Applicability of radiative cooling for grain storage across global food trade regions based on the köppen climate classification

The fundamental provisions of the Food Security Doctrine to ensure physical availability of food to the population are implemented through the development of various forms of retail. The general tendencies in economic development, digitalization, changes in consumer preferences, external factors affect the forms of retail in the forms of food retail in accordance with general trends in economic development, and the possibility of purchasing food products by different groups of the population depending on consumer habits regarding purchasing methods. As a result of retrospective and structural analysis of statistical data and aggregation of public opinion survey results, a shift in consumer preferences was revealed, expressed in a significant decrease in the share of market and fair trade. It should be noted the growth of retail chains and online food trading. Penetration of digitalization processes into the agricultural sector, including cooperation of agricultural producers through agro-aggregators. Despite the change in consumer habits, there remains a significant portion of the population that prefers traditional ways of purchasing goods in markets and fairs. In order to ensure physical availability of food for all groups of the population, support for market and fair trade, mobile commercial outlets continues despite their small share in the turnover. The Kaliningrad region is characterized by cooperation of local producers, the increase in the share of online trading in food products at a higher rate than the Russian average. In general, it can be concluded that the development of retail in the Kaliningrad region is in accordance with all-Russian trends with the features due to the exclave position of the region and limited market capacity.

To detect the global community structure of multi-layer networks, individual layers might not provide sufficient information. It is of vital importance to effectively complement the information from the network data. In this paper, under the framework of multi-layer stochastic block model, a Spectral method with Moments integration and Bias Adjustment (SpecMBA) is proposed for community detection. The key distinguishing feature of SpecMBA is the adaptive integration of both the first and second moments of adjacency matrices with a hyperparameter α ∈ [ − 1 , ∞ ) , which overcomes the limitations of fixed-form aggregation. Furthermore, SpecMBA adjusts for the bias caused by noise heteroskedasticity to mitigate signal distortion. In addition, a data-driven likelihood-based approach is proposed to select the optimal α . This adaptive aggregation ensures robust and competitive performance across diverse scenarios, which has been confirmed in the numerical studies. Under mild conditions, the community detection consistency for SpecMBA is established. The application on the international food trading network reveals interesting findings.

This article analyzes how agrarian movements in Southern Africa —particularly in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa— confront the corporate model of food production and trade. It highlights La Vía Campesina Southern and Eastern Africa and the Rural Women’s Assembly, which demand justice beyond Corporate Social Responsibility and build agroecological economic alternatives that challenge corporate power in the agri-food system.

Nutrition-sensitive trade in island food systems: Zanzibar’s aquatic food trade as a lever for regional nutrient supply

Foodborne disease outbreaks, particularly those associated with antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacterial pathogens, have become an issue of severe public health concern owing to increased globalisation and active food trade among countries. These disease outbreaks include listeriosis, which can cause notable complications such as diarrhoea, headaches, and vomiting. The data generated during the South African foodborne outbreak caused by AMR Listeria monocytogenes led to the inclusion of listeriosis on the South African list of mandatory notifiable medical conditions. Prospective solution to managing the increasing threat caused by AMR foodborne pathogens to humans require frequent surveillance of food products using techniques with high throughput and discriminatory potential. Thus, this study assessed the virulome, resistome, and phylogenetics of two Listeria innocua strains (LIN_NWU_CNKT and LIN5_NWU_CNKT) previously isolated from food and water samples collected in the North-West Province, South Africa, using whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Based on WGS analysis, the isolates were confirmed as L. innocua, with genomes that are closely related to previously isolated human pathogens. The genomes of these two isolates harboured virulence genes, including those responsible for adherence (fbpA, inlJ), invasion (aut, inlA), and immune modulation (inlC, lntA). In addition, the genes encoding antibiotic resistance were found in the genomes. These genes confer resistance to antibiotics such as phosphonic acid (fosX), lincosamide (lin), tetracycline (tetM), and glycopeptide (vanT). These findings highlight a crucial need to enforce standard operating procedures in food processing to reduce the spread of AMR and foodborne outbreaks.

