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While the pandemic creates a ‘new normal’, many political, environmental and economic dynamics that were concerning us before 2020 have become all the more serious under the cover of COVID-19’s long shadow.
Ending hunger is a major objective of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. A cross-journal collection of articles takes a systematic look at what we might already know about achieving it.
In the Gospel According to Matthew Chapter seven, Verse five, Jesus says “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye”. We should remember this entreaty before too casually casting accusations of ‘plant blindness’.
The motto of the Royal Society, “nullius in verba”, enjoins scientists to ‘take nobody’s word for it’. Its call to trust nothing unless it can be replicated is no less relevant now than it was 360 years ago.
The battle between humans and plant pests is as old as agriculture, but the movement of pests as a consequence of human activities has been exacerbated only recently. International research collaboration is increasingly important to tackle pests causing serious damage to economies.
The last three months have been a dispiriting experience for most plant scientists. But this period of collective isolation is demonstrating the usefulness of alternative ways to come together as a community.
Although the ‘rebound effect’ is well established in environmental economics, the sometimes paradoxical effects of yield increase are rarely questioned within the plant science community. Acknowledging the curse of efficiency can help us to reframe our societal goals from performance at all cost to resilience.
