There is an ongoing debate about how best to feed the growing world population in the long run and associated implications for research and development. Some call for a new Green Revolution to secure the supply of staple foods, whereas others emphasize the importance of diversifying and improving people's diets. We aim to contribute to this debate by reviewing the case of wheat and maize value chains and their contribution to food security in Africa and Asia. We first identify drivers transforming food systems. We then apply these to the cereal value chains and disentangle their effects on food security. We thereby add to the three strands in the literature around production, consumption, and food system transformation and point to different research needs and recommendations for the future. The review highlights: (1) Wheat and maize production will be increasingly impaired by ecological drivers such as land degradation, water scarcity and climate change. (2) There are promising innovations to increase and maintain productivity, but constraints in adopting these innovations have to be overcome (i.e., access to seeds, finance, and education/training). (3) The drivers affect all four dimensions of food security, but first and foremost they determine the availability and stability of maize and wheat. This indirectly also influences the economic and physical access of people to maize and wheat. (4) Research tends to focus on improving the productivity and sustainability of wheat and maize farming which is largely interlinked with the availability dimension of food security. (5) The stability and utilization dimension of food security merits continued yet increased support. First, to address climate change and implications for biotic and abiotic stresses. Second, to promote healthier diets and enable the equitable transformation of food systems.

Society’s interest in social impacts of products, services and organizational behaviors is rapidly growing. While life cycle assessments to evaluate environmental stressors have generally been well established in many industries, approaches to evaluate social impacts such as Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) lack methodological consistency and standardization. The aim of this paper is to identify past developments and methodological barriers of S-LCA and to summarize how the automotive industry contributed to the advancement or application of this method. Therefore, a qualitative content analysis of 111 studies published between 2015 and 2020 is used to gather information on past scientific and political milestones, methodological barriers impeding S-LCA and the participation of the automotive sector. The review shows that a broad range of sectors such as the automotive industry contributed to the testing and advancement of S-LCA in the past but that S-LCA remains a young and immature method. Large-scale application is impeded by major barriers such as the variety of impact categories and sub-categories, the lacking integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), issues of linking LCA structures to social phenomena or the difficult tracking of social impact pathways. Further research on standardization possibilities, the connection to political social targets and the testing of methods is necessary to overcome current barriers and increase the applicability and interpretability results.

Economic growth coupled with population increase and globalization have engendered structural changes in consumption patterns around the world. Contingent on their composition, these changes can be demanding on natural resources and pose unsustainable challenges for the environment. The paper aims to provide a general framework to assess the link between changing consumption patterns and their environmental impact by focusing on the rising beef demand in Vietnam. It draws from secondary literature and data to find that the increased beef demand in Vietnam is mostly met domestically, but there is a major dependency on imports. Within Vietnam, the rising demand has contributed substantially to the carbon footprint and land use and raised waste disposal concerns. To understand the impact of Vietnamese beef demand at the global level, the paper looks at Australia. Carbon footprint and land use are estimated to provide a perspective on the plausible scale of environmental damage that can be ensued in the future. Changes in consumption patterns are an integral part of our world and will play a significant role in determining the sustainable future of our planet. Therefore, it is important to attain a better understanding of the theme and its possible impact on the environment.

In this paper we submit some thoughts on the possible implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for rural people in the countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). We base our observations and conclusions on our long-term research experience in the region. The paper focuses on the economics of rural households during this crisis period and its aftermath. We conclude that country differences clearly exist due to their different stages of development. However, while rural households belong to the Corona risk groups, they are also resilient to such a shock. We submit that Governments in the GMS should strengthen policies that conserve the safety-net function of rural villages.

Farm production diversity is widely promoted as a strategy for enhancing smallholders' food and nutrition security. Nonetheless, empirical evidence from the rural smallholder context is still mixed. This study compares the nature, determinants and influence of farm production diversity on household dietary diversity in rural and peri-urban settings in Kenya and Tanzania. Descriptive and econometric analyses are employed using household-level survey data from four counties in Kenya (n = 1212) and two districts in Tanzania (n = 899). Results show notable variations in farm production diversity in the two countries as well as varying levels of household dietary diversity. For both countries, results further show that, farm production diversity has a positive and significant influence on indicators of household dietary diversity. However, this influence is more pronounced to households in remote rural settings. In peri-urban and rural areas with better market access, production diversity is generally lower but dietary diversity higher. These findings imply that although production diversity remains an important factor in ensuring enhanced household dietary diversity, it is imperative for policies related to food and nutrition security to consider context specific production and market-related aspects of smallholder agriculture. That is, while interventions focusing on farm production diversity may be important in rural contexts with poor market access, addressing market related bottlenecks can be more beneficial in rural and urban areas with better market access.