Production efficiency/intensity | TableDebates

Energy use in the EU food sector: state of play and opportunities for improvement – Joint Research Centre Science and Policy Report

This report summarises research from scientific, policy and industrial experiences on energy use in the EU food sector. It acknowledges that while the EU has made progress in incorporating renewable energy across the economy, the share of renewables in the food system remains relatively small. The report discusses the way ahead and highlights the main challenges to be faced in decreasing energy use and in increasing the renewable energy share in the food sector.

Beef cows in a pasture at sunset. Photo by Stijn te Strake via Unsplash.

City Region Food Systems - Part IIIB - Scale and Production Strategy

This piece is the third and last blog-post in Mike Hamm's series discussing city region food systems. The series has been exploring the value of city-region food systems, obstacles to their development, and possible ways forward. Part I conceptualised the issues, and Part II discussed who the farmer of the future will be and how the United States might be fed in 2050. This last, Part III on scale and production strategy has been split into two so make sure you have read Part IIIA to get the full picture.This is the second of a two-part blog looking at scale and production strategy. In the first, Mike Hamm critiqued the notion that large-scale, conventional agriculture produced largely in concentrated areas is the only way to feed the U.S. and the world. In this piece, he critiques the notion that smaller-scale and alternative production strategies can feed the U.S. population and also considers a middle path of scale and production diversity. He invites your comments, suggestions, and criticisms.This post is written by FCRN member professor Michael W. Hamm, C.S. Mott Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at Michigan State University and Director of the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems. Mike is also a Visiting Fellow of Mansfield College and the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.

The Role of Agroecology in Sustainable Intensification

This report by the UK’s Land Use Policy Group discusses The Role of Agroecology in Sustainable Intensification and highlights agroecology as a method to safeguard UK food security. The report was prepared by the Organic Research Centre in collaboration with the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.

The Impacts of Climate Change Mitigation Strategies on Animal Welfare

This paper provides a useful overview of the effects that measures to reduce GHGs from the livestock sector can have upon the welfare of farmed animals. It argues that most approaches geared at seek to increasing the intensity of production via changes in breeding, feeding and housing may increase productivity per unit of GHG s emitted but they come at the expense of animal health and wellbeing.

Secure sustainable seafood from developing countries

In this article in Science, researchers warn that imported fish sold in European and North American shops may be less sustainably caught than claims suggest. The experts argue that projects aimed at stimulating sustainable fishing in developing countries often don’t deliver on their goals and therefore, in order to prevent that the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) quality label for sustainable fish is undermined, requirements for market access need to be more rigorous.

Healthy Food for a Healthy World: Leveraging Agriculture & Food to Improve Nutrition

This report is published by the Chicago Council for Global Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan organization committed to educating the public—and influencing the public discourse - on global issues of the day. In the report’s introduction they write: “In the effort to produce enough calories to sustain the global population, we have neglected the importance of nutrition. Food systems today simply are not structured to provide the most nutritious food possible to the greatest number of people. We need a new approach to address not just the quantity of food to be produced, but also its quality.”

IIED briefing: Sustainable intensification revisited

Sustainable intensification is receiving growing attention as a way to address the challenge of feeding an increasingly populous and resource-constrained world. But are we asking too much of it? Nearly 20 years after the concept was developed, this briefing revisits the term and asks what sustainable intensification is — a useful guiding framework for raising agricultural productivity on existing arable land in a sustainable manner; and what it is not -a paradigm for achieving food security overall.

Australia’s beef industry reduces environmental impact

Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) reports that the Australian beef industry has reduced its environmental footprint over the past 30 years. The results are presented in a new paper in Agricultural Systems, and in a press-release MLA writes that:

Photosynthesis hack is needed to feed the world by 2050

This paper argues that high-performance computing and genetic engineering that boost the photosynthetic efficiency of plants offers the best hope of increasing crop yields enough to feed a growing world population by 2050. It points out that we now have unprecedented computational resources that allow us to model every stage of photosynthesis and we can thus determine where the bottlenecks are. Advances in genetic engineering enable us to augment or circumvent steps that impede efficiency.