This blog-post from Martin Persson at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden takes on the timely question of how one should measure the climate impacts of different greenhouse gases.  He begins by explaining what the two most common metrics - Global Warming Potential (GWP) and the Global Temperature change Potential (GTP) – actually measure.  He then moves on to focus specifically on beef and associated methane emissions. In light of the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting warming to 2oC he argues that the ‘right’ metric to choose needs to reflect the specific climate policy that the measurement is to serve.Martin Persson is an Associate Professor at Physical Resource Theory, Department of Energy & Environment at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. In addition to metrics, his research focuses on global land use in relation to climate, biodiversity, and conservation policy. In a recent paper he and his colleagues show that the consumption and international trade of beef, soy, palm oil and timber products are dominant causes of deforestation in the tropics.

This post focuses on insect farming for human consumption. With a research-for-development perspective, author Wendy Lu McGill examines the political, cultural, and regulatory aspects of how insect farming could work in places where insect eating is most common. This piece also compares these developments with how insect farming operates in the Global North as a novel food production practice. This is the first in a series of blogs on insects that Wendy will be writing for the FCRN. A second blog-post discusses the use of insects as feed for animals.This week we are pleased to publish the first blog-post from Wendy Lu McGill, a PhD researcher at the Plant and Agribiosciences Research Centre (PABC) working with Prof. Charles Spillane and Dr. Peter McKeown at the National University of Ireland Galway.

This piece is a follow up in our new series on water. This time, FCRN member Dr Tim Hess from Cranfield University continues where Brad Ridoutt left off in his post on An update on water footprints. Tim is an Associate Professor in Water Management at the School of Energy, Environment and Agrifood. He has over 30 years’ experience in research and consultancy in the application of hydrology in managed rural environments, particularly irrigated agriculture in the UK and overseas. This has been applied to sustainable food supply chains, working with national and international organisations and major UK retailers.

The blog-post is the first in a two-part series on water. To read the follow up piece, where Dr Tim Hess from Cranfield University expands on the water stress footprint associated with different foods, read Post Two: Water footprint is the answer. Now what’s the question?This piece is written by FCRN member Brad Ridoutt who is a Principal Research Scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency. He is an international leader in the field of life cycle assessment (LCA), which he applies to agricultural production, food systems and sustainable healthy diets. Dr Ridoutt is engaged in a variety of international initiatives related to sustainability assessment. This includes ISO (International Organization for Standardization) where he represents Australia on committees related to LCA and environmental labelling. He also leads a task force within the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative which is establishing global guidance for developers of footprint metrics.NB. For an overview on terminology and the differences between water footprint and LCA, see the boxes below this text where more details are provided.   

This piece offers a review of nuances and contingencies in the current livestock sustainability discourse.This post is written by FCRN collaborator Elin Röös. Elin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences working for the Future Agriculture initiative at the same university, which is a strategic multidisciplinary research platform that addresses the sustainable use of natural resources with emphasis on agricultural production and food systems. 

In this piece, FCRN member Professor Michael W. Hamm provides a short commentary on a paper featured and discussed previously by the FCRN. Full citation for the paper is as follows: (Tom, M, Fischbeck, P.S., and Hendrickson, C.T. (2015) “Energy use, blue water footprint, and greenhouse gas emissions for current food consumption patterns and dietary recommendations in the US” Environ Syst Decis, DOI 10.1007/s10669-015-9577-y).Mike is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Regional Food Systems at Michigan State University.For other blogs Mike has written for the FCRN, see: Feeding cities - with indoor vertical farms?, the 3 part blog-series on City region food systems and lastly, his post about the inclusion of sustainability considerations in the US dietary guidelines report.

This piece discusses the findings of a recent paper by de Ruiter and colleagues, Global cropland and greenhouse gas impacts of UK food supply are increasingly located overseas.  The full abstract and citation are provided below. This post is written by FCRN member Henri de Ruiter. Henri is a PhD Student at the University of Aberdeen and the James Hutton Institute. Henri graduated with a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Behavioural and Neurosciences from the University of Groningen. His current PhD project considers the implications of meeting a healthy and environmentally sustainable diet for future land use.Henri would welcome your thoughts on the paper. Add a comment in the field below this blog-post, but note that you need to be signed in as a member to write a comment.

This piece, written by the lead author, provides further commentary on "Energy use, blue water footprint, and greenhouse gas emissions for current food consumption patterns and dietary recommendations in the US."This post is written by Michelle Tom, a research associate at Carnegie Mellon University. Michelle recently earned a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at CMU. Her research investigates the relationship between human health and natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions within the transportation and food supply sectors of the U.S. 

In this piece, FCRN member Rafael Silva and Professor Dominic Moran review new empirical evidence on beef production and deforestation in Brazil.Rafael is undertaking a PhD titled “Modelling sustainable intensification in Brazilian agriculture” at the University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s rural College (SRUC). Rafael holds a bachelor degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics (2010) and a Masters in Applied Mathematics (2013), both from the University of Campinas, Brazil. During his Masters Rafael worked for the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and for SRUC on the Animal Change project, which focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production. Recently he was contacted by the Ministry of Agriculture in Brazil to provide analysis supporting the calculation of the livestock sector’s contribution to Brazil’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDCs). His main interests are in modelling agricultural systems, particularly modelling the role of Brazilian livestock systems on deforestation and in climate change mitigation.Dominic Moran is professor of applied economics at University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s rural College (SRUC) specialising in the areas of environmental and resource economics and policy analysis in developed and developing countries.