The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has been awarded the 2021 Africa Food Prize, for work that has improved food security across 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2007 and 2019, ICRISAT led a collaboration to deliver the Tropical Legumes Project. The project developed 266 improved legume varieties and almost half a million tons of seed for a range of legume crops, including cowpeas, pigeon peas, chickpea, common bean, groundnut, and soybean. These new varieties have helped over 25 million smallholder farmers become more resilient to climate change, as well as pest and disease outbreaks.

The decline of biodiversity is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Extinction rates have risen dramatically, and we risk losing many plants and animal species irretrievably. This has consequences in many areas, including agriculture, nutrition and climate protection. The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina is dedicating its Annual Assembly 2021 to the topic of “Biodiversity and the Future of Variety”. Taking place in person in Halle (Saale)/Germany, as well as online, scientists will come together on Friday, 24 September, and Saturday, 25 September, to discuss the importance of biodiversity and how it can be preserved in the future.

The use of insects as food for humans and animals has both the potential to reduce European consumers’ carbon footprint and contribute to reducing incentives for continued soybean cultivation in the Amazon rainforest. However, when compared to feeding insects to farm animals, the direct human consumption of insects has the biggest potential to reduce our consumption-based carbon footprint.

Current regulation of electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products should change with different arrangements put in place for the two groups of products, suggests research published in BMJ Open.