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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 8960

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Varvara Andreou

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Guest Editor

Institute of Technology of Agricultural Products-ELGO DEMETER, 14123 Lykovrissi, Greece
Interests: nonthermal technologies; food quality; valorization of food waste; food engineering; food and nutrition; mathematical modelling of processes; fruits and vegetables

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

World politics and governance are increasingly being challenged by a major issue—the capacity to provide safe and adequate food to its population, that is, food security. “Food security” can be defined as a state when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO 1996). Despite major efforts by national governments, achieving food security remains a major challenge in many developing countries. In addition to being essential to human existence, food security is fundamental to achieving economic growth, job creation, poverty reduction and global security.

A sustainable food system can be defined as one that ‘‘provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come, with minimal negative impact to the environment; encourages local production and distribution infrastructures; makes nutritious food available, accessible, and affordable to all; is humane and just, protecting farmers and other workers, consumers, and communities’’.

In order to be sustainable, a food system needs to generate positive value along three dimensions simultaneously: economic, social and environmental. On the environmental dimension, sustainability is determined by ensuring that the impacts of food system activities on the surrounding natural environment are neutral or positive, taking into consideration biodiversity, water, soil, animal and plant health, the carbon footprint, the water footprint, food loss and waste, and toxicity. Sustainable food systems must include sustainable practices from sowing through to waste disposal management, including production, processing, packaging, distributing, and retail and consumption. Global food production methods need to be changed in order to:

Minimize environmental impact and support the world’s future food production capacity.
Ensure the quality and high nutritional value of “new” products that meet the modern needs of consumers and market trends in terms of nutritional value and wellness.
Reduce the environmental footprint of products throughout their life cycle, using natural resources, reducing liquid waste and gas emissions and increasing the energy efficiency of equipment and productivity.

This Special Issue focuses on original research articles and reviews regarding food security, in terms of potential difficulties, solutions and opportunities of transitioning toward healthier dietary patterns. The Issue also aims to highlight sustainable ways/uses to: (a) apply eco-friendly processes in the food chain, (b) develop new foods’ re-using of natural resources and (c) valorize food wastes and minimize food losses according to the Circular Economy principle. In this framework, studies concerning the application of new food processes, food waste disposal management, the sustainable valorization of food losses or by-products, the construction of new facilities adopting green policies to reduce energy consumption and improve efficiencies, the reuse of natural resources or low-value materials, the treatment of wastewater for its reuse and the sustainable exploitation of natural resources are welcome. We also welcome other related arguments, in the form of both specialized and interdisciplinary manuscripts.

Dr. Varvara Andreou
Guest Editor

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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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

food system
nutritional health benefits of natural resources
reuse
sustainability
valorization
management of food losses
by-products
nonthermal technologies
circular economy
eco-friendly processes
reduction of energy consumption
food waste disposal
environmental sustainability
life-cycle assessment
footprint
zero food waste

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 11578 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Extractions of Protein-Rich Alaria esculenta and Lemna minor by the Use of High-Power (Assisted) Ultrasound

by Lara Inguanez, Xianglu Zhu, Jefferson de Oliveira Mallia, Brijesh K. Tiwari and Vasilis P. Valdramidis

Sustainability 2023, 15(10), 8024; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15108024 - 15 May 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1437

Abstract

Plant nutrients extracted from sustainable sources, namely Alaria esculenta and Lemna minor, have been evaluated for their nutritional value in an attempt to identify their potential as protein-rich sources. The implementation of green technologies such as high-power ultrasound to extract nutrients from these alternative biomasses was studied and compared to more traditional techniques. Probe sonicators fared better than bath sonicators in extracting bioactive compounds while ultrasound assisted with enzymes was more efficient than conventional or alkali extraction methods. Lemna minor was found to have the greatest extraction yield of nutrients. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Security and Environmentally Sustainable Food Systems)

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13 pages, 4946 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Monitoring Cadmium Content in the Leaves of Field Pepper and Eggplant in a Karst Area Using Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Data

by Xingsong Yi, Ximei Wen, Anjun Lan, Quanhou Dai, Youjin Yan, Yin Zhang and Yiwen Yao

Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3508; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043508 - 14 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1123