Animal welfare has evolved from an ethical principle into a binding operational standard within the European Union (EU) agri-food system. Based on a documentary analysis combining legal and veterinary sources, this short communication examines how EU law integrates welfare requirements into food safety, trade, and official controls. The findings highlight three outcomes: the institutionalization of welfare as a trade condition; its judicial recognition as a legitimate public interest; and the expansion of the veterinarian's mandate as a translator of legal norms into measurable procedures. The analysis also explores the ethical and human-rights dimensions of welfare governance, where freedom of religion and animal protection coexist under EU and World Trade Organization law. These developments demonstrate how veterinarians, as both technical and institutional actors, contribute to the effective implementation of EU welfare principles within a sustainability-oriented global market.

Abstract This paper contributes to the discussion on the link between international trade policy and food and nutrition security by looking at whether and how these concepts are addressed in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). We compile a dataset covering almost 600 PTAs that entered into force between 1948 and 2024, and apply textual analysis to show that the number of references to food security has increased over recent decades. To analyse the role of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) in shaping the rules and practices of international food trade, we investigate the placement, function, and significance of food security provisions in four case studies, looking at the extent to which the regulatory approaches of these PTAs align with or diverge from the relevant provisions of the WTO AoA. Our study reveals that, despite the growing prominence of food security and nutrition in PTAs, their regulatory approaches largely align with the AoA and seldom overcome its shortcomings. While some agreements introduce broader and more contemporary understandings of food security, binding commitments remain limited and structural tensions between national and global objectives persist.

In industrial production processes, disruptions within the industrial chain can severely affect the collaborative capabilities of production agents. A notable example occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many agents faced interruption risks and were unable to participate in coordinated production. Ensuring continuity under such conditions requires migrating tasks from disrupted agents to viable alternatives. Designing effective task migration strategies, however, must account for the emergent multiplex nature of modern industrial chains. In these multiplex networked industrial chains, disruption risk in one layer can propagate to others, generating cascading failures across the system. This introduces two key challenges: (1) disruption risk creates mismatches not only between product agents and tasks but also across network layers, enlarging the problem dimensionality; and (2) simultaneous disruptions across multiple agents and layers increase the volume of tasks needing migration, greatly expanding the solution space. To address these challenges, we introduce the notion of a multiplex potential field, which captures cross-layer interdependencies and system-level dynamics in multiplex industrial chains. Building on this concept, we develop a hierarchical contextual task migration algorithm that exploits the multiplex potential field to guide both inter-layer and intra-layer task reallocations. Extensive experiments show that our approach consistently achieves superior utility, markedly improves task completion ratios, and reduces execution costs compared to benchmark algorithms. Furthermore, it attains solution quality comparable to that of the optimal CPLEX solver while requiring substantially less computation time. Finally, a case study on the FAO international food trade network demonstrates that the proposed framework is not only theoretically robust but also practically effective when deployed on large-scale real-world multiplex systems.

Global food systems are dependent on nature’s contributions to people (NCP), yet the role of such contributions in international trade is largely underrecognised. Using publicly available data on the configuration of natural and cultural landscapes, we developed a spatially-explicit approach to map, quantify and trace a regulating NCP (wild pollination) and a non-material NCP (supporting identities) underpinning Brazilian coffee and soy supply-chains from producing municipalities to importing countries. Our approach for mapping supporting identities at large scales shows feasibility of using publicly available data for such an analysis. Our results show unequal NCP distributions across producing regions and trade flows. From the agricultural production potentially attributable to wild pollination, 74% was exported in the case of coffee, and 66% in the case of soy. The coffee and soy farm identities mapping indicates that soy producing landscapes are less diverse than coffee ones. For both products, the largest share of imports comes from municipalities with farm identities linked to lower agriculture-natural ecosystem integration. Results suggest that smallholder farmers rely more on wild pollination and therefore are potentially more vulnerable to ecosystem degradation. Our approach provides a framework to assess how NCP underpin food trade at finer spatial resolution and locates where and which supply chain actors can collaborate to support and leverage more sustainable uses of natural and cultural resources.

