This paper presents biodiversity scenarios as a useful tool to help policymakers predict how flora and fauna will likely respond to future environmental conditions. Although changes to land use are a major driver of biodiversity loss, the study finds that scenarios focus overwhelmingly on climate change. The researchers argue that this imbalance makes scenarios less credible, and they make recommendations on how to improve and make more plausible projections.

The iPES food panel (International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems), has published a report reviewing the latest evidence on benefits and challenges with different production models, specifically looking at the industrial agriculture and agroecological farming systems. It argues that there are eight key reasons why industrial agriculture is locked in place despite its negative impacts; and it maps out a series of steps to break these cycles and shift towards expanding agroecological farming.

In a major report, ICROFS (International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems) at Aarhus University, Denmark evaluates the health and environmental impacts of organic versus conventionally farmed foods.

This report by Compassion in World Farming highlights the so-called “negative externalities” associated with livestock-based food production – that is, costs to human health and the environment that are borne by society as a whole and which are not accounted for by the cost of producing the food or the price of consuming it.

In this paper, researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Reading compare how effective three different wildlife-friendly farming strategies are at supporting habitat diversity and species richness.

In the years since publication of the first edition of “Food Wars” much has happened in the world of food policy. This new edition brings these developments fully up to date within the original analytical framework of competing paradigms or worldviews shaping the direction and decision-making within food politics and policy.

In this blog-post Ademola Braimoh, Senior Natural Resources Management Specialist, at the World Bank, argues that quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production is a necessary step for climate-smart agriculture (CSA). He writes that greenhouse gas accounting can provide the numbers and data that are important for solid decision making.

Some scientists have suggested that Africa's wet savannahs could be ideal for growing crops needed to meet the growing demand for food and bioenergy. In this paper however, researchers from Princeton University and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) warn that farmland conversion of these savannahs will come at a much higher cost than previously thought.

An online overview of agroecology research is currently being conducted in the UK by the Ecological Land Cooperative. A mixed professional and volunteer research team was commissioned to: 1) review research on ecological agriculture in the United Kingdom; and 2) provide a database of existing research. The overview is freely accessible and it was developed to inform both on-going research work and those working in the field of agroecology.