Food, Agriculture & the Environment: Can We Feed the World & Save the Earth?

Feeding the world in a narrowing safe operating space

One of the greatest challenges we face in the twenty-first century is to sustainably feed nine to ten billion people by 2050 while at the same time reducing environmental impact (e.g. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity loss, land use change and loss of ecosystem services). To this end, food security must be delivered. According to the United Nations definition, 'food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life'. At the same time as delivering food security, we must also reduce the environmental impact of food production. Future climate change will make an impact upon food production. On the other hand, agriculture contributes up to about 30% of the anthropogenic GHG emissions that drive climate change. The aim of this review is to outline some of the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture, the mitigation measures available within agriculture to reduce GHG emissions and outlines the very significant challenge of feeding nine to ten billion people sustainably under a future climate, with reduced emissions of GHG. Each challenge is in itself enormous, requiring solutions that co-deliver on all aspects. We conclude that the status quo is not an option, and tinkering with the current production systems is unlikely to deliver the food and ecosystems services we need in the future; radical changes in production and consumption are likely to be required over the coming decades.

Region-specific nutritious, environmentally friendly, and affordable diets in India

Gaining Acceptance of Novel Plant Breeding Technologies.

Agriculture intensification is increasing due to food demand and consumption patterns. Intensive agriculture is based on management that promotes the maximum profit per unit of area and involves agrochemicals, irrigation and heavy machinery. The purpose is to have high crop yields and livestock productivity. This practice's implications are increasing soil degradation and the loss of ecological functions and consequently to the detriment of ecosystem condition and services. Intensive agriculture practices are related to high erosion rates, soil compaction, pollution (e.g., pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals), nitrification and acidification, loss of fertility and productivity, desertification, diffuse pollution, ground and surface water contamination, land fragmentation, loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gases emission, air pollution and ultimately human impact. All these effects contribute dramatically to global environmental change. Soils are the base of life. Therefore, such intensive use will induce rapid degradation. This is a global reality. Shreds of evidence from the world are plentiful: Tropical rainforests destruction in Amazonia, Congo Basin and southeast Asia due to the establishment of agriculture plantations or livestock farms, irrigation in semi-arid or arid areas of central Asia and Saudi Arabia and acidification in Northeast Europe. All these forms of soil degradation have negative implications on soil ecosystem services. For instance, agriculture intensification affects multiple regulating ecosystem services. The soil loses the capacity to regulate erosion, floods, water purification, and carbon storage, contribute to microclimate regulation, and combat pests and diseases. It also hampers the soil's capacity to supply fodder, water, wild food and medicinal plants. Although crop yields may increase, intensive agriculture practices are not sustainable since they contribute to soil degradation. Without any intervention (e.g., fertilization), there will be a loss of fertility, and yields may be reduced. Also, diffuse pollution from agriculture contributes to surface water bodies' loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. These areas are also key for food provisioning. Intensive agriculture also dramatically impacts cultural ecosystem services such as landscape aesthetics, recreation and heritage. We have many challenges ahead regarding the impacts of agriculture intensification, and it is key to halt and reduce their impacts on ecosystem services. We live in challenging times when food security needs to be ensured for a growing global population. How we can balance between food production and soil degradation? What practices are more adjusted in each context to ensure the sustainability of agroecosystems? These are key questions that need to be answered. Bottom line is that we need to develop practices to follow a sustainable path, instead of exhausting the ecosystems and their services at a dramatic pace.         AcknowledgementsWe would like to acknowledge the support of the project Enhancing ecoSysteM sERvices mApping for poLicy and Decision mAking (SELINA), financed by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101060415.

Since 1970 global agricultural production has more than doubled; contributing ~1/4 of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) burden in 2010. Food production must increase to feed our growing demands, but to address climate change, GHG emissions must decrease. Using an identity approach, we estimate and analyse past trends in GHG emission intensities from global agricultural production and land-use change and project potential future emissions. The novel Kaya-Porter identity framework deconstructs the entity of emissions from a mix of multiple sources of GHGs into attributable elements allowing not only a combined analysis of the total level of all emissions jointly with emissions per unit area and emissions per unit product. It also allows us to examine how a change in emissions from a given source contributes to the change in total emissions over time. We show that agricultural production and GHGs have been steadily decoupled over recent decades. Emissions peaked in 1991 at ~12 Pg CO2 -eq. yr(-1) and have not exceeded this since. Since 1970 GHG emissions per unit product have declined by 39% and 44% for crop- and livestock-production, respectively. Except for the energy-use component of farming, emissions from all sources have increased less than agricultural production. Our projected business-as-usual range suggests that emissions may be further decoupled by 20-55% giving absolute agricultural emissions of 8.2-14.5 Pg CO2 -eq. yr(-1) by 2050, significantly lower than many previous estimates that do not allow for decoupling. Beyond this, several additional costcompetitive mitigation measures could reduce emissions further. However, agricultural GHG emissions can only be reduced to a certain level and a simultaneous focus on other parts of the food-system is necessary to increase food security whilst reducing emissions. The identity approach presented here could be used as a methodological framework for more holistic food systems analysis.