This study investigates the structural determinants of agricultural sustainability by analyzing the long-run effects of institutional quality, oil consumption, information and communication technology (ICT), agricultural employment, and trade openness on food production in 19 major agricultural economies during the period 1996–2020. Using panel data econometrics, the analysis applies the Durbin–Hausman cointegration test and the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator to account for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. The findings reveal that institutional quality, oil consumption, and agricultural employment significantly enhance food production, while ICT and trade openness exhibit mixed or statistically insignificant effects. These results indicate that strong governance structures, efficient energy use, and robust agricultural labor markets are essential for sustaining long-term food productivity. The study contributes to the existing literature by integrating institutional and energy dimensions into the analysis of agricultural sustainability, highlighting policy pathways toward resilient and energy-efficient food systems. Policymakers are encouraged to strengthen institutional capacity, promote the adoption of renewable energy in agriculture, and enhance labor productivity to ensure sustainable food security amid global economic and climatic uncertainties.

International trade and investment liberalization impact national food environments via changes to the availability and affordability of foods, and may encourage the trade of ultra-processed foods (UPF). This study describes New Zealand (NZ) food and beverage imports over time, in terms of their level of food processing. United Nations Comtrade data was gathered for years 1990–2023. All Harmonized System (HS) codes related to food or non-alcoholic beverages (N = 898) were categorized according to the Nova classification system into unprocessed and minimally processed foods (G1), processed culinary ingredients (G2), processed foods (G3) and UPF (G4). The food-derivatives/additives (e.g. industrial sugars and modified oils, flavourings, texture enhancers) that are UPF inputs were classified as a subgroup of G4. Total and per capita (p.c.) imports (by volume) were calculated for all years by Nova group and subgroup. Annual tariff rates from 1996 to 2023 were obtained from the World Trade Organisation Tariff & Trade Data platform. The share of G4 in total food and beverage imports increased over the study period, from 15.7 kg p.c. (8.7% of food imports) in 1990 to 103.8 kg p.c. (21.8%) in 2023. Of all G4 subgroups, the p.c. import volume of food-derivatives/additives (UPF inputs) increased dramatically since 1990, surpassing all other UPF subgroups since 2011. Other Nova subgroups with notable import growth included wheat cereals and flours (G1), plant oils (G2), processed vegetables and fruit (G3), and sweetened/flavoured drinks (G4). Tariff rates were reduced to zero or low levels for all food products between 1990 and 2023, with notable reductions around 1996-98, and 2007/08. Tariffs were generally higher on G3 and G4 product subgroups than G1 throughout the study period, though the difference was minimal. The 34 years of progressive trade liberalization in NZ were characterised by an increasing proportion of imported products being ultra-processed foods/beverages and their inputs, underscoring the need for policy interventions to counteract the impact of these trends on food environments and population nutrition.

Amid escalating global food security challenges, global food trade has become increasingly pivotal in securing national food supplies and stabilizing nutritional availability. However, the identification of food export drivers remains hindered by fragmented indicator systems and the limitations of linear causality methods in capturing complex, nonlinear dynamics. In this study, we construct a comprehensive, multidimensional indicator framework encompassing economic, agricultural, and environmental factors, and apply the nonlinear Convergent Cross Mapping (CCM) method to identify robust causal relationships between these variables and global food exports. The results show that economic factors — particularly GDP, GDP per capita, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — are the most influential drivers of food exports, while renewable water resources show similarly strong effects and agricultural indicators such as arable land and food production exert moderate effects; in contrast, precipitation shows a weak causal signal. Furthermore, developed countries tend to rely more on economic efficiency and technological advancement, whereas developing countries are more dependent on agricultural production capacity and labor inputs, reflecting significant heterogeneity in export drivers across development levels. This research expands the methodological toolkit for international trade analysis, offers new insights into the causal mechanisms underlying food exports, and provides empirical guidance for tailoring food trade and agricultural policies to development contexts.

Abstract Freshwater turtles are one of the most threatened animal groups in the world, especially in Asia. The Beale’s Eyed Turtle ( Sacalia bealei ) is a highly endangered Chinese species at risk of extinction due to overexploitation for the food and pet trades. Nonetheless, Hong Kong still houses a handful of relatively healthy populations of this species, providing an increasingly rare opportunity to study the population genetics of wild populations and, in turn, guide conservation action. In this study, we used genome-wide double-digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq) markers to examine the population structure of S. bealei from all known wild individuals with samples suitable for DNA sequencing, representing a subset of its distribution in Hong Kong (two localities: HK1, HK2) and Fujian Province. Although genetic diversity is relatively low, we recovered four genetic clusters, with three corresponding to each of the three known localities (HK1, HK2, Fujian), and admixture between the clusters. Captive-breeding colony individuals showed mixed geographic origins, with approximately half clustering with Fujian populations and half with Hong Kong populations. These data were used to evaluate the genetic diversity and infer the geographic origin of an ex situ breeding colony with individuals of unknown provenance. These results provide important baseline information on the population structure of wild S. bealei and the potential geographic origins of captive turtles, which directly contribute to in situ and ex situ conservation efforts of the species.

