The aim of the present research is to provide a comprehensive review about the current challenges related to food security and hidden hunger. Issues are presented according to major factors, such as growing population, changing dietary habits, water efficiency, climate change and volatile food prices. These factors were compiled from reports of major international organizations and from relevant scientific articles on the subject. Collecting the results and presenting them in an accessible manner may provide new insight for interested parties. Accessibility of data is extremely important, since food security and its drivers form a closely interconnected but extremely complex network, which requires coordinated problem solving to resolve issues. According to the results, the demand for growing agricultural products has been partly met by increasing cultivated land in recent decades. At the same time, there is serious competition for existing agricultural areas, which further limits the extension of agricultural land in addition to the natural constraints of land availability. Agricultural production needs to expand faster than population growth without further damage to the environment. The driving force behind development is sustainable intensive farming, which means the more effective utilization of agricultural land and water resources. Current global trends in food consumption are unsustainable, analyzed in terms of either public health, environmental impacts or socio-economic costs. The growing population should strive for sustainable food consumption, as social, environmental and health impacts are very important in this respect as well. To this end, the benefits of consuming foods that are less harmful to the environment during production are also to be emphasized in the scope of consumption policy and education related to nutrition as opposed to other food types, the production of which causes a major demand for raw materials.

The great environmental impact of increasing animal product consumption requires the willingness to reduce or to substitute meat consumption. A possible substitute product, plant-based meat substitute, is made from plants and offers a sensory experience similar to conventional meat. In this narrative review, we focus on the consumer acceptance of plant-based meat alternatives. We searched for peer-reviewed studies in SCOPUS and Web of Science (WoS) up to December 2021. Of all 111 records identified, 28 were eligible, and, thus, included in this narrative review. The results imply that established consumer behavior has complex socio-economic implications for the adoption of plant-based meat substitutes. Plant-based meat was consistently rated more favorably than other meat substitute products, but sensory and nutritional implications still exist. Environmental and health-related factors may contribute to the market spread of plant-based meat substitutes, but these factors alone are not sufficient. Furthermore, so far there is no information available about how the hypothetical measurements used in the studies (such as willingness to pay) will translate to real life consumer behavior. Despite these barriers, there is certainly a great market potential for plant-based meat alternatives, which is expected to be more pronounced in the future, with increasing environmental and health awareness.

This review studies biofuel expansion in terms of competition between conventional and advanced biofuels based on bioenergy potential. Production of advanced biofuels is generally more expensive than current biofuels because products are not yet cost competitive. What is overlooked in the discussion about biofuel is the contribution the industry makes to the global animal feed supply and land use for cultivation of feedstocks. The global ethanol industry produces 44 million metric tonnes of high-quality feed, however, the co-products of biodiesel production have a moderate impact on the feed market contributing to just 8–9 million tonnes of protein meal output a year. By economically displacing traditional feed ingredients co-products from biofuel production are an important and valuable component of the biofuels sector and the global feed market. The return of co-products to the feed market has agricultural land use (and GHG emissions) implications as well. The use of co-products generated from grains and oilseeds can reduce net land use by 11% to 40%. The proportion of global cropland used for biofuels is currently some 2% (30–35 million hectares). By adding co-products substituted for grains and oilseeds the land required for cultivation of feedstocks declines to 1.5% of the global crop area.

Climate change seems to be larger, more complex and more unpredictable than any other environmental problem. This review deals with the economic effects of climate change on global agricultural production. The causes and consequences of climate change are very diverse, while populations in low-income countries are increasingly exposed to its negative effects. Supplying the population with food is possible with increased agricultural production, but this often occurs under unsustainable circumstances. Increased agricultural production is also one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In this research we highlight some of the important connections between climate change, population growth and agricultural production.

The present study is a synthesizing analysis of international literature on correlations between sustainability, sport, and physical activity. The study of sustainability is considered essential in modern research; its multidisciplinary approach relies on sports science and sports economics as well. There are several aspects of sustainability that are closely associated with health and health preservation; the beneficial effect of exercise on health is also widely known. For the analysis of this complex matter, our current study relied on secondary sources, and besides exploring specialist literature, it also illustrates and analyzes related statistical data. Our results highlight the correlations between living environment and physical activity, the importance of increasing individual commitment towards sustainability and using green spaces for exercising, as well as questions on social and environmental development in relation to physical activity. The study revealed the existence of highly complex links between physical environment, physical activities, and sustainability. The results section of our study provides a brief summary on the possible ways of making people physically active. Increasing physical activity is of paramount importance for achieving the objectives formulated in relation to sustainability.

The article analyses co-authorship and co-citation networks in Food Policy, which is the most important agricultural policy journal in the field of agricultural economics. The paper highlights the principal researchers in this field together with their authorship and citation networks on the basis of 714 articles written between 2006 and 2015. Results suggest that the majority of the articles were written by a small number of researchers, indicating that groups and central authors play an important role in scientific advances. It also turns out that the number of articles and the central role played in the network are not related, contrary to expectations. Results also suggest that groups cite themselves more often than average, thereby boosting the scientific advancement of their own members.