Background: Food production is a major driver of environmental change, while dietary risks are the leading cause of global disease burden. Studies suggest that adoption of healthy diets in high-income countries can provide environmental co-benefits. However, little is known about such options in low and middle-income countries. India is home to one-fifth of the global population, and experiencing complex nutritional challenges, alongside critical environmental pressures on its ability to produce food. This project assesses the potential for dietary change to improve health and diet-related environmental footprints in India. Methods and results: A systematic review assessed the sustainable dietary patterns studied in the literature, and their impacts on a range of environmental indicators, to understand which diets may lead to improved environmental and health outcomes. Adoption of sustainable diets is generally estimated to reduce environmental footprints, though large variations in reductions are seen across sustainable diet types. Following national dietary guidelines may be a relevant public health goal with both environmental and health benefits. A comparison was undertaken of a number of dietary intake data sources in India, examining relative differences in overall intake, and intake of key food groups, to better understand data suitability for sustainable diet analyses. The comparison highlighted the 2011-2012 National Sample Survey (NSS) household expenditure surveys as a relevant data source for the project, though data sources showed high variability in intake, particularly for a set of key nutrient-dense food groups. The NSS and environmental footprint data were matched to estimate the change in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, land use (LU), and water footprints (WFs) that may result from national adoption of healthy dietary guidelines, and contrasted this with a scenario of widespread uptake of “affluent” diets. A shift to healthy guidelines in India would result in a small increase in environmental footprints (4-5% for GHG emissions, LU and WFs), though this national result masked large variations among sub-samples; for example, healthy diet shifts among those who consume above recommended dietary energy could decrease emissions by 6-16% across the three environmental indicators. Shifts to affluent diets would result in large increases of about 19-36% across indicators. Lastly, differences in cost were assessed between observed healthy and lowerfootprint diets, and average diets with sufficient dietary energy (“adequate” diets). Overall, healthy diets with lower footprints were slightly more expensive than an adequate diet. Large variations were observed among sub-samples of the population: improved diets were particularly more expensive for lower-income individuals and rural residents, while cheaper, or had no difference in price, for individuals in the highest quartile of socioeconomic status, and for urban residents. Higher expenditure on improved diets was particularly associated with fruit and vegetables, and dairy. Conclusions: Achieving the critical public health goal of healthy diets while minimising diet-related environmental footprints in India may require three broad strategies: increasing the efficiency of agricultural production, alongside efforts to improve the affordability of healthy dietary change, and the active promotion of healthy and lower-footprint diets for those who can currently afford them.

Modern food diets are often characterized as imbalanced and linked to adverse human health  outcomes. Furthermore, current food systems account for approximately one third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, consumers' dietary preferences  directly affect the sustainability of our environment. Various studies have assessed the impact of dietary preferences on the environment. While these studies offer valuable insights into the  complex relationship between food production and the environment, the methodologies used so far to predict the consequences for GHG emissions have important limitations, especially with respect to the consequences of diet shifts for the soil GHG balance. In this study, we employed a two-sided approach to investigate the impact of dietary changes following the EAT-Lancet diet guidelines on GHG emissions from agricultural soils. Firstly, we utilized the outputs of the economic general equilibrium model MAGNET to quantify the demand-driven changes in food  consumption at the national level for the European Union (EU) under a diet shift scenario. We then employed the DayCent biogeochemical process-based model to assess the implications for the GHG balance of agricultural soils at a regional scale, with Denmark serving as our case study. Our findings indicate that, compared to business-as-usual diets, a diet shift scenario would cause agricultural soils to experience significant carbon loss (up to 15 Mg of CO2e ha-1), a potential  increase in N2O emissions by up to 2.5%, while methane emissions from enteric fermentation show a considerable reduction of 32%. These findings underscore the challenges faced by policies aiming to create healthier food environments, which need to be aligned with efforts to reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions and protect agricultural soils.

