A report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been published , focusing on the environmental problems caused by nitrogen, phosphorous and other nutrient flows and identifying the actions that could be taken to reduce excessive nutrient use.  The research was led by Mark Sutton at the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and carried out by 50 exports from 14 countries.

There has been an exchange of views between the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) and GAIN, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition following the World Health Organisation’s statement that it will defer a decision as to whether GAIN should be accredited to the World Health Assembly.

Europe’s land footprint is 640 million hectares a year – an area equivalent to 1.5 times the size of Europe itself. This is the land required to make everything that we consume, from food to material products to fuel.

This very useful paper provides a much needed analysis of GHG emissions resulting from community urban food growing.  The study is located in the London Borough of Sutton ( a suburban part of london) and the area of production covers just under 3 hectares.  The study concludes that urban food prodution can deliver useful reductions in GHG emissions as compared with supermarket equivalents, provided that care is taken to produce the crops where there is the greatest environmental comparative advantage.

In December 2012 Chatham House (The Royal Institute for International Affairs) produced a report, Resource Futures, which presented the findings of a major into the shifting global political economy of key resources (land, water, energy, minerals and food), analysing their inter-linkages in production, use and trade.

WWF and the Food Ethics Council have jointly published a report which explores the whole idea of eating “less but better” meat.

ADAS, an environmental consultancy firm, has launched a Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) set up to foster and energise innovation in the arable industry, with the goal of understanding how  higher yields from the UK’s arable sector can be produced. 

New work undertaken by a team at Wageningen University in the Netherlands suggests that many Dutch consumers are interested in reducing their meat consumption without completely becoming vegetarian. The new data find more than three-quarters of consumers questioned have at least one ‘meat free’ day per week and 40% report at least three meat free days per week. The Dutch researchers claim that this trend of flexitarianism is emerging for other nations throughout Europe.