Researchers at the Swedish Environmental Research Institute have investigated how different food choices and changing eating habits affect the environment.

This study evaluates the links between diets and health in relation to greenhouse gas emissions by reviewing 16 studies, comparing a total of 100 dietary patterns.  The researchers examine how diets with reduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) affected the subjects in the studies in terms of nutrient intake and health outcomes.

This paper in Science discusses the potential of yield increase incentives as a way of convincing farmers to save land to protect biodiversity rather than increasing farmland.   The increase of agricultural land is one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions in tropical countries. This paper argues that increasing yields on existing agricultural land can provide farmers with the incentive to spare land for wildlife and nature.

This study, published in The Lancet, concludes that climate change will have a dampening effect on progress being made to reduce the number of people who are hungry and malnourished. It concludes that climate change will reduce the number of avoided deaths by 529,000 – or, put another way – will be responsible for 529,000 additional and avoidable deaths by 2050.

This new paper published in Nature Climate Change, assesses the mitigation potentials achievable through improved livestock management practices and moderating meat consumption. It estimates that livestock-oriented measures could account for up to half of the mitigation potential of the global agricultural, forestry and land-use sectors but emphasises that the gap between technical potential and social and economic feasibility is likely to be large.

In their two-part contribution to the Livestock debate on the website of Arc2020 (the agricultural and rural convention), the IPES representatives Olivier de Schutter, Hans Herren and Emile Frison discuss the environmental footprint of livestock, the need for livestock farming to be reintegrated into landscapes and the flaws in the current factory farming model; and they propose ways to address the challenges posed by industrial livestock systems.

A new genetic variety of rice has properties that ensure that the methane emissions that are normally released in production are substantially reduced. Biochemists in Sweden, China and the United States have worked together to create a new rice variety called SUSIBA2, which has now been dubbed the world’s first ‘climate-friendly rice’. 

In this Nature Comment, Phil Williamson of the Natural England Research Council and the University of East Anglia, argues that in order for the climate goals agreed at the COP21 in Paris last year to be achieved, a full assessment must be made of the methods for removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

This policy briefing by the Eating Better alliance, aimed at UK Government, Devolved Administrations and the EU, recommends that action be taken to shift eating patterns towards less and better quality meat, and more plant-based foods.