Restoring farmlands for food and nature

Modelling food demand in the 21st century

Food consumption, diet shifts and associated non-CO 2 greenhouse gases from agricultural production

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 基于生命周期评价的上海市水稻生产的碳足迹 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201304240794 作者: 作者单位: 上海市农业科学院,上海市农业科学院,上海市农业科学院,上海市农业科学院,江西农业大学 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家科技部支撑计划后世博专项资助项目（2010BAK69B18）；上海市科委崇明科技攻关专项资助项目（10DZ1960101） Life cycle assessment of carbon footprint for rice production in Shanghai Author: Affiliation: Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences,Seed management station of Shanghai,,,Jiangxi Agricultural University Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:碳足迹是指由企业、组织或个人引起的碳排放的集合。参照PAS2050规范并结合生命周期评价方法对上海市水稻生产进行了碳足迹评估。结果表明：（1）目前上海市水稻生产的碳排放为11.8114 t CO2e/hm2，折合每吨水稻生产周期的碳足迹为1.2321 t CO2e；（2）稻田温室气体排放是水稻生产最主要的碳排放源，每吨水稻生产的总排放量为0.9507 t CO2e，占水稻生产全部碳排放的77.1%，其中甲烷（CH4）又是最主要的温室气体，对稻田温室气体碳排放的贡献率高达96.6%；（3）化学肥料的施用是第二大碳排放源，每吨水稻生产的总排放量为0.2044 t CO2e，占水稻生产总碳排放的16.5%，其中N最高，排放量为0.1159 t CO2e。因此，上海低碳水稻生产的关键在降低稻田甲烷的排放，另外可通过提高氮肥利用效率，减少氮肥施用等方法减少种植过程中碳排放。 Abstract:Global climate change has become an urgent issue of concern. Climate change will increasingly threaten our food production, security and even the survival of the human race. It also has a serious impact on natural ecosystems and the socioeconomic system. With the increasing scale and improvement in mechanization levels, the economic linkage between agricultural production and reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions is even closer in the agricultural production system. Therefore, the development of a low-carbon agricultural model is one of the long-term strategies for low-carbon economic growth throughout the country.This research of carbon footprint is introduced to measure the GHG emission over the rice production cycle. The carbon footprint can be defined as the total carbon emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person. At present, carbon footprints are used to measure GHG emissions in products, services, organizations, cities and countries and offer the decision basis for the formulation of GHG emission reduction schemes.Agricultural ecological systems, every year, also produce a lot of GHG emissions. The whole process of prenatal, intrapartum and postpartum agricultural production are closely related to energy consumption and GHG emission. In the process, all the agricultural inputs, such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, cultivation, plant protection, agricultural machinery, irrigation and harvest also produce greenhouse gas emissions.The whole cultivation of rice involves methane (CH4) emission. This study shows that rice cultivation is one of the biggest sources of GHG emissions in crop cultivation. Rice paddies emit a large amount of methane in their water logged mode. Different irrigation modes have a great influence on the emission of GHG. Straw return is another factor that promotes GHG emissions. Soil organic content increases with the return of straw, with an increase in the soil methanogen activity, leading to increased methane emissions.The current carbon footprint research is the first time it has been used to measure the carbon emissions involved in rice production. The carbon footprint for rice production in Shanghai was assessed by the PAS2050 paradigm and life cycle assessment. The study area, located in Changjiang Farm, which belongs to the Guangming Group in Chongming County Shanghai City atlatitude 121°32'22' E, longitude31°40'23' N. Chongming County, in the Yangtze River Estuary, is a typical sub tropical monsoon climate with mild climate, abundant rainfall, annual average temperatures of 15.3 ℃, and annual precipitation of 1245 mm. It is the major grain production base for Shanghai city with winter wheat and summer rice forming their main planting patterns, which are typical for the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River rice-wheat rotation cropping pattern.The entire carbon emission of rice production in Shanghai was 11.8114 t CO2e (CO2-equivalents)/hm2, corresponding to a 1.2321 t CO2e/t rice grain yield. GHG emissions from paddy fields were the major source, which emitted 0.9507 t CO2e/t rice and accounted for 77.1% of total carbon emissions during rice production. Moreover, CH4 was the largest source for GHG emissions with a contribution rate of 96.6%.Chemical fertilizers were the second largest emission source in rice production. Chemical fertilizers emitted 0.2044 t CO2e for each ton of rice production, contributing 16.5% of total carbon emissions in rice production. N fertilizer was the biggest emission source, which released 0.1159 t CO2e/t rice.This research investigates the GHG emissions over the whole process of the Shanghai rice production cycle and reveals the energy consumption and GHG emissions in rice production. Thus, a rice carbon footprint is calculated by assessing the GHG emissions in Shanghai rice production. The results are beneficial for producing reduction plans of reducing GHG emissions in Shanghai rice production. Furthermore, the results will supply both practicable and theoretical foundations for drafting carbon footprint formulations in other industrial areas. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

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Climate-smart livestock production at landscape level in Kenya

Agricultural production and greenhouse gas emissions from world regions—The major trends over 40 years