Fields of Change
The December 2025 issue of environmental SCIENTIST considers the interlinked, complex, crucial systems of agriculture and food production. This edition examines the potential for resilience, innovation, and transformation of our agricultural and food practices and systems, in the context of mounting pressures such as extreme weather, changing crop pathologies, an increasing global population, and pollinator decline.
As systems approaches to emerging challenges in our environment become ever more vital, this issue of the journal takes a multi-disciplinary approach in investigating how agriculture is responding to challenges like green energy and water use, pesticides and weed control, and crop adaptation to changing climates.
Through their articles in this issue, authors respond to questions over how policy, technology, and behavioural change can shape the future of farming and our food systems, and whether we can adapt our practices in time to achieve a sustainable relationship with farming and food production.
- Introduction – Agricultural revolutions and revelations – Nicola Cannon
- The social and environmental cost of coffee – Jack Bridger
- The role of digital technology in delivering agricultural sustainability – Kit Franklin
- Digging into the detail: the changing landscape of soils assessment – Matthew Orman
- Developing climate-resilient vegetable varieties – Ashley Garrison, Lauren Chappell, Rosemary Collier, Andrew Beacham and Jim Monaghan
- Ammonia: the invisible farming by-product – Claire Holman and Kieran Laxen
- Farming at the sweet spot for nature and food – Vicki Hird
- Can technological advances solve abiotic stresses in wheat? – Melissa Fitzgerald
- Is agroforestry the answer to making agriculture sustainable? – Blaise Kelly
- Integrated water resources management and the water–energy–food–ecosystems nexus – Kiran Tota-Maharaj
- How weed science research aids agricultural systems – Lynn Tatnell
Volume: 35.4