Source tracking, pollution load, and risk assessment of microplastics pollution in agricultural soils of Bangladesh using machine learning and multi-matrix approaches.

Trade and containment policies during COVID-19: Disaggregated evidence for adaptive public health governance.

Current estimates of PM2.5-related mortality associated with global food systems primarily focus on local food production, overlooking the impacts of food trade and food consumption across distant regions. Here we integrate four advanced global models to investigate how international food trade relocates air pollutant emissions from food production and its subsequent impacts on global air quality and public health. Our findings show that food-related emissions were responsible for an estimated 840,400 deaths due to PM2.5 pollution in 2017. Of these, approximately 11% (or 94,100 deaths) were linked to the global food trade, representing an economic value of a statistical life of around US$3.15 trillion. Shifting food exports from sparsely populated to densely populated countries has helped prevent 44,900 deaths in 2017. These findings underscore the potential of food trade partnerships for optimizing trade routes and thereby reducing global food-related health risks.

This study aims to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution patterns of the global frozen meat trade network from 2003 to 2023 and assess both its static and dynamic structural resilience. Based on UN commodity trade data, directed weighted networks for beef, pork, mutton, and poultry are constructed. By combining complex network theory and simulation models, the static resilience is analyzed from four dimensions: transmissibility, clustering, hierarchy, and assortativity. The impact of single node failures on network performance is simulated to assess dynamic resilience. The results indicate that the global frozen meat trade network shows a trend of polarization, with China emerging as the largest import hub and Brazil becoming the dominant exporter of beef and poultry, reflecting the coexistence of regionalization and globalization. The static resilience analysis reveals that the weighted network exhibits prominent hierarchy and increased assortativity. The poultry network has the highest transmissibility, while the beef network demonstrates the strongest resilience. Interruption simulation results show that the failure of core nodes causes more significant damage to the weighted network, but the network's overall invulnerability to disruptions has increased over time. The conclusion emphasizes that the resilience of the frozen meat trade network is driven by both weights and topological structure. Reducing dependence on key nodes through diversified trade partners and optimizing regional cooperation is crucial for enhancing trade stability. The weighted directed network model and dynamic resilience evaluation framework proposed in this study provide new methods for global food trade risk management and supply chain optimization.

ABSTRACT This article investigates the impact of food trade policies on domestic and international price volatility, focusing on rice and wheat markets. It posits that policymakers aim to minimize the political costs associated with changing domestic prices and those associated with deviating from political‐economy equilibria. The study uses price data, adjusted to reflect trade costs, to estimate an Error Correction Model that identifies key policy response parameters. The findings suggest that systematic, short‐run protection changes designed to insulate against changes in world prices reduce shocks to domestic prices but exacerbate world price volatility. However, idiosyncratic, national shocks to protection rates—such as those due to national weather shocks—increase domestic price volatility relative to the amplified volatility of world prices. Our findings challenge the conventional view of price insulation as a zero‐sum game, suggesting it is a negative‐sum game that increases domestic price volatility for almost all countries, creating opportunities for policy reforms to lower costs and reduce price volatility.

Food insecurity remains a persistent challenge in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) despite the proliferation of regional trade and food-related policy frameworks. This study interrogates how incoherence between food trade policies and broader food system objectives shapes food security outcomes, with South Africa serving as a focal case. Employing a systematic literature review guided by PRISMA protocols, the analysis synthesises peer-reviewed studies, policy documents, and institutional reports published between 2004 and 2024. The findings reveal entrenched misalignments across trade, agricultural, nutrition, and environmental policy domains, reinforced by fragmented governance structures and uneven national implementation of regional commitments. Such incoherence constrains market integration, weakens resilience, and disproportionately disadvantages smallholder producers and vulnerable households. Evidence further shows that better alignment between food trade, agriculture, and social policies can improve food availability and reduce vulnerability. The study highlights the need for clearer coordination and stronger cooperation across sectors to support more secure and inclusive food systems in SADC.