The Resilience of a Farming System at Crossroads between Intensification and Environmental Sustainability

Food systems are vulnerable to the impacts of resource scarcity, climate change, and population growth, as well as the issues associated with unsustainable social, environmental and economic practices. These challenges have encouraged local food systems as an alternative to global supply chains. This thesis studies this trend at the urban level in order to explore issues and opportunities for change. It argues that urban food systems need to embrace both sustainability and resilience. A sustainable urban food system has an economy that serves social needs while safely operating within ecological limits. Resilience, on the other hand, includes the ability to recover from shocks such as extreme weather events, as well as the capacity to adapt and ultimately transform in response to the ongoing impacts of climate change. The main research question that this thesis investigates is “How can alternative food networks help to foster sustainable and resilient urban food systems considering climate change and increased urbanisation?” A comparative case study approach was used involving local initiatives in the Brisbane and greater Melbourne metropolitan regions (Australia). Both Australian urban areas have similar economic development; however, differences can be found in terms of institutional interest and the existence of food policies. The gathering of a diverse picture of alternative food networks was the strategy adopted for selecting the initiatives that participated in this research. The criteria that alternative food networks should attend were the existence of goals related to access to healthy food, fairer conditions for food workers, and reduction of environmental impacts. The thesis used multiple sources of data including primary (semi-structured interviews with founders or members of initiatives and field observation) and secondary data (publicly available documents such as annual reports). The findings of this research contribute to the conceptualisation and planning of sustainable and resilient urban food systems, as well as, to the knowledge on the role and limitations of alternative food networks in achieving this. The case study conducted in this thesis revealed how alternative food networks can contribute to the creation of food provision systems that are aligned with environmental sustainability and social justice. The thesis exposed the particularities of initiatives that, among other aspects, have minimal food loss and waste, supports agroecology, provides farmers with fair payment and makes organic food affordable. Alternative food networks demonstrated to have resilience building capacity, something that is not confined to its borders and can impact on the whole urban food system. Alternative food networks’ values travel and allow the replication and creation of new models, however, not in the pace necessary for a wider urban food system transformation. The main challenge exposed by this thesis for alternative food networks is the need for scaling up by influencing institutions and policies more broadly.

Thiessen Martens, J. R., Entz, M. H. and Wonneck, M. D. 2015. Review: Redesigning Canadian prairie cropping systems for profitability, sustainability, and resilience. Can. J. Plant Sci. 95: 1049–1072. Redesign of agricultural systems according to ecological principles has been proposed for the development of sustainable systems. We review a wide variety of ecologically based crop production practices, including crop varieties and genetic diversity, crop selection and rotation, cover crops, annual polyculture, perennial forages, perennial grains, agroforestry systems, reducing tillage, use of animal manures and green manures, soil biological fertility, organic production systems, integrated crop–livestock systems, and purposeful design of farm landscapes (farmscaping), and discuss their potential role in enhancing the profitability, environmental sustainability, and resilience of Canadian prairie cropping systems. Farming systems that most closely mimic natural systems through appropriate integration of diverse components, within a context of supportive social and economic structures, appear to offer the greatest potential benefits, while creating a framework in which to place all other farming practices. Our understanding of ecological relationships within agricultural systems is currently lacking, and a major shift in research, education, and policy will be required to purposefully and proactively redesign Canadian prairie agricultural systems for long-term sustainability.

