Farm to Fork: Balancing the Needs for Sustainable Food Production and Food for Health Promotion
1
Department of Biological Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, University of Limerick, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
2
Bernal Institute, University of Limerick, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
3
Health Research Institute, University of Limerick, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3396; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043396
Submission received: 29 January 2023
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Accepted: 8 February 2023
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Published: 13 February 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue From Farm to Fork: Balancing the Needs for Sustainable Food Production and Food for Health Promotion)
Food is an essential human need underpinning health and wellbeing, while also having the potential to support environmental sustainability. In the past several decades, an emphasis on maximising yield though improved production practices has enhanced human lives in several respects, including by reducing hunger, infant and child mortality and poverty, and raising life expectancy [1,2]. Despite these advances, a downside of these practices is a shift to diets that are calorie-dense, processed and utilise animal products [3,4]. Food production is also a major contributor to environmental degradation [5,6]. Thus, food needs to be produced in a way that is not only healthy and nutritious but also environmentally sustainable. For example, during the period 2007–2016, total net greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use accounted for 23% of total net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions [7]. Land management and land use change also contributes to biodiversity loss [8], freshwater use [2] and soil degradation [9], which all affect land productivity and food security [10].
In this Special Issue, three interesting papers have been included.
The first paper concerns soil phytoremediation from cadmium using Sesbania sesban L. in association with Bacillus anthracis PM21. Ali et al. evaluated the plant-growth-promoting potential of the bacterial strain B. anthracis PM21 using S. sesban; they concluded that this bacterium can be an effective candidate for the phyto-remediation of Cd-polluted soil.
The paper is available online at: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13529 (accessed on 29 November 2022).
In the second paper, Esteves et al. used life-cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impact of growing pigs, focusing on the production of crude protein while supplementing amino acids. They concluded that acidification, eutrophication and land occupation were reduced with the reduction of protein concentration.
The paper is available online at: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4815 (accessed on 29 November 2022).
In the third paper, Hor et al. estimated the emissions of carbon dioxide from a traditional Cambodian diet food production system using LCA. They reported that the country’s existing food production system generates CO2 emissions of 9.7 Mt CO2 eq/yr, with the proposed system reducing these by 28.9% to 6.9 Mt CO2 eq/yr.
The paper is available online at: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/3660 (accessed on 29 November 2022).
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, K.A.B. and I.Z.; Writing—original draft preparation, K.A.B. and I.Z.; writing—review and editing, K.A.B. and I.Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Byrne, K.A.; Zabetakis, I. Farm to Fork: Balancing the Needs for Sustainable Food Production and Food for Health Promotion. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3396. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043396
AMA Style
Byrne KA, Zabetakis I. Farm to Fork: Balancing the Needs for Sustainable Food Production and Food for Health Promotion. Sustainability. 2023; 15(4):3396. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043396
Chicago/Turabian StyleByrne, Kenneth A., and Ioannis Zabetakis. 2023. "Farm to Fork: Balancing the Needs for Sustainable Food Production and Food for Health Promotion" Sustainability 15, no. 4: 3396. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043396
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