A new 'Farm Platform' has been launched at Rothamsted Research North Wyke in Devon, aims to help farmers to optimise productivity in ways that are sustainable, whilst at the same time understanding the impact of farming methods on the environment. 

Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich, is inviting people to subscribe to its new e-newsletter - The Resource, to keep everyone informed of its latest activities. 

According to the market reseach company Key Note, the market for vegetarian foods in the UK reached a value of £786.5m in the year ending January 2011, up 7.7% from £730.4m in the year ending January 2007. 

The EU food and drink industry has published its vision for 2030, setting out its commitments for the next two decades.  As far as I can see there are no tangible targets as regards emission reduction and so forth. What it says instead is as follows:

This paper points out that the potential for producing bioenergy from crops depends on a great many factors including assumptions about gains in agricultural productivity, patterns of food demand, political stability, policies on biodiversity and so forth.

This is a useful and readable opinion piece highlighting some fundamental errors in thinking about biofuels.

The Global Partnership on Nutrient Management (GPNM) and the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI) have published a ‘key messages’ statement for Rio+20. The document highlights the problems caused by excessive nutrient use on the one hand, and insufficient use on the other, and identifies nine key actions as being central to improving nutrient use efficiency, thereby improving food and energy production while reducing N and P losses that pollute our environment.