<scp>IFST</scp> vision for a <scp>UK</scp>‐wide national food strategy

Agriculture Faculty of Sriwijaya University has organized Sriwijaya Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System (SAC-SAFSE) on September 29th, 2021 in Palembang, Indonesia. The objective of SAC-SAFSE presented the latest state of the arts related to Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System.As we all might have also seen in the last decade that there has been a quickening of the pace of research and scholarship among both social and natural scientists, as well as among policymakers and activists. To this end, with the support of by Agriculture Faculty, Universitas Sriwijaya, Indonesia and co-organized by Kasetsart University, Thailand; SEARCA Southeast Asia; and Murray State University, USA, organize Sriwijaya Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System. The SAC-SAFSE was held to bring together social and natural scientists, and environmental activists to discuss results from ongoing research projects, to find ways to enhance the exchange of knowledge among disciplines, and to establish global partnership both in research and business. We also would like to underline that the SAC-SAFSE would be an annual agenda of Agriculture Faculty, Universitas Sriwijaya. Sriwijaya Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System (SAC-SAFSE) 2021 was implemented virtually, this is because the cov-19 pandemic is still spreading. The conference was perform using zoom. The Sriwijaya Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System (SAC-SAFSE) event is virtually implemented using Zoom breakout room with a model that all invited speakers and presenters are given time to present their material for 10 minutes followed by question and answer session, through chat forums and Q&A forums provided by the Zoom application and also direct questioning system. Overall, the conference took 10 hours, initially from registration into closing ceremony. The participation of the keynote speakers, invited speakers, and participants were originally from inside and outside countries such as Malaysian, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Japan, US, and various regions in Indonesia Sriwijaya Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System (SAC-SAFSE) 2021 was supported by stable internet network system and a zoom application. It met several technical obstacles encountered by the participants, such as difficulty to present their PPT and video. The virtual conference has weakness due to less interaction between participants.The Sriwijaya Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System (SAC-SAFSE) 2021 committee received 94 manuscripts and a total of 91 papers were presented and discussed. The papers were authored by researchers Indonesia, Malaysian, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Japan, US. All papers have been reviewed to be given critical comments and improvements by a panel of reviewers as purpose enhancing quality of the papers. There were 69 papers were selected and eligible to be published in the proceeding as results of review process.We sincerely express our gratitude to the international/national advisory committee, presenters, participants, contributors of Sriwijaya Conference on Sustainable Environment, Agriculture and Farming System (SAC-SAFSE) 2021. High appreciation to the whole committee team for their excellence in managed and organized all parts of this conference even though should face some obstacles due to pandemic condition. The hard works by the Organizing Committee are also highly appreciated. We also express our sincere gratitude to all sponsors, i.e. BNI and BKS Barat. Last but not the least, we are thankful to IOP EES Conference Series for producing the proceeding.Palembang, 29th September 2021Dean of Agriculture Faculty Universitas SriwijayaDr. Ir. A. Muslim, M.AgrList of titles Advisory Committee, Scientific Committee, Local Committee, Editors are available in this Pdf.

protection of health in the near and long term. Several essential steps need to be taken to transform the economy to support planetary health. These steps include a reduction of waste through the creation of products that are more durable and require less energy and materials to manufacture than those often produced at present; the incentivisation of recycling, reuse, and repair; and the substitution of hazardous materials with safer alternatives.

Food hubs have emerged as innovative alternatives to the conventional United States food system. As aggregators of small local farms, food hubs hold the potential to transform food production, distribution, and consumption, while fostering environmental sustainability and social equity. However, assessing their contributions to environmental sustainability and social equity is challenging due to the diverse structures and practices of U.S. food hubs. This study presents the findings of a national survey of food hub managers conducted in 2022 to assess the sustainability objectives and practices of food hubs across the United States. Our survey questions were designed based on a comprehensive framework of social and environmental sustainability criteria. Our results reveal that food hubs make valuable contributions in supporting small producers and providing healthy local food options. However, there is room for improvement in their environmental sustainability practices, as they only meet 47% of the defined environmental sustainability goals. Addressing food insecurity is a high priority for food hubs, although not their top priority, and many offer fresh food access to low-income households. Food hubs also contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing food transportation, promoting healthy food production methods, and minimizing waste. While food hubs meet 67% of the defined social sustainability goals, there are opportunities for improvement in reaching important institutional stakeholders and enhancing consumer education on healthy nutrition and lifestyles. Expanding technical assistance for farmers is also critical. By addressing these opportunities for improvement, food hubs can drive progress towards a more resilient and equitable food system in the United States.

