China feeds approximately 22% of the global population with only 7% of the global arable land because of its surprising success in intensive agriculture. This outstanding achievement is partially overshadowed by agriculture-related large-scale environmental pollution across the nation. To ensure nutrition security and environmental sustainability, China proposed the Green Food Strategy in the 1990s and set up a specialized management agency, the China Green Food Development Center, with a monitoring network for policy and standard creation, brand authorization, and product inspection. Following these 140 environmental and operational standards, 15,984 green food companies provided 36,345 kinds of products in 2019. The cultivation area and annual domestic sales (CNY 465.7 billion) of green food accounted for 8.2% of the total farmland area and 9.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP) from agriculture in China. Herein, we systemically reviewed the regulation, standards, and authorization system of green food and its current advances in China, and then outlined its environmental benefits, challenges, and probable strategies for future optimization and upscaling. The rapid development of the green food industry in China suggests an applicable triple-win strategy for protecting the environment, promoting agroeconomic development, and improving human nutrition and health in other developing countries or regions.

Sustainable alternative farming systems are gaining popularity worldwide because of the negative effects of conventional agriculture on global climate change and the environmental degradation caused by intensive use of synthetic inputs. The green farming system in China is an integrated production strategy that focuses on reducing chemical fertilizer use while increasing organic manure inputs. Despite their rapid growth as more sustainable systems over the past decades, green farming systems have not been systematically evaluated to date. We used apple production as a representative case to assess the sustainability of green farming systems. Across major apple-producing regions in China, green farming reduced the application of chemical fertilizer nitrogen (N) by 46.8% (from 412 to 219 kg ha^-1) and increased that of manure N by 33.1% (from 171 to 227 kg ha^-1) on average compared with conventional systems enhancing N use efficiency by 7.27-20.27% and reducing N losses by 8.92%-11.56%. It also slightly lowered yield by 4.34%-13.8% in four provinces. Soil fertility was improved in green orchards through increases in soil organic matter, total N, and available major nutrients. Our cradle-to-farm-gate life-cycle assessment revealed that green farming helped to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 12.6%, potentially contributing to a reduction of 165 239 t CO₂ eq annually in major apple-producing areas. In addition, green farming achieved 39.3% higher profitability ($7180 ha^-1 year^-1) at the farmer level. Our study demonstrates the potential of green production of apples for the development of sustainable agriculture in China. These findings advance our understanding of sustainable alternative farming systems and offer perspectives for the sustainable development of global agriculture.

Oolong tea, one of the most famous tea beverages in China, contains specialized metabolites contributing to rich flavors and human health. Accumulation patterns of such metabolites and underlying regulatory mechanisms significantly vary under different growth conditions. To optimize quality and yield while minimizing environmental effects, three treatments were designed in this study: Conventional fertilization, optimized fertilization, and optimized fertilization supplemented with magnesium (Mg). We investigated the yield, taste quality, primary and secondary metabolites of oolong tea, and found that a substantial reduction in chemical fertilizers (nutrient optimization by reducing 43% N, 58% P₂O₅ and 55% K₂O) did not affect the tea yield in this study. Interestingly, Mg fertilization is an important factor influencing amino acid and sugar accumulation in oolong tea, resulting in higher concentrations of total free amino acids and a lower ratio of tea polyphenols (TP) to free amino acids (FAA). Gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS) and liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) combined multivariate analyses revealed distinct features of metabolite accumulation in leaves of three different treatments, as indicated by 34 differentially accumulated characteristic compounds. The levels of serine, aspartic acid, isoleucine, phenylalanine, theanine, and proline were reduced by fertilizer optimization and increased by Mg supplementation. Mg particularly promoted theanine accumulation favoring a stronger umami taste of oolong tea, while decreasing astringency and bitter metabolites. Thus, Mg application paves a new path for tea quality improvement in Southern China where Mg deficiency in the soil is a frequent limiting factor for crop production.

In China, green food refers to a wide array of certified agricultural and processed edible commodities that are produced strictly following defined standard protocols and labelled with a specified “Green Food” logo. The demand for green labelled rice is rapidly growing due to its higher quality and adherence to safety standards compared to conventional rice. Therefore, the physicochemical and nutritional quality of green rice needs to be further investigated for consumers’ benefits. Using Daohuaxiang 2, one of the most famous types of green rice, we found that green rice was significantly superior to conventional rice in terms of thousand kernel weight, chalkiness, amylose content, and rheological properties. Green rice contained lower levels of heavy metals than conventional rice due to a dramatic reduction in chemical inputs during its cultivation. The concentrations of Cr, As, Cd, Pb in green rice decreased, respectively, from 98.7 to 180.1 μg/kg, 49.8 to 62.3 μg/kg, 7.8 to 9.1 μg/kg, and 29.0 to 42.8 μg/kg on average. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC–MS)-based metabolomics, in combination with multivariate analysis, revealed that 15 metabolites differentially accumulated when comparing green and conventional rice. Among these, 12 metabolites showed a high accumulation in green rice, including seven amino acids, two sugars, and three fatty acids. Overall, our results suggest the superior quality of a type of green rice that is popular in China, which may boost green rice consumption and facilitate the further expansion of green rice production in China.