Abstract

The ability to quickly and non-destructively monitor the cadmium (Cd) content in agricultural crops is the basic premise of effective prevention and control of Cd contamination in agricultural products. Hyperspectral technology provides a solution for this issue. The potential capability for the spectral prediction of the Cd content in the leaves of pepper and eggplant in the field was explored, and a spectral prediction model of the Cd content in these leaves was established. In this study, based on the indoor spectrum, the sensitive wavebands for predicting the Cd content in leaves were determined preliminarily by correlation analysis. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) and support vector machine regression (SVMR) were used to establish spectral prediction models, and the final sensitive wavebands were determined by the size of the model index. The results show that the SVMR model exhibited higher prediction accuracy than the PLSR model. The RPDp (relative percent different of prediction set) values of the best SVMR prediction models for the pepper leaves and the eggplant leaves were 1.82 and 1.49, respectively. The values of Rp² (coefficient of determination of prediction set), which can quantitatively estimate the Cd content in leaves, were 0.897 (p < 0.01) and 0.726 (p < 0.01), respectively. This study demonstrated that the leaf spectra of pepper and eggplant in the field can be used to predict the Cd content in leaves, providing a reference for monitoring the Cd content in the fruits of pepper and eggplant in the future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Security and Environmentally Sustainable Food Systems)

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23 pages, 2880 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Incorporation of Acid Whey Yogurt By-Product in Novel Sauces Formulation: Quality and Shelf-Life Evaluation

by Varvara Andreou, Sofia Chanioti, Maria-Zaharoula Xanthou and George Katsaros

Sustainability 2022, 14(23), 15722; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142315722 - 25 Nov 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1434

Abstract

This study aimed to develop high quality, added value novel sauces with acid whey (AW) (liquid or powder) incorporation. Liquid pasteurized AW was substituted (partly 10%—totally 100%) for the water added in the tomato sauces. AW in powder, was partly substituted for the fat in white sauces and compared to conventional ones. Physicochemical (pH, Brix, viscosity, color), nutritional (proteins, lactose, minerals), microbiological and sensory evaluations were conducted for both developed sauces. Accelerated shelf-life tests were performed. Based on the quality and sensory characteristics deterioration, the optimal water substitution by AW was 70% w/w for tomato sauces and 10% w/w (AW in powder) for white sauces, without limiting their shelf life compared to the control ones for both cases. Both AW-substituted sauces were of high quality and of higher nutrients content compared to conventional products, improving their health promoting profile (tomato sauces: up to 3-fold increase; white sauces: up to 5-fold increase in calcium content; increase in essential amino acids content in both sauces due to AW addition). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Security and Environmentally Sustainable Food Systems)

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18 pages, 325 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainable Food Supply from the Perspective of Paddy Ecosystem Elasticity: Policies and Implications

by Teng Yang, Yanhua Sun and Xiaolin Li

Sustainability 2022, 14(17), 10917; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141710917 - 1 Sep 2022

Viewed by 1154

Abstract

Rice is the staple food for 2.5 billion people worldwide and most farmers depend solely on rice for their livelihood. This study estimates how paddy ecosystem elasticity and external human activity affect paddy ecosystem sustainable food supply. In particular, we analyzed how sustainable food supply is affected by three key domains of external factors—ecological factors, including the proportion of paddy Area (Are), per capita cultivated land area (Lan), and annual wastewater discharge per capita (Was); economic factors, including the agricultural economy level (Inv) and urbanization rate (Urb); and social factors, including the education of farmers (Edu) and rural medical level (Med). We use ANEV, or net paddy ecosystem services value per unit area, to assess the sustainable food supply, which not only represents the food supply quantity and quality, but also the sustainability of the food supply. Results from our panel and threshold regressions suggest that Lan and Urb have a threshold effect on paddy ANEV; Are, Was, Inv, and Edu have a linear negative correlation with ANEV; and Med has a positive linear correlation with ANEV. Based on our findings, we lay out a series of recommendations that may guide future formulation of policies on paddy ecosystem protection and sustainable food supply. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Security and Environmentally Sustainable Food Systems)

17 pages, 649 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Agricultural Insurance, Climate Change, and Food Security: Evidence from Chinese Farmers

by Hengli Wang, Hong Liu and Danyang Wang

Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9493; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159493 - 2 Aug 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3024

Abstract

As an effective risk management mechanism, agricultural insurance can reduce the risk of uncertainty in agricultural production and guarantee food security. Based on Chinese provincial panel data from 2003 to 2020, this study uses the Entropy Method to measure food security and systematically examines the impact of climate change and agricultural insurance on food security as well as its mechanisms. The present study found that climate change, especially extreme temperatures, has a significant negative impact on food security and food production. The promotion effect of agricultural insurance on food security increases with increased investments in technology, education, and other factors. Furthermore, our findings suggest the presence of geographical variations in the contribution of agricultural insurance to ensuring food security, with greater coverage in major food-producing regions. Additionally, maize yields are better protected by agricultural insurance than wheat and rice yields. To encourage sustainable agricultural development, the Chinese government should set up a diversified subsidy scheme with various planting scales and plant structures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Security and Environmentally Sustainable Food Systems)

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