Nutritional security and ecosystem sustainability are the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Globally ~ 2.3 billion people suffer from malnutrition. According to estimates by the World Bank, malnutrition globally costs ~ $ 3.5 trillion per year. On the other hand, the production and availability of staple food is the major emphasis for conventional farming in developing and underdeveloped countries for assured food security. These staple foods are high in carbohydrates and energy availability but low in nutritional value, such as concerning micronutrient, phytochemical, and vitamin contents. Apart from adequate food, there should be consistent access, availability, and affordability of foods and beverages that are nutrient-dense, promote well-being, and minimize diseases. From the experience of the recent COVID-19 crisis, the importance of adequate dietary habits has been emphasized globally since food nutrients are considered inherent sources of immunomodulation.

This book discusses agricultural diversification, nutritional security and environmental sustainability. It helps to address the multipronged challenges of nutritional security while preserving the dwindling natural resources in the current fluctuating climate conditions. Energy-intensive, conventional agricultural production systems accelerate environmental footprints, resource mining, biodiversity losses, and human health problems and reduce soil functionality. Diversified farming can potentially enhance yield, food security, and climate change buffering as it helps to achieve advanced food security by efficient resource use and profit maximization. This book covers the challenges faced during the adoption of diversified farming and opportunities to enhanced food production and minimize the environmental footprints. This book is useful for academicians, researchers, ecologists, environmentalists, students, capacity builders, and policymakers to have in-depth knowledge of this complex and diverse field. This book also helps in devising a road map for policy planning and advancement of existing knowledge for various stakeholders working in this field.

This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.

This book offers critical insights by international scholars, with chapters on global food security, supermarket power, new technologies, and sustainability. The book also assesses the contributions of diet and nutrition research in building socially just and environmentally sustainable food systems and provides policy recommendations to improve the health and environmental status of contemporary agri-food systems.

One of the major knowledge challenges in the domain of Resilient and Sustainable Food Systems refers to the integration of perspectives on consumption, patterns that support public health, inclusive value chains, and environmentally sustainable food production. While there is a long record of the analysis of separate interventions, this special issue generates integrated insights, provides cross-cutting perspectives, and outlines practical and policy solutions that address these global challenges.The collection of papers promotes the view that sustainable food systems require thorough insights into the structure and dynamics of agri-food production systems, the drivers for integrating food value chains and markets, and key incentives for supporting healthier consumer choices. On the production side, potential linkages between agricultural commercialization and intensification and their effects for food security and nutritional outcomes are analyzed. Value Chains are assessed for their contribution to improving exchange networks and markets for food products that simultaneously support efficiency, circularity, and responsiveness. Individual motives and market structures for food consumption need to be understood in order to be able to outline suitable incentives to enhance healthy dietary choice.The contributed papers focus on interfaces between food system activities and processes of adaptive change that are critical for overcoming key constraints and trade-offs between sustainable food and healthy diets.

This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.