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Global geospatial datasets and a regression discontinuity design enable the country-level effects, such as agricultural policies, on crop yields and nitrogen pollution to be quantified. The influences of countries were much larger on nitrogen pollution than on crop yields.

Existing datasets of nitrogen (N) balance in agriculture are often discrepant. Comparing 13 of them regarding five metrics (fertilizer application, manure application, biological N fixation, atmospheric deposition, and N harvested as crop products) over 1961–2015 reveals why. Recommendations for improving N quantification and an N budget benchmark dataset are also proposed.

Earthworms contribute to plant growth. Here, Fonte et al. conduct a global meta-analysis and estimate that earthworms contribute to roughly 6.5% of global grain (maize, rice, wheat, barley) production and 2.3% of legume yields, equivalent to over 140 million metric tons annually.

There are big uncertainties in the contribution of irrigation to crop yields. Here, the authors use Bayesian model averaging to combine statistical and process-based models and quantify the contribution of irrigation for wheat and maize yields, finding that irrigation alone cannot close yield gaps for a large fraction of global rainfed agriculture.

The global agrarian transition is characterized by a rise in large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs), whose energy impacts are unknown. Here, the authors assess how LSLAs change land use, finding that they necessitate greater investment in energy to meet demands, and greater greenhouse gas emissions.

The patterns of how yield gaps change can suggest likely future outcomes for crop growth. This study conducts a spatial and temporal analysis of yield gaps for ten major crops from 1975 to 2010 and identifies regions where crops are experiencing ‘ceiling pressure’, signalling opportunities to improve future food security.

Plectasin, a natural host defence peptide of fungal origin, uses a calcium-sensitive supramolecular killing mechanism to block bacterial cell wall synthesis.

Global antibiotic scarcity looms owing to bacterial resistance. Now the discovery of a class of allosteric inhibitors targeting DNA gyrase—essential for bacteria—yields a compound LEI-800 that exhibits activity against fluoroquinolone-resistant E. coli. The compound’s unique mode of action, revealed through cryo-EM, makes it a promising candidate for countering bacterial resistance.

Quantifying the long-term (LT) response of crop yields to nitrogen fertilizer is critical to improving nutrient management practices. Based on 25 LT field experiments, this study develops a generic LT nitrogen response function for global cereals to characterize the yield impacts, associated LT economic benefits and external costs of changing nitrogen inputs.

A high-resolution, global atlas of mortality of children under five years of age between 2000 and 2017 highlights subnational geographical inequalities in the distribution, rates and absolute counts of child deaths by age.

Extreme high temperature events are increasing in frequency and severity, threatening the capacity for crops and farmers alike to adapt. Here Sloat and colleagues track the movement of cereal crops over the past 40 years, finding a global migration away from warming climates.

Spirulina is used to manufacture a therapeutic antibody against campylobacter.

Here, the authors reveal the protonation of a single membrane embedded glutamate residue within the homodimer of the efflux transporter EmrE modulates the structure and dynamics in an allosteric manner using NMR spectroscopy.

This study demonstrates the energy use of US pump irrigation produced 12.6 million tonnes CO₂e in 2018, with spatial variability modulated by water source and fuel choice. These county-level estimates can inform strategic irrigation expansion and emissions reduction efforts.

Despite its utility for climate change adaptation, US irrigation produces 18.9 MtCO₂e yr⁻¹ from groundwater degassing, elevated N₂O and energy use. This county-level analysis reveals opportunities for geographically targeted emissions mitigation.

Global yields of major crops are analysed using climate, irrigation and new nutrient data to show that large production increases are possible from closing yield gaps to 100% of attainable yields, and that changes in management practices needed to close yield gaps vary considerably by region and current intensity.

Agriculture dependent on snowmelt will face serious challenges under climate change, which increases risks for countries that import these crop products. Food security and livelihoods in countries heavily exposed to global food trade may be vulnerable even though domestic production is not affected.

Climate change may pose a fundamental challenge to maintaining the high productivity of US dairy systems. Based on weather variability and milk yields from 1981 to 2018, this study estimates the impact of extreme heat and cold on productivity, the sensitivity of specific regions and the importance of farm management for mediating such impacts.

Shifting global food production to plant-based diets by 2050 can sequester 99–163% of the CO₂ emissions budget towards limiting climate warming to 1.5 °C.

