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    1418. 2025 Was the Third Warmest Year on Record

    Data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) indicates that 2025 was the third warmest year on record, slightly (0.01°C) cooler than 2023 and 0.13°C cooler than 2024, the warmest year on record. The past 11 years have been the warmest on record, and for the first time, the global average temperature for the past three years (2023-2025) has exceeded the 1.5°C upper limit above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900).
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    1417. Ocean Heat Content Sets Record in 2025

    A paper published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reported that in 2025, the heat accumulated in the world's oceans reached its highest level since modern record-keeping began in the early 1950s.
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    1416. World Economic Outlook 2026

    The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs' World Economic Outlook 2026 report emphasizes that global cooperation and decisive collective action are essential to navigate an era of trade restructuring, persistent price pressures, and climate-related shocks amid rising geopolitical tensions, more inward-looking policies, and weakening momentum toward multilateral solutions.
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    1415. World Food Price Trends, December 2025

    The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released its World Food Price Trends report on January 9, showing that the average for December 2025 was 124.3 points, down 0.6% from November, due to declines in the price indexes for dairy products, meat, and vegetable oils outweighing increases in the cereal and sugar price indexes. This index is down 2.3% from its level one year ago and 22.4% from its peak in March 2022. For the full year of 2025, the average index was 127.2 points, up 5.2 points (4.3%) from the 2024 average.
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    1414. Small-scale Logging in Moist Forests Causes Biomass Loss in Tropical Forests

    Tropical forests are essential to the global carbon (C) cycle, yet 46% of tropical moist and dry forests have experienced at least one disturbance, such as deforestation due to land expansion or degradation due to fire. A paper published in Nature quantified aboveground carbon dynamics in disturbed tropical forests and highlighted the disproportionate impact of small-scale logging on carbon loss in the tropics.
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    1413. Planetary Health Approach to Transforming Global Food Systems

    A paper published in The BMJ called for bold and ambitious thinking, as well as interdisciplinary collaboration based on planetary health, which integrates environmental sustainability, public health, and social equity, to address the complex nexus of climate change, food systems, nutrition, and health.
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    1412. Sub-Saharan Africa May Have Lost Approximately One-Fourth of Its Pre-Industrial Revolution Biodiversity

    A paper published in Nature, based on estimates by African flora and fauna experts, revealed that biodiversity in Sub-Saharan Africa has declined by approximately one-quarter compared to pre-industrial revolution populations. The paper also identified sustainable management of agricultural land as a priority for biodiversity conservation and restoration.

     

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    1411. Extreme Weather in 2025

    At the end of 2025, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) team, which analyzes the causal relationship between extreme weather events and climate change, published a report looking back at 2025 and sounding the alarm about the growing risk of extreme weather events taking many lives, destroying local communities, and having a devastating impact on agricultural production in a warming world.
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    1410. Topics to Follow in 2026

    2026 has begun. Our first Pick Up of the year will introduce the International Years and upcoming international events.
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    1409. Looking Back on 2025

    2025 was a historic year of change in international development, and the trend toward transforming the global food system continued unabated. JIRCAS also demonstrated its commitment through side events at the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktaking Meeting and JIRCAS International Symposium.
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    1408. The Need for Soil Degradation Countermeasures by Landholding Size

    Land is the foundation of the global agri-food system, but it is facing unprecedented pressure. According to the FAO's State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2025, farm size patterns vary by region, and the relationship between land degradation and agricultural productivity is uneven. Therefore, interventions tailored to land conditions and farm structure are crucial. The causes and realities of land degradation are not uniform.
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    1407. Resilience and Regeneration in a World in Crisis

    Regeneration has become a buzzword in sustainability in recent years, and is being mentioned in the agricultural field as well. A paper published in the journal Ambio concludes that resilience thinking focuses on mechanisms that help systems weather difficult times, while regeneration emphasizes building inherently healthy systems capable of continuous regeneration. The paper concludes that these are complementary concepts in sustainability science.
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    1406. Comprehensive Food System Transformation Achieves Both Limits on Global Warming and Improvements to Health, the Environment, and Social Inclusion

    In transforming the global food system, it is necessary to understand how specific measures can contribute to system transformation. A paper published in Nature Food argues that while individual food system measures implemented individually entail trade-offs between performance indicators, combining all measures and aligning them with non-food system measures makes it possible to limit global warming to below 1.5°C while improving health, the environment, and social inclusion. This paper calls for a paradigm shift to achieve comprehensive system transformation.
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    1405. Extreme Rainfall Caused by Global Warming Threatens Densely Populated Areas in Asia

    At the end of November, a cyclone struck Sri Lanka, as well as Indonesia, Malaysia, and southern Thailand, bringing extreme rainfall and causing significant human and property damage. World Weather Attribution (WWA), which analyzes the causal relationship between extreme events and climate change, noted that rising global average surface temperatures, high sea surface temperatures, and the ongoing La Niña and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) natural variability patterns may have also influenced the heavy rainfall, while rapid urbanization and dense populations and infrastructure may have increased exposure to flooding.
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    1404. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the Asia-Pacific Region

    The Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2025, jointly released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and other food-related UN agencies, found that while the region has made significant progress in reducing hunger, challenges remain in addressing malnutrition, food insecurity, and unequal access to healthy diets.
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    1403. Impact of Climate-Related Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security

    The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s 2025 report, "The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security," published every two years, warns that climate-related disasters are causing significant losses in water availability, soil health, and agricultural productivity. It emphasizes the need for integrated water resource management and the expansion of digital solutions to predict, mitigate, and manage risks as a foundation for resilience.
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    1402. Commodity Market Intervention in a Divided World

    Commodity price volatility and the associated risks to energy and food security have rekindled interest in market intervention for commodity supply management. An article from the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) looks back at attempts at international commodity agreements over the past century and points out the limitations of market intervention's effectiveness.
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    1401. Crops That Nourish

    Achieving both nutrition and climate resilience requires interdisciplinary, participatory action research focused on systems change. An editorial published in Nature Food proposes the concept of "nourishing crops," promoting participatory research in sub-Saharan Africa, respecting local needs and ownership, and focusing on opportunity crops.
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    1400. The Need for Agricultural Research Investment

    A comment published in Nature presents an analysis of public and private investment trends in agricultural science over the past 40 years, pointing out that declining investment in the innovation that supports food production is one of the reasons for rising food prices.
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    1399. Socio-Economic Impact of Investing in Planetary Health

    The Global Environment Outlook, Seventh Edition: A Future We Choose (GEO-7), released at the Seventh United Nations Environment Assembly held in Nairobi on December 9, 2025, found that investing in planetary health—including stabilizing the climate, conserving nature and land, and addressing pollution issues—could increase global GDP by trillions of dollars, save millions of lives, and lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and hunger.