Bringing together healthcare management and environmental sustainability efforts has become an important way to deal with the world problems of health and environmental decline. Though they are distinct, both fields are closely related as they strive to improve society. More people desire services; costs are rising; environmental issues like pollution, climate change, and resource depletion are increasingly taxing healthcare systems all around. Concurrent with this, environmental sustainability initiatives seek to mitigate negative impacts of human activities on the planet by motivating individuals to use resources more sensibly and leave fewer residual carbon footprints. The links between environmental sustainability and healthcare management are examined in this essay together with the advantages and drawbacks of merging these two spheres. It discusses how medical institutions could reduce their impact on the surroundings by applying sustainable practices. They could advocate for medical products produced from sustainable materials and decrease waste and energy usage, for instance. The research also examines how public health is directly impacted by environmental problems such changes in ecosystems, restricted water sources, and bad air quality. The healthcare and environmental sectors must cooperate more closely if we are to build a long-term more resilient system. The article also covers how new tools, government regulations, and policy frameworks could assist to make healthcare practices more sustainable. It looks at the opportunities of green healthcare practices include hospitals using less energy, long-lasting healthcare supply lines, and making decisions considering environmental health. The coming together of these two areas is good for public health and helps with the larger goal of healthy growth around the world. Climate change and health problems are becoming more and more connected, so healthcare management systems need to start using environmental methods in their daily work. This all-around method can lead to a future where both people's and the planet's health are valued, making the world better and more sustainable for future generations.

Crop diversification has long been a key strategy for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia to mitigate climatic and market-related risks, and it is actively promoted in the country’s agricultural policy as a pathway to resilient cropping systems. Beyond reducing risks, diversification provides multiple benefits, including increased farm income, employment generation, natural resource conservation, reduced pest and disease pressure, and improved soil fertility. Given its importance, this study examined the level and drivers of crop diversification among 397 systematically sampled households in Fogera plain northwest Ethiopia, using descriptive and inferential statistics, including the double-hurdle model. Results indicate an average Simpson Diversification Index (SDI) of 0.48 (SD = 0.27), with values ranging from 0 to 0.82, and 47.61% of households exhibiting a moderate level of diversification. Most diversified households cultivated at least one crop from three major categories, cereals, legumes and vegetables, highlighting its role in enhancing food security and income stability. Econometric analysis identified key factors influencing both the decision to diversify and the intensity of diversification. Participation in crop diversification was significantly affected by occupation, number of plots, proportion of fertile land, access to irrigation, and use of improved seeds, reflecting both resource availability and institutional support. Meanwhile, the intensity of diversification was shaped by factors such as age, number of plots, oxen ownership, and access to credit, with older (experienced) farmers and those with higher number of plots and better financial access demonstrating higher diversification level. These findings underscore the importance of both household-level factors and financial enablers in shaping diversification decisions among smallholder farmers. To enhance crop diversification and build more resilient farming systems, several policy measures are recommended. These include providing improved seeds suited to diverse agro-ecological conditions, expanding irrigation infrastructure, enforcing effective water user association regulations, improving access to credit, strengthening livestock health services, and promoting alternative tillage technologies. Implementing these strategies will help farmers diversify their cropping systems more effectively, contributing to Ethiopia’s broader policy goals of food security, income diversification and environmental sustainability. Key words: diversification, double-hurdle, Ethiopia, Fogera Plain, rice, risks, SDI, smallholder farmers

As the demand for greater quantities of higher-quality food grows with population expansion, climate change, urbanization, and unsustainable agricultural practices accelerate the loss of arable land, ultimately threatening agricultural sustainability. Population growth necessitates a transition to nutritious, safe, and healthy food production systems that ensure higher yields, less reduced waste, improved social outcomes, and the integration of economic, social, and environmental sustainability principles. Urgent global challenges such as resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and climate change necessitate the protection of ecosystems and the sustainable use of natural resources. Agricultural systems must enhance food production and supply productivity, strengthen system resilience, and improve resource efficiency and sustainability. The sustainable development of agricultural systems based on resilience and productivity is important to ensure food security. The aim of this review is to compile, describe, and propose future strategies for promising food systems—including transformative innovations and alternative farming techniques—to facilitate the transition toward resilient, resource-efficient, and sustainable agriculture, and to mitigate long-term challenges. It also provides recommendations for future research, sustainability, resilience, and emerging food trends aimed at promoting sustainable food systems and green technologies, protecting ecosystems, resources, and biodiversity, and optimizing waste management and natural resource use. This article focuses on future sustainable food production and security, environmental protection, alternative protein sources, and innovative agricultural techniques; it highlights scientific and technological advancements, emerging research directions, and offers a comprehensive perspective on resilient, resource-efficient, and sustainable food production systems.

