Scientists Scrutinize Elements Flowing Through Food Trade

May 09, 2023

By Sue Nichols

Nitrogen and phosphorus are two elements essential for all life on earth yet how much and where are crucial to global sustainability. An international group of scientists show how the two elements flow through the booming global food trade and how to protect both the environment and markets.

The two elements are abundant in fertilizer, soil and manure. In Nature Communications, scientists from Michigan State University Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (MSU-CSIS) with colleagues across the world explore what impacts as global diets change and crops and animal products are traded increasingly. Flows of nitrogen within the global food and animal feed trade increased by eightfold during 1961–2010, accounting for one-third of the total nitrogen produced in the world then. Phosphorus flows in global agricultural trade increased by 750% in that time period.

But, researchers note, the flows of nitrogen and phosphorus haven’t been studied together at a global scale.

“Examining the global flows of nitrogen and phosphorous simultaneously can help compare their effects across the world,” said co-author Jianguo “Jack” Liu, Rachel Carson Chair of Sustainability and CSIS director. “The findings can be useful to enhance the benefits and reduce the risks brought by agricultural trade flows.”

The group turned to the conceptual framework of telecoupling, which allows scientists an integrated way to look at how people and nature interact across the world and provides a new language to look at the big picture and at details simultaneously.

The group found that overall, the growth of global trade saved on nitrogen and phosphorus, the finer points demanded attention. They also noted that countries who lacked efficiency in production would do well to improve technology that would trim both the waste and pollution of the elements.

The work also explored virtual nutrients – a way to represent how the elements can move across trade because they were used in growing or producing the products. This perspective shows an oft-hidden environmental burden can be shifted to exporters. For example, the U.S. suffered pollution when the pork and chicken it produced to send to Japan resulted in 0.11 million tons of nitrogen leaking into the to the local environment.

“Physical and virtual nutrient flows in global telecoupled agricultural trade networks” was written by Xiuzhi Chen, Yue Hou, Thomas Kastner, Liu Liu, Yuqian Zhang, Tuo Yin, Mo Li, Arunima Malik, Mengyu Li, Kelly R. Thorp, Siqi Han, Yaoze Liu, Tahir Muhammad and Yunkai Li.

The work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, The National Science Foundation, the National International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship Program, World Sustainability Award, Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science, Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province and Australian Research Council Grants.

Source : msu.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”