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Ensuring Food Security in a Changing World
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Ensuring Food Security in a Changing World

A special issue of Crops (ISSN 2673-7655).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2023) | Viewed by 13797

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Razia S. Shaik

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia 4068, Australia
Interests: food production systems; food security; soil productivity; weed management; herbicide resistance; molecular biology tools
Prof. Dr. David Clements

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biology, Trinity Western University, Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1, Canada
Interests: agroecology; weed biology and ecology; weed management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Industrial farming has resulted in some unintended consequences including loss of soil quality, and the onset of super weeds that evolved to combat continuous herbicide sprays overtime in this changed farming system. The soil quality loss has led to degraded soils, which have in turn changed the vegetation on farmlands that are known to support invasive weeds. Consequently, these invasions have promoted the extensive use of chemical herbicides. The soil quality loss has also caused reduction in nutritional value of the food produced therein. Recent advances in technologies have provided us with tools to understand these aspects better.

With this Special Issue, we aim to shed light on the interconnectedness of loss of soil quality, productivity, food production ability of soils, loss of food quality, weed invasions and onset of herbicide resistance.

Aiming to collect cutting-edge research covering the most recent advancements in this field, this Special Issue welcomes studies that investigate molecular tools that assist in overcoming herbicide resistance, crop responses to food quality, and technologies that detect the changes in the soil since the introduction of industrial farming, tools to better support our soils and farming systems and enhance our food security through increased food production.

For this Special Issue, we welcome papers investigating soil–weed–crop interactions, advanced technologies assisting with emerging issues such as soil quality loss, herbicide resistance, food quality loss due to excessive fertilizer application, herbicide resistance and food security.

Dr. Razia S. Shaik
Prof. Dr. David Clements
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crops is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soil quality
  • weed management
  • molecular biology tools
  • food security
  • gene technologies
  • agronomy
  • plant breeding
  • food security
  • international trade
  • water management
  • trade wars
  • global supply chain management

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

20 pages, 329 KiB  
Review
Variations and Commonalities of Farming Systems Based on Ecological Principles
by Anil Shrestha and David Horwitz
Crops 2024, 4(3), 288-307; https://doi.org/10.3390/crops4030021 - 8 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1707
Abstract
In the last few decades, various types of farming systems based on ecological principles have been proposed and developed. There is often interest in knowing about the differences between these systems, but such information must be obtained from several sources describing each of [...] Read more.
In the last few decades, various types of farming systems based on ecological principles have been proposed and developed. There is often interest in knowing about the differences between these systems, but such information must be obtained from several sources describing each of these systems. Therefore, this paper is an effort to consolidate the information on these systems in a concise manner without making comparative ratings between them. We found three components contained in the overarching theme of these systems: the reduction in external inputs, environmental protection, and sustainability. However, several variations exist between them, each with its own focus and guiding principles. Also, these farming systems contain their own specific terms to identify themselves and contain their own set of philosophies based on their founder. In this review, we provided a short description of some of the major ecologically based farming systems such as “agroecology”, “regenerative agriculture”, “holistic management”, “carbon farming”, “organic farming”, “permaculture”, “biodynamic farming”, “conservation agriculture”, and “regenerative organic farming”. We summarized these farming systems as “variants of farming systems based on ecological principles” and outlined the similarities and differences between them. We also discussed how the themes of these systems relate to the United Nations’ thirteen principles of agroecology. Although these systems share several similarities, their philosophy is rooted in their founders and the communities that choose to adopt these philosophies. Last, we discussed some of the challenges in implementing these ecological agriculture systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Food Security in a Changing World)
16 pages, 1355 KiB  
Review
Speed Breeding for Crop Improvement and Food Security
by Jesse Potts, Sumit Jangra, Vincent N. Michael and Xingbo Wu
Crops 2023, 3(4), 276-291; https://doi.org/10.3390/crops3040025 - 3 Nov 2023
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 10912
Abstract
Amid a rapidly growing global population and increasing threats to crop yields, this review focuses on Speed Breeding (SB) in crop genetics. It traces SB’s development from carbon arc lamp experiments 150 years ago to its modern use with LED technology which significantly [...] Read more.
Amid a rapidly growing global population and increasing threats to crop yields, this review focuses on Speed Breeding (SB) in crop genetics. It traces SB’s development from carbon arc lamp experiments 150 years ago to its modern use with LED technology which significantly accelerates breeding cycles. SB has applications in genetic mapping, genetic modification, and trait stacking, enhancing crop resilience by leveraging allelic diversity. It aligns well with breeding methods like single plant selection and single seed descent. The integration of SB with gene editing, genotyping, and genomic selection holds great promise. However, SB faces challenges related to infrastructure, genotypic variations, and potential stress responses. In summary, SB is a powerful and promising approach to address food security concerns and advancing crop genetics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Food Security in a Changing World)
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