and taro. Ethnic groups, particularly Thai and Dao households, played a key role in maintaining this diversity. The findings reveal significant vulnerability to varietal loss, particularly for banana and taro. In contrast, pumpkin varieties in Sa Pa and mustard greens in both districts appear less vulnerable. Declining cultivation of certain farmer varieties is driven by changing preferences, market limitations, and climate variability. Results underscore the need for on-farm conservation strategies such as custodian farmer networks, biodiversity seed fairs, seed banks, improved market access, and nutritional education, to safeguard local varietal diversity and promote sustainable farming systems in the region.

Sarcoptic mange or scabies is a contagious parasitic skin disease that affects a wide range of domestic and wildlife species. A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence, molecular identification, and characteristics of sarcoptic mange in vicuñas. A total of 3,274 vicuñas were examined. Following ritual harvesting events ("chaccus") in 13 Andean communities. The presence of mange mites was determined by the skin scraping technique and confirmed by PCR analysis using specific primers for the ITS2 gene of Sarcoptes scabiei. The presence of mange mites was also confirmed by microscopy using samples taken from wallows. A data collection form was used to register the characteristics of the vicuñas sampled. The prevalence of sarcoptic mange was 4.9% (95% CI: 4.1 - 5.6%). All samples from wallows tested positive (9/9). Importantly, the presence of the species S. scabiei was molecularly confirmed. Adult females with regular body condition were more susceptible to sarcoptic mange, although the lesions were mild. This study confirms the presence of S. scabiei in semi-captive vicuñas and points to the possible role of wallows in the dissemination of Sarcoptes mites.

The Periodic Table of Food Initiative addresses food biomolecular composition information gaps through a standardized, accessible and enabling platform based on analytical tools, data and capacity building. Data from 1,650 foods serve as starting point for demonstrating the capacity of this initiative to contribute to nutrition, health and food systems transformations.

Crop landraces (LR), the traditional varieties of crops that have been maintained for millennia by repeated cycles of planting, harvesting, and selection, are genetically diverse compared to more modern varieties and provide one of the key components for crop improvement due to the ease of trait transfer within the crop species. However, LR diversity is increasingly threatened with genetic erosion and extinction by replacement with improved cultivars, lack of incentives for farmers to maintain traditional agricultural systems, and rising threats from climate change. Their active conservation is necessary to maintain this critical resource. However, as there are hundreds of thousands of LR and millions of LR populations for crops globally, active conservation is complex and resource-intensive. To assist in implementation, it is useful to be able to prioritise LR for conservation action and an obvious means of prioritisation is based on relative threat assessment. There have been several attempts to propose LR threat assessment methods, but none thus far has been widely accepted or applied. The aim of this paper is to present a novel, practical, standardised, and objective methodology for LR threat assessment derived from the widely applied IUCN Red Listing for wild species, involving the collation of time series information for LR population range, LR population trend, market, and farmer characteristics and LR context information. The collated information is compared to a set of threat criteria and an appropriate threat category is assigned to the LR when a threshold level is reached. The proposed methodology can be applied at national, regional, or global levels and any crop group.

Multiple crises have disrupted food systems around the world. The shocks induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with increased energy prices and shortages of fertilizers and agricultural inputs, have affected farmers everywhere. By applying inductive, qualitative, and comparative research approaches, we investigate the impact of shocks and crises on diverse food systems. Using mixed qualitative methods, we integrate the voices of (n = 25) farmers belonging to agroecology-based local food systems in Peru, Germany, and the United States with the aims of: (i) understanding the different crisis scenarios; (ii) determining the vulnerabilities induced in farmers; and (iii) identifying the responses and coping mechanisms that farmers deploy in response to shocks. The results illustrate how farmers are affected by the combined effects of labor shortages, rising input costs, high energy prices, and climate change. Farmers' responses to stressors are then analyzed and compared using attributes of food system resilience. Based on our results, we argue that resilience-building is determined not only by the environment in which agroecology is embedded, but also by the responsive capacities of farmers. We emphasize the need for more proactive policies aimed at promoting agroecological and localized production to enhance the resilience of food systems against recurrent shocks and crises.

