The International Trade Center’s (ITC) Trade and Environment Unit has recently released a training manual aimed at addressing climate change in the tea sector. With climate change already having an impact on both the quality and quantity of tea the manual sets out to help tea farmers and factories lower their emissions and reduce energy costs. One of the reasons for the focus on factories is that exporters are increasingly subject to requirements set by buyers and retailers to measure and reduce carbon emissions.

This book uses a decade of primary research to examine how weather and climate, as measured by variations in the growing season using satellite remote sensing, has affected agricultural production, food prices and access to food in food-insecure regions of the world.

The CCAFS (CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security) newsletter Agriculture-Climate Letters - A Science-Policy Bulletin, is a valuable resource for those interested in receiving further updates on the links between food and climate –with a particular focus on developing countries. In their latest issue Sonja Vermeulen, CCAFS head of research, highlights the special issue of Environmental Research Letters on mitigation in the agriculture and land use sectors in developing countries.  See more information about the CCAFS newsletter and how to sign up here and read the full Environmental Letter series here.

A top China  government advisor said at a recent Beijing conference that China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter will limit its total emissions for the first time by the end of this decade. The Chair of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change said that an absolute cap on emissions will be introduced sometime within the next five years. Although the advisor later stated that these were only his own opinions, commentators expressed a cautious optimism about the statement.

This paper looks at four different conceptual frameworks that tend to be used by diverse stakeholders when analysing the problem of food security and suggesting solutions: agroecology, agricultural innovation systems, social-ecological systems and political ecology. In this paper the authors look at how each perspective or framework thinks about the food security problem, the theoretical positions underpinning each framework, its approach to improving the food security situation and ultimately its vision of what ‘good’ looks like.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has released a report on the water, food and energy nexus, entitled “Co-optimizing Solutions: Water and Energy for Food, Feed and Fiber.”

The Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) report on insecticides will shortly be published as a special issue of Environmental Science and Pollution Research.  In the report, the global group of researchers in the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides argue that insecticide use may already have caused severe harm to global food production through its  impacts on the environment.  The researchers look at the impacts and risks associated with neonicotinoids use. They argue that rather than protecting food production, the use of the insecticide is threatening the productivity of our natural and farmed environment.

This paper, Short-Lived Climate Pollution, published in Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, argues that since carbon dioxide has the longest living effects of all climate pollutants,  remaining in the atmosphere for thousands of years, it should be the primary focus of global climate change mitigation efforts.

The Guardian recently hosted a live chat where a panel of experts joined readers online to discuss the future of sustainable agriculture in the face of changing weather driven by climate change and increasing competition for food. This article discusses 10 points that were discussed by participats. Read the full article here.