BackgroundThe soil biota consists of a complex assembly of microbial communities and other organisms that vary significantly across farming systems, impacting soil health and plant productivity. Despite its importance, there has been limited exploration of how different cropping systems influence soil and plant root microbiomes. In this study, we investigated soil physicochemical properties, along with soil and maize-root microbiomes, in an agroecological cereal-legume companion cropping system known as push–pull technology (PPT). This system has been used in agriculture for over two decades for insect-pest management, soil health improvement, and weed control in sub-Saharan Africa. We compared the results with those obtained from maize-monoculture (Mono) cropping system.ResultsThe PPT cropping system changed the composition and diversity of soil and maize-root microbial communities, and led to notable improvements in soil physicochemical characteristics compared to that of the Mono cropping system. Distinct bacterial and fungal genera played a crucial role in influencing the variation in microbial diversity within these cropping systems. The relative abundance of fungal genera Trichoderma, Mortierella, and Bionectria and bacterial genera Streptomyces, RB41, and Nitrospira were more enriched in PPT. These microbial communities are associated with essential ecosystem services such as plant protection, decomposition, carbon utilization, bioinsecticides production, nitrogen fixation, nematode suppression, phytohormone production, and bioremediation. Conversely, pathogenic associated bacterial genus including Bryobacter were more enriched in Mono-root. Additionally, the Mono system exhibited a high relative abundance of fungal genera such as Gibberella, Neocosmospora, and Aspergillus, which are linked to plant diseases and food contamination. Significant differences were observed in the relative abundance of the inferred metabiome functional protein pathways including syringate degradation, L-methionine biosynthesis I, and inosine 5'-phosphate degradation.ConclusionPush–pull cropping system positively influences soil and maize-root microbiomes and enhances soil physicochemical properties. This highlights its potential for agricultural and environmental sustainability. These findings contribute to our understanding of the diverse ecosystem services offered by this cropping system where it is practiced regarding the system's resilience and functional redundancy. Future research should focus on whether PPT affects the soil and maize-root microbial communities through the release of plant metabolites from the intercrop root exudates or through the alteration of the soil's nutritional status, which affects microbial enzymatic activities.

Objectives: To propose a new model for robust smart fertilizer recommendation by integrating deep learning based spatiotemporal and bio-inspired optimization. The system addresses the limitations of existing models in capturing features in diverse farming zones to maximize crop yield and minimize nutrient loss. Methods: Deep Spatio Temporal learning ST-FusionFormer (STLF) is employed to capture spatial and temporal dependencies in agricultural data with the help of transformer-based attention modules. Multi-Objective Adaptive Firefly Differentiated Evolution (MO-AFDE) is used to optimize fertilizer type, learning rate, and timing of delivery subject to various constraints, i.e., crop yield enhancement, cost reduction, and environmental sustainability. Three benchmarked datasets (Crop Recommendation with 2480 samples for 22 crop labels, Fertilizer Prediction with 150 entries for 7 fertilizer class, and Crop Nutrient Database for 300 crops extracted from Kaggle Repository) are utilized in this model to frame a multi-modal structure combines soil nutrients (N, P, K, pH), meteorological features (Temperature, Rainfall, Humidity) and crop-specific nutrient demands. The performance of the proposed STLF-MOAFDE is evaluated using MATLAB and Python, and the results are compared with two baseline models, Lightweight-CNN and DAEN-MaskRCNN. Findings: The proposed STLF-MOAFDE is trained using a 5-fold CV approach. The promising results shows the superior performance of 94.5% accuracy, 93.4% precision, 94.8% recall, 93.2% specificity, 93.8 F1-Score, and 0.67 AUC-ROC. The model outperforms in addressing spatio-temporal dependencies and fertilizer optimization under dynamic agro-climatic conditions. Novelty: This hybrid integration of STLF-MOAFDE provides a novel and robust self-adaptive fertilizer recommendation system with high environmental impact and sustainability considerations. Unlike traditional single-objective systems, the proposed system delivers balanced and effective optimization suitable for real-time precision agriculture and smart farming systems. Keywords: Smart Agriculture, Spatio-Temporal Deep Learning, FusionFormer, Bio-Inspired Optimization, Precision Farming, Environmental Sustainability

