Food Security, Nutrition, and Sustainability in Low- and Middle- Income Countries

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Security and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 August 2026 | Viewed by 646

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Nutrition and Health, Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa 36570-900, MG, Brazil
Interests: social nutrition; food and nutritional insecurity; food bank; sustainable production; agri-food systems; health and nutrition

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Nutrition and Health, Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa 36570-900, MG, Brazil
Interests: nutrition in public health; food and nutritional security of families; school meals; food and nutritional education; food and nutrition

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This edition aims to evaluate and understand Food and Nutritional Security in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, as well as the factors and/or indicators that influence each specific situation.

The article may be methodological in origin, focusing on the specific methodological characteristics used—systematic, scope, integrative and review; it may also be based on secondary data on Food and Nutritional Security, as well as factors that may have interfered with the results. It may also be an article based on primary data from studies that use Food and Nutritional Security and related factors, such as agri-food systems, economic, political, social, cultural, anthropometric, biochemical and dietary situations, among others. It may focus on vulnerable groups, local or national data that may or may not involve territorial assessments.

Original publications cannot have been published in other journals or presented at scientific events.

Original articles must have an opinion from an Ethics Committee.

Prof. Dr. Silvia Eloiza Priore
Dr. Dayane de Castro Morais
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • food security
  • food and nutritional security
  • agri-food systems
  • population groups
  • population or population groups in greater vulnerability
  • factors: social, demographic, cultural, economic, political, health, anthropometric, biochemical, dietary and nutritional
  • indicators: territorial, local or national

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

47 pages, 292447 KB  
Article
A Multi-Scenario Coupled Simulation of Diet–Land Systems: Diet–Land Supply–Demand Matching and Responses from the Historical-to-Future
by Liu Zhang, Xuanyun Zhang, Jiabao Zhang, Bin Fang, Chunhua Xia, Yun Ling, Kaili Zhang, Shihan Zhang, Zongchen Zhao and Xueying Lv
Foods 2026, 15(9), 1490; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15091490 - 24 Apr 2026
Viewed by 335
Abstract
Dietary transition is reshaping cropland demand and intensifying the challenge of matching food demand with land supply in rapidly urbanizing regions. This study examines how different dietary structure scenarios generate differentiated cropland demand, how these demands match with land supply under alternative development [...] Read more.
Dietary transition is reshaping cropland demand and intensifying the challenge of matching food demand with land supply in rapidly urbanizing regions. This study examines how different dietary structure scenarios generate differentiated cropland demand, how these demands match with land supply under alternative development pathways, and how the land system responds when diet-driven demand is incorporated into land-use simulation. Using Jiangsu Province, China, as a case study, we developed a coupled diet–land simulation framework. On the demand side, five dietary structure scenarios—current, balanced, U.S., Japanese, and Greek—were constructed based on seven food categories, and their cropland demand in 2035 and 2050 was estimated using the cropland footprint approach and LSTM forecasting. On the supply side, the GeoSOS-FLUS model was used to simulate future land-use patterns under four development scenarios: natural development, cultivated land protection, ecological protection, and economic development. The cropland demand associated with each dietary scenario was then introduced into the land-use simulation process as an external demand constraint to identify land-system feedbacks and scenario differences. The results show that cropland demand differs markedly across dietary scenarios, forming a clear gradient from moderate-demand to high-demand diets. These differences are driven primarily by changes in the composition of key food categories, especially grains, livestock and poultry meat, plant oils, and fruits, rather than by proportional increases across all foods. In terms of supply–demand matching, the cultivated land protection scenario provides the strongest support for high-demand diets, whereas the natural development, ecological protection, and economic development scenarios are more compatible with moderate-demand dietary pathways. Once diet-driven demand is incorporated into land-use simulation, the land system shows clear sensitivity and strong scenario dependence. High-demand dietary scenarios intensify cropland compensation pressure and trigger structural reallocation among cultivated land and flexible land types. Under natural development, the response is mainly reflected in cropland expansion and grassland compression; under cultivated land protection and ecological protection, it is expressed more through substitutions among grassland, water bodies, and unused land; under economic development, the most prominent feedback is the competitive reallocation among cultivated land, construction land, and water bodies, with high dietary demand even constraining construction land expansion. Overall, the robustness of cropland supply–demand matching depends not only on the scale of dietary demand but also on how different dietary pathways interact with development-oriented land-use structures. Full article
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