Snowmelt runoff is an important source of water for irrigating agricultural crops in high-mountain Asia, Central Asia, western Russia, western US and the southern Andes. Climate change places water resources in these basins at risk, indicating the need to adapt water management.

Although progress in the coverage of routine measles vaccination in children in low- and middle-income countries was made during 2000–2019, many countries remain far from the goal of 80% coverage in all districts by 2019.

Fine-scale geospatial mapping of overweight and wasting (two components of the double burden of malnutrition) in 105 LMICs shows that overweight has increased from 5.2% in 2000 to 6.0% in children under 5 in 2017. Although overall wasting decreased over the same period, most countries are not on track to meet the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025.

RNAtag-seq barcodes transcripts prior to cDNA synthesis, thereby allowing pooled library generation from many input samples.

The vulnerability of barley production and beer supply to future weather extremes remains unknown. A study using modelling finds that weather extremes associated with climate change would threaten the availability and economic accessibility of beer.

Estimating the global cropland N₂O mitigation potential is limited by the uncertainty and variability of direct emission factors (EFs). Here, using a data-driven approach with 1,507 chamber-based field observations of EFs, the study shows that EF variation is primarily driven by climatic and edaphic factors. Two-thirds of the mitigation potential could be achieved on one-fifth of the global harvested area, mainly located in humid subtropical climates and across gleysols and acrisols.

The authors consider the complex effects of climate change on winter wheat in the United States. They show that snow cover insulation weakened yield sensitivity to freezing stress by 22% from 1999 to 2019, but project that future reduced snow cover will offset up to one-third of the yield benefit from reduced frost.

Perennial crops such as fruits and nuts, important to dietary diversity and nutrition, represent almost 40% of California’s agriculture by economic value. Here, the impacts of climate change and ozone on historical and future yields of perennial crops in California are assessed.

High-resolution subnational mapping of child growth failure indicators for 105 low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017 shows that, despite considerable progress, substantial geographical inequalities still exist in some countries.

Climate change will impact agriculture, and this study shows cropping frequency and caloric yield are negatively impacted on the global scale by warming. While cold regions will increase cropping frequency, warm regions will see greater decreases, resulting in an overall decline in production.

Demand for crops is increasing, but it is not clear whether the yields can meet this demand. Using crop yield observations, this study analyses global trends and finds that while yields continue to increase in some areas, across 24–39% of crop-growing regions, yields have stagnated or declined over the past 50 years.

Water scarcity associated with large-scale land acquisitions is exacerbated by adoption of water-intensive crops and expansion of irrigation, which in turn increases rival water uses.

Trends in the rate of region- and sector-specific land-use greenhouse gas emissions in 1961–2017 show an acceleration of about 20% per decade after 2001.

One-third of human-induced reactive nitrogen emissions can be traced to livestock supply chains. Highly variable nitrogen use efficiencies along these chains uncover opportunities for more sustainable nitrogen management.

Modulation of the cholinergic pathway and spleen function can reduce inflammation with invasive implants. Here, the authors show that non-invasive ultrasound stimulation of the spleen reduces disease severity in a mouse model of inflammatory arthritis, partly via altering B and T cell function.

Increases in temperature extremes are of major concern for agricultural production. However, this study identifies a connection between agricultural intensification and less extreme summer temperatures over the agriculturally dominated US Midwest.

Irrigation expansion is expected to meet increasing food demand and help agriculture adapt to climate change. This Review article synthesizes the various linkages between irrigation and climate, evaluating their impacts on each other and presenting innovative solutions for sustainable irrigation under climate change.

Water consumption does not put a constant stress on available supplies, but is instead a function of flexibility in demands for food, water and energy. This analysis looks at 36 years of water consumption around the globe to identify basins under the most stress, and how they can lower their intensive uses.

Irrigation accounts for a substantial proportion of global water usage and can have biophysical and biogeochemical impacts on Earth systems. This Review outlines key irrigation–Earth system interactions, and discusses the effect of future climate and socioeconomic changes on irrigation patterns and their interaction.

Global high-resolution crop-specific estimates of greenhouse gas emissions intensity (in 2000) reveal that certain cropping practices contribute disproportionately to emissions, making them suitable targets for climate mitigation policies.

Populus has young sex chromosomes despite ancient dioecy. This study shows that the ARR17 gene functions as a sex switch, triggering female development when on and male development when off. This single-gene system enables dynamic evolution of poplar sex chromosomes.