Compassion in World farming has released the fifth and last part in a series of blogs by Peter Stevenson, Compassion in World Farming’s Chief Policy Advisor.  An extract from his post is included below:

Abstract: In the course of the ongoing discussions and negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda, a consensus emerged that current and future social, environmental and economic challenges are interlinked and must be addressed through an integrated approach. 

The British government has failed to tackle poor nutrition and diet, and should do more to take public health nutrition into consideration in every area of policy, says a report by the UK Coronary Prevention Group, a charity dedicated to preventing heart disease through healthy lifestyles.

In Africa and Latin America, the production of beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, which include higher temperatures and more frequent drought. Climate modeling suggests that, over the next several decades, the area suited for this crop in eastern and central Africa could shrink up to 50% by 2050.

In this article from Scidev, Laurence Haddad (senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and former director at the Institute of Development Studies) discusses the new Global Nutrition Report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

In this report IFPRI describes the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2014 and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2015.

This paper estimates that global use of antimicrobial drugs in animal farming is anticipated to rise by 67% by 2030, due to increasing demand for animal products and a shift towards more large scale intensive systems of production. It argues that a range of measures need to be taken in order to address the negative impacts of this growth.

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.

This paper asks the question “Can agriculture be sustainable?”  It argues that, if we want to take a different path, we will have to make the choice to do so. It emphasises that we need to be clear that we have choices - options that need to be debated rather than subsumed in a dialogue of crisis and food shortages. The paper outlines some of these options in order to pursue a more sustainable pathway.