GEnZ explorer: a tool for visualizing agroclimate to inform research and regulatory risk assessment.

Confined field trials (CFT) of genetically engineered (GE) crops are used to generate data to inform environmental risk assessments (ERA). ERAs are required by regulatory authorities before novel GE crops can be released for cultivation. The transportability of CFT data to inform risk assessment in countries other than those where the CFT was conducted has been discussed previously in an analysis showing that the primary difference between CFT locations potentially impacting trial outcomes is the physical environment, particularly the agroclimate. This means that data from trials carried out in similar agroclimates could be considered relevant and sufficient to satisfy regulatory requirements for CFT data, irrespective of the country where the CFTs are conducted. This paper describes the development of an open-source tool to assist in determining the transportability of CFT data. This tool provides agroclimate together with overall crop production information to assist regulators and applicants in making informed choices on whether data from previous CFTs can inform an environmental risk assessment in a new country, as well as help developers determine optimal locations for planning future CFTs. The GEnZ Explorer is a freely available, thoroughly documented, and open-source tool that allows users to identify the agroclimate zones that are relevant for the production of 21 major crops and crop categories or to determine the agroclimatic zone at a specific location. This tool will help provide additional scientific justification for CFT data transportability, along with spatial visualization, to help ensure regulatory transparency.

An open-access dataset of crop production by farm size from agricultural censuses and surveys.

This dataset is a cross-country convenience sample of primary data measuring crop production and/or area by farm size for 55 countries that underlies the article entitled "How much of the world׳s food do smallholders produce?" (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2018.05.002). The harmonized dataset is nationally representative with subnational resolution, sourced from agricultural censuses and household surveys. The dataset covers 154 crop species and 11 farm size classes, and is ontologically interoperable with other global agricultural datasets, such as the Food and Agricultural Organization׳s statistical database (FAOSTAT), and the World Census of Agriculture (WCA). The dataset includes estimates of the quantity of food, feed, processed agricultural commodities, seed, waste (post-harvest loss), or other uses; and potential human nutrition (i.e., kilocalories, fats, and proteins) generated by each farm size class. We explain the details of the dataset, the inclusion criteria used to assess each data source, the data harmonization procedures, and the spatial coverage. We detail assumptions underlying the construction of this dataset, including the use of aggregate field size as a proxy for farm size in some cases, and crop species omission biases resulting from converting local species names to harmonized names. We also provide bias estimates for commonly used methods for estimating food production by farm size: use of constant yields across farm size classes when crop production is not available, and relying on nationally representative household sample surveys that omitted non-family farms. Together this dataset represents the most complete empirically grounded estimate of how much food and nutrition smallholder farmers produce from crops.

Trends in Global Agricultural Land Use: Implications for Environmental Health and Food Security.

The eighteenth-century Malthusian prediction of population growth outstripping food production has not yet come to bear. Unprecedented agricultural land expansions since 1700, and technological innovations that began in the 1930s, have enabled more calorie production per capita than was ever available before in history. This remarkable success, however, has come at a great cost. Agriculture is a major cause of global environmental degradation. Malnutrition persists among large sections of the population, and a new epidemic of obesity is on the rise. We review both the successes and failures of the global food system, addressing ongoing debates on pathways to environmental health and food security. To deal with these challenges, a new coordinated research program blending modern breeding with agro-ecological methods is needed. We call on plant biologists to lead this effort and help steer humanity toward a safe operating space for agriculture.

A World at Risk: Aggregating Development Trends to Forecast Global Habitat Conversion.

A growing and more affluent human population is expected to increase the demand for resources and to accelerate habitat modification, but by how much and where remains unknown. Here we project and aggregate global spatial patterns of expected urban and agricultural expansion, conventional and unconventional oil and gas, coal, solar, wind, biofuels and mining development. Cumulatively, these threats place at risk 20% of the remaining global natural lands (19.68 million km2) and could result in half of the world's biomes becoming >50% converted while doubling and tripling the extent of land converted in South America and Africa, respectively. Regionally, substantial shifts in land conversion could occur in Southern and Western South America, Central and Eastern Africa, and the Central Rocky Mountains of North America. With only 5% of the Earth's at-risk natural lands under strict legal protection, estimating and proactively mitigating multi-sector development risk is critical for curtailing the further substantial loss of nature.