This report draws attention to the multiple benefits and threats of human nutrient use. It highlights how nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers are estimated to feed half the human population alive today, and how they will remain critical in the future, especially given increasing population and potential bioenergy needs. Yet high nutrient use has created a web of pollution affecting the environment and human health, while insufficient access to nutrients has led to soil degradation, causing food insecurity and exacerbating loss of natural ecosystems.

By 2050 the world’s population will rise to 9 billion. To satisfy demand, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has predicted that food production will need to increase by 70 per cent. Meanwhile, land and water resources are increasingly being degraded and depleted, which has serious implications for developing countries, and in particular for the African continent.

Investing in agriculture is essential for reducing hunger and promoting sustainable agricultural production. Those parts of the world where agricultural capital per worker and public investments in agriculture have stagnated are the epicentres of poverty and hunger today. Demand growth over the coming decades will place increasing pressure on the natural resource base. Eradicating hunger sustainably will require a significant increase in agricultural investments, but also an improvement in their effectiveness.

The primary objective of food packaging is to contain and protect foodstuffs from physical, chemical and mostly microbiological spoilage. At the same time food packaging serves as a powerful marketing tool attracting the consumer with features such as easy opening and handling, information on the nutrient and caloric content of the contained product, instructions on the preparation and use of the package contents etc. It is difficult to imagine modern society without packaged goods.

In this book, the authors discuss the sources, biotechnology applications and health challenges of functional foods. Topics discussed include the health potential of pulses and their bioactivity; health promoting phytonutrients and lactic acid bacteria in olives; health benefits of the Mediterranean diet; European consumers acceptance of healthy food products; fermentation of tomato juice with the probiotic yeast saccharomyces cerevisiae boulardii; and market strategies to maximise consumer acceptance of functional dairy-based foods and beverages.

This timely volume recognizes that traditional policy approaches to reduce human impacts on the environment through technological change – for example, emphasizing resource efficiency and the development of renewable energy sources – are insufficient to meet the most pressing sustainability challenges of the twenty-first century.

Food safety and hygiene is of critical importance to us all, yet, as periodic food crises in various countries each year show we are all dependent on others in business and public regulation to ensure that the food we consume in the retailing and hospitality sectors is safe. Bridget Hutter considers the understandings of risk and regulation held by those in business and considers the compliance pressures on managers and owners, and how these relate to understandings of risk and uncertainty.

For over 55 years, the United States has played a leading role in global efforts to alleviate hunger and malnutrition and to enhance world food security through international food aid activities. The development and implementation of a U.S. global food security initiative, and commitments made by global leaders to support agricultural development, have increased Congress’s focus on U.S. international food aid programs.

Currently 925 million people are undernourished and 195 million children under five years of age are stunted. At the same time, over 1 billion people are overweight and obese in both the developed and developing world. Diseases previously associated with affluence, such as cancer, diabetes and cardio-vascular disease, are on the rise.

This book offers a broad introduction to food policies in the United States. Real-world controversies and debates motivate the book’s attention to economic principles, policy analysis, nutrition science and contemporary data sources. It assumes that the reader’s concern is not just the economic interests of farmers, but also includes nutrition, sustainable agriculture, the environment and food security. The book’s goal is to make US food policy more comprehensible to those inside and outside the agri-food sector whose interests and aspirations have been ignored.

In this book, the authors present topical research in the study of the nutrition, consumption and health benefits of bean products. Topics discussed in this compilation include the chemical composition and food properties of six cultivars of African yam bean flours; food-grade soybean consumption and nutrition; proteinase inhibitors from legumes; lectins in legumes; seed yield in mungbean as correlated with root length density and total dry matter; defensins in beans; nutritional quality of beans and growing conditions; bean by-products and the angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitory and antioxidant activities of protein hydrolysates from four tropical legumes.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 presents new estimates of undernourishment based on a revised and improved methodology. These show that progress in reducing hunger during the past 20 years has been better than previously believed, and that, given renewed efforts, it may be possible to reach the MDG hunger target at the global level by 2015.