Green finance plays a key role in enhancing the resilience of rural economies and environmental sustainability. Rural economies have traditionally relied on natural resources, which makes them particularly vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation. By providing the necessary financial support, green finance can help rural areas invest in sustainable agricultural practices, upgrade aging infrastructure, implement resource conservation projects, and adopt clean energy and energy-efficient technologies. Green finance can facilitate shifts in agricultural practices, such as supporting organic farming, precision farming and conservation tillage. These practices help to increase land productivity, reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and conserve biodiversity, while increasing the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change. Green finance supports the sustainable transformation of rural infrastructure, such as the efficiency improvement of irrigation systems, the recycling of agricultural waste and the green transformation of rural energy, which helps to reduce environmental pollution and improve resource efficiency. The development of green finance also requires the support of relevant policies, including the establishment of a sound green financial system, the improvement of financial institutions’ awareness and assessment capacity of green projects, policy tools to incentivize green investment and credit, and the enhancement of rural communities’ awareness and acceptance of green finance.

Urban resilience against disasters represents a key issue for contemporary society. The increasing complexity of cities along with more severe threats induced by climate change is pressing modern societies to search for new paths to prevention, preparedness and rapid recovery. As a result, resilience is triggering an increasing interest within many scientific contexts to explore the capabilities of communities to withstand extreme events. The present study proposes a framework aimed at quantifying disaster resilience of urban systems while ensuring an adequate level of sustainability, all according to a social and human-centric perspective. Urban networks are modelled as hybrid social–physical networks (HSPNs) by merging both physical and social components, and engineering measures are performed on HSPNs, as a measure of urban efficiency, within a multi-scale approach. Thence, social indicators are identified in order to characterise quality of life in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. Both efficiency and quality of life indicators are evaluated using a time–discrete approach before and after an extreme event occurs and during the recovery phase in order to measure inhabitant happiness and environmental sustainability. This approach allows handling different kinds of information simultaneously, being potentially implemented both in peacetime and during the recovery process. The former can be effective for urban coping capacity assessment in order to reduce risks as a mitigation instrument. The latter can be used in the post-event to identify the best recovery paths needing to be followed for adaptation.

Energy conversion systems have assumed a crucial role in current society. The threat of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the growing world energy demand ask for a more sustainable way of electricity production, eg, by using renewable energy sources, by improving the conversion efficiency and/or by controlling power plant emissions. Despite the relationship between exergy and sustainability stated in literature, exergy losses are usually not considered when comparing systems and energy sources for power generation. The exergetic sustainability assessment method named Total Cumulative Exergy Loss (TCExL) has been used to assess several systems for electricity production, ie, a coal-fired power plant, a coal-fired power plant including carbon capture and storage, a biomass-fired power plant, an offshore wind farm and a photovoltaic park. The results of the TCExL method have been compared with an environmental sustainability indicator, ie, the overall ReCiPe endpoint indicator and the economic indicator named Present Worth Ratio. The offshore wind farm is the best system from the exergetic and environmental point of view. The photovoltaic park is the system with the second-best scores. However, from the economic viewpoint including subsidy by the Dutch government, the photovoltaic park performs better than the wind farm system and the system that performs best is the biomass-fired power plant. Without subsidy, only the coal-fired power plant without carbon capture and storage is profitable. The exergetic sustainability scores of the coal-fired and biomass-fired power plants are similar, but from the environmental sustainability viewpoint, the biomass-fired power plant performs better than both coal-fired power plants. As the results of environmental and economic sustainability assessments strongly depend on models, weighting factors, subsidy, market prices, etc, while the results of the exergetic sustainability assessment do not, it is recommended that the exergetic sustainability be taken into account when assessing the sustainability of power generation and other technological systems.

Modern agriculture and food production systems are facing increasing pressures from climate change, land and water availability, and, more recently, a pandemic. These factors are threatening the environmental and economic sustainability of current and future food supply systems. Scientific and technological innovations are needed more than ever to secure enough food for a fast-growing global population. Scientific advances have led to a better understanding of how various components of the agricultural system interact, from the cell to the field level. Despite incredible advances in genetic tools over the past few decades, our ability to accurately assess crop status in the field, at scale, has been severely lacking until recently. Thanks to recent advances in remote sensing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can now quantify field scale phenotypic information accurately and integrate the big data into predictive and prescriptive management tools. This review focuses on the use of recent technological advances in remote sensing and AI to improve the resilience of agricultural systems, and we will present a unique opportunity for the development of prescriptive tools needed to address the next decade's agricultural and human nutrition challenges.