This report from Cambridge Consultants examines the technologies and data science techniques that can be used to measure soil carbon cheaply and accurate, enabling farmers to sell carbon sequestration credits.

This paper sets out a conceptual framework for a “pesticide treadmill”, in which pesticide use initiates a self-reinforcing vicious cycle, which can be escaped from in certain circumstances. It illustrates its arguments using case studies from Sudan and Nicaragua, and sets out similarities and differences between modern neonicotinoid usage patterns and historical examples of pesticide treadmills.

This paper reviews the development of the global aquaculture sector between 1997 and 2017. It finds that while the feed efficiency of aquaculture has improved, aquaculture remains strongly dependent on marine feed ingredients. It identifies strong potential for cultured molluscs and seaweed to contribute to both nutritional security and ecosystems services.

Table member Madeleine Diment has co-authored this feature in Food Science and Technology, which summarises key insights, themes and recommendations from the literature on how to create resilient food systems. It is based on interviews with food system actors, including representatives of hospitality, catering and government.

This paper argues that the way the concept of “biodiversity” is defined and used is blocking progress in protecting nature. It notes that the mainstream Western conservation movement tends to focus on charismatic species and wilderness.

According to this blog post by UK charity Rewilding Britain, a survey of 23 English rewilding projects shows that job opportunities on the rewilding sites increased 47% and volunteering opportunities increased nine-fold, compared to before the rewilding projects began. New job roles focused on nature-based tourism, restoration activities, informal recreation, livestock management and education. 

According to this story in the Guardian newspaper, hundreds of farming and human rights groups are planning to boycott the United Nations Food Systems Summit, which is due to take place in September 2021. The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism, which represents civil society organisations working on food security, has raised concerns that the Summit may be too strongly influenced by corporate interests, lacks sufficient emphasis on human rights, and underestimates the extent to which food systems must be transformed. The Mechanism intends to set up alternative talks to run in parallel with the Summit.

In this episode of the Climate Proof-Food Podcast, food system research student Luke Spajic interviews Table’s Dr Tara Garnett on the history of research about food’s contribution to climate change, the EAT-Lancet Commission, contestation around livestock’s environmental impacts and three common perspectives on what to do about it, and what constitutes a healthy and sustainable diet.

This book makes the case for an “agroecological urbanism” (urbanism is the study of how people who live in cities and towns interact with the built environment). Chapters cover the foundations of agroecological urbanism, activist methodologies, decolonisation and decommodification of the food system, soil contaminants, urban agroforestry, post-capitalist food sovereignty, and case studies from Italy, Belgium, Mexico, Nicaragua and England.