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.

This article discusses the interplay of food requirements, food waste, food deficits, and associated GHG emissions. It estimates the agricultural GHG emissions associated with food waste, argues the importance of reducing food waste as a contribution to addressing GHG emissions and proposes a standardized method for estimating food waste for all countries.

In a guest post for Carbon brief University of Leeds professor of population ecology and FCRN advisory board member Tim Benton and Dr Bojana Bajželj of WRAP conclude that food related emissions will take up our entire carbon budget by 2050 if we don’t change our diets and the way our food is produced, so destroying any chance of meeting the raised ambition of the Paris Agreement.

This paper finds that the EU’s climate targets for 2050 for methane and nitrous oxide can be met by a combination of technological improvements in agriculture (found to have a potential to cut emissions by nearly 50% in optimistic scenarios) and through a reduction in beef consumption. The study authors argue that these targets can be met even with a continued high consumption of pork and poultry.

Meat consumption in the context of climate change can be regulated in various ways and this interesting (and very clearly written) article uses the example of a hypothetical EU tax on meat consumption. It addresses legal issues concerning three possible designs of a hypothetical EU tax on consumption of domestic and imported meat.

In this policy briefing, Global Justice Now reports on the alleged “hidden emissions” of three major agribusinesses, the aim being to highlight the real contribution that multinational feed, fertiliser and beef agribusinesses make to climate change.

This FAO brief on food waste discusses the carbon footprint of global food waste and so called embedded emissions in avoidable food waste. In order to measure the avoidable emissions it is necessary to know how much of what kind of food is wasted and where.

This paper looks at how supplier relationship management impacts emission levels from food supply chains. It investigates the influence of corporate Supplier Engagement Programmes (SEP) and the limitations of SEP-led improvements. Supplier Engagement Programmes are programmes set up to allow supermarkets to, for example, review carbon reduction measures and request GHG emissions and other data from their suppliers.

This study entitled, Can carbon emissions from tropical deforestation drop by 50% in 5 years?, published in Global Change Biology, discusses global carbon emission trends from deforestation and the case of Brazil in particular.