CONTEXT Early generation seed (EGS) production and delivery pathways are critical components of so-called formal seed systems, of principal importance in the release of improved varieties into national seed systems. Vegetatively propagated crops (VPCs), with clonal reproductive ability and considerable differences in production and dissemination patterns from sexually propagated crops, often challenge generalized assumptions about ‘business models’ for private sector-led EGS production. OBJECTIVE We evaluate production trends and institutional arrangements for early generation ‘seed’ (stem cutting) production in the Greater Mekong Subregion of Southeast Asia to compare models, stakeholders, production pathways, and economic efficiency. We systematically document three cases of formal EGS production underpinning this globally important agricultural commodity, and contextualize their development in regional cassava production trends. We then interrogate whether the observed models support common assumptions in contemporary debates about how VPC seed system development, in particular the logic of public and private participation. METHODS To contextualize EGS initiatives, we compiled district-level production data and processing factory locations from national sources across the Greater Mekong subregion, paired with data on varietal releases and international trade of cassava products. To evaluate institutional arrangements for cassava EGS production in this context, we conducted ten key informant interviews with stakeholders involved with three case studies in Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Using a seed value chains framework, we compared institutional participation, seed multiplication practices, and partial budgets of each case. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The three cases represent diverse institutional arrangements that don't exhibit seed company-led, profit-motivated structures often recommended by experts. Despite the commercial nature of export-oriented Southeast Asian cassava products, public involvement remained central in cassava breeding and EGS delivery models, implemented via different actors and multiplication stages. Case histories and partial production budgets describe institutional arrangements with variable points of subsidy along the value chain, resulting in positive effects on varietal turnover and cassava production across the region. SIGNIFICANCE While private sector involvement was significant and variable, public involvement remains important, even for highly commercialized crops like cassava. Contrary to common assumptions, successful cassava EGS systems in Southeast Asia have initiated impressive impacts without pursuing conventionally profit-oriented seed business models. Value chain approaches reveal backing EGS yields tangible downstream benefits, but for VPCs additional innovations are required to ensure benefits support the sustainability of expensive upstream multiplication stages. Approaches considering institutional participation along seed and product value chains can identify mechanisms for doing so beyond conventional seed commercialization.

Food choices that shape human diets and health are influenced by various socio-economic factors. Vietnam struggles to meet many nutrition targets where links between food choice and diet have not been widely explored. This study assesses the food choice motives, based on a 28-item food choice questionnaire (FCQ), and the diet quality of 603 adults in three sites (urban, peri-urban, and rural) in northern Vietnam. We assess diet quality using the Diet Quality Index-Vietnam (DQI-V) which consists of variety, adequacy, moderation, and balance components. Using factor analysis, we grouped FCQ items into five factors: health focus, sensory appeal, mood ethics, convenience, and familiarity. The structural equation modeling indicates that food choice motives significantly impact the DQI-V and its components but in different directions. The results show that sensory appeal has a positive association with the overall DQI-V score, while having a negative impact on the variety component. Findings present a potential trade-off issue for interventions and policies related to food products. Nutrition knowledge is positively associated with all elements of diet quality across all three study sites. Vietnamese agrobiodiversity could be better utilized to increase dietary diversity. Differentiated policies are necessary to address the poor dietary diversity and adequacy in northern Vietnam.

Introduction Effective monitoring of the in situ conservation status and change dynamics of landrace populations in their centers of origin ideally requires the identification of sites that are complementary in terms of the richness, uniqueness and coverage of genetic diversity. Methods We applied a 4-step approach to identify sites of high potato landrace diversity which will guide the set-up of a network of complementary prospective conservation observatories in Peru, the potato center of origin. A GIS mapping approach was used to determine which combination of sites would provide the most comprehensive and complementary genepool coverage. A landrace inventory was developed from 49 sources, comprising 47,272 landrace records, 97.1% with coordinates, which was used to derive landrace, cultivated species, and cultivar group richness. Data on known indicators of agrobiodiversity, including potato wild relative concurrence, cultivated area, ecogeographic diversity, and ethnolinguistic diversity were included in the spatial overlay analysis, which was used in conjunction with expert opinion data to provide further insight to hotspot selection. Results Thirteen hotspots with high, unique, and complementary levels of landrace diversity were identified. We recommend that robust baselines are established, documenting current diversity in these sites using semi-standardized methods and metrics for future tracking. Discussion Our results, while being the most robust of their kind to date, were inevitably affected by data gaps, infrastructure and hotspot biases. New documentation efforts should record landrace diversity in uncovered regions, as well as explore complementary mechanisms to track the conservation status of unique endemic landraces that occur in coldspots.

Agrobiodiversity—the biodiversity of food, agriculture, and land use—is essential to U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 2 by providing crucial food and nutritional quality of diets combined with strengthening agroecological sustainability. Focusing on the agrobiodiversity nexus to SDG 2, the current study utilized the interdisciplinary Agrobiodiversity Knowledge Framework (AKF), household-level surveys, and biodiversity sampling of crop fields and home gardens in a case study in Huánuco, Peru, in 2017. Statistical measures estimated agrobiodiversity of crop fields ( n = 268 households) and home gardens (n=159 households) based on species richness (3.7 and 10.2 species/household, in fields and gardens, respectively) and evenness (Shannon diversity index; 0.70 and 1.83 in fields and gardens, respectively). Robust results of Poisson and OLS regression models identified several AKF-guided determinants of agrobiodiversity. Estimated species richness and evenness were significantly associated with 12 social-ecological and political-ecological factors from the four AKF thematic axes: farm characteristics and agroecology; diets and nutrition; markets, governance and sociocultural practices; and global change. This study's AKF approach, agrobiodiversity modeling, agroecological characterization, and field-based case study advanced a series of useful research insights, comparisons, and conceptual innovations to address SDG 2. Characterization of nutrient management through soil- and plant-focused cultural practices and livelihood roles distinguished the “keystone agrobiodiversity-and-food space” of multi-species maize fields ( maizales ) identified in AKF regression and characterization results. This key space furnished crucial food-nutrition and agroecological benefits that can be expanded by overcoming identified barriers. AKF-guided models incorporating key agrobiodiversity-and-food spaces and ecological nutrient management are needed to strengthen SDG 2 strategies.

Biocultural diversity is central to the nutrition, resilience, and adaptive capacity of Indigenous and traditional peoples, who collectively maintain the longest ongoing human experiences with the provision of food under environmental change. In the form of crops and livestock and associated knowledge on their cultivation and use, food-related biocultural diversity likewise underpins global food security. As food system transformation is increasingly recognized as an urgent priority, we argue that food security, sustainability, resilience, and adaptive capacity can be furthered through greater emphasis on conservation, use, and celebration of food-related biocultural diversity. We provide examples from the Parque de la Papa, Peru, a “food biocultural diversity neighborhood” which through advocacy and partnerships based around its diversity, has both enhanced local communities and contributed to food security at a much larger scale. We outline collaborative actions which we believe are important to up- and out-scale food biocultural diversity neighborhood successes. Further research and knowledge sharing are critical to better document, understand, track, and communicate the value, functions, and state of biocultural diversity in food systems. Expanded training and capacity development opportunities are important to enable the interchange of experiences and visions on food, health, sustainability and resilience, climate adaptation, equity and justice, and livelihood generation with others facing similar challenges. Finally, strengthened networking across food biocultural diversity neighborhoods is essential to their persistence and growth as they increasingly engage with local, national, and international organizations, based on shared interests and on their own terms, across five continents.

While progress has been made recently in understanding food systems per se, much less is known about policies around those food systems. In this paper, we aim at understanding the food system policy context with the specific objective to look at policy dynamics—defined as the way policy agendas are identified, justified, and framed by decision-makers, and how they interact. Vietnam is used as a case study. Primary data were generated through face-to-face interviews complemented by an online survey. A policy framing approach was used to structure the research. The analysis reveals how the policy agenda is considered by many actors to be only partially evidence-based and highlights the extent to which the state government remains the most powerful actor in the setting of that agenda. The research also reveals the diffusion of the food safety crisis narrative beyond its original technical domain into a larger number of policy framings related to other issues of food systems, thus making it de facto the “center of gravity” of the current agenda on food systems in Vietnam. Yet, a comparison with data from other countries challenges this narrative, and reveals instead how the (legitimate) public concern about food safety is being instrumentalized by certain groups of actors to advance their own agenda. The implication of this “distorted” framing is the risk for the decision-makers to “overfocus” their attention on this short-term issue and lose sight of some other longer-term structural trends such as the emergence of obesity in Vietnamese urban population.

Crop diversity underpins the productivity, resilience and adaptive capacity of agriculture. Loss of this diversity, termed crop genetic erosion, is therefore concerning. While alarms regarding evident declines in crop diversity have been raised for over a century, the magnitude, trajectory, drivers and significance of these losses remain insufficiently understood. We outline the various definitions, measurements, scales and sources of information on crop genetic erosion. We then provide a synthesis of evidence regarding changes in the diversity of traditional crop landraces on farms, modern crop cultivars in agriculture, crop wild relatives in their natural habitats and crop genetic resources held in conservation repositories. This evidence indicates that marked losses, but also maintenance and increases in diversity, have occurred in all these contexts, the extent depending on species, taxonomic and geographic scale, and region, as well as analytical approach. We discuss steps needed to further advance knowledge around the agricultural and societal significance, as well as conservation implications, of crop genetic erosion. Finally, we propose actions to mitigate, stem and reverse further losses of crop diversity.