In this piece, Adrian Muller takes a look at the qualities and constraints around expanded organic farming systems. His commentary is based on the paper Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture, published in Nature Communications earlier in November and summarised by the FCRN here. Adrian Muller is an FCRN member and senior researcher at FiBL (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture) and ETH Zurich, Switzerland. 

Susann Schade is a research associate and doctoral candidate at the Institute for Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences at the Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany, where she previously studied agriculture and area studies. Susann focused on life cycle assessment for her master’s thesis in which she compared the environmental impacts of different fruits and vegetables. She subsequently joined the cluster project “NovAL (Novel microalgae species as a sustainable source of bioactive nutrients in human nutrition)” of four German universities to investigate the environmental impacts of microalgae cultivation.

Tara Garnett is a researcher at the University of Oxford where she runs the Food Climate Research Network and its sister site Foodsource.  Her work centres on the interactions among food, climate, health and broader sustainability issues.  She has particular interests in livestock as an area where many of these converge, and in how knowledge is communicated to and interpreted by policy makers, civil society and industry, and in their different approaches to food problems and solutions. Tara is also part of the LEAP project at Oxford, a Wellcome Trust-funded initiative focused on gaining a greater understanding of the health, environmental, social and economic effects of livestock production and consumption.  In particular she works closely with Jamie Lorimer, Alex Sexton and Nathan Clay, on themes which explore the rise in alternatives to animal products, and transitions in the dairy sector. You can contact Tara on taragarnett@fcrn.org.uk.

Christina O’Sullivan is the Campaign & Communications Manager at Feedback, where she manages the ‘Fishy Business’ campaign. Feedback is a campaign group working to regenerate nature by transforming the food system. Christina has an MSc in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy, City University. She has worked at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and the Global Centre for Food Systems Innovation at Michigan State University.

Kelly Reed is the programme manager for the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, University of Oxford and an archaeobotanist with interests in food systems, agricultural development, cultural adaptations to environmental change and global sustainability. Philippa Ryan is a Research Fellow in Economic Botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where her research focuses on traditional agriculture, crop histories and agrobiodiversity.

This piece is a follow up in our new series on water. This time, FCRN member Dr Tim Hess from Cranfield University continues where Brad Ridoutt left off in his post on An update on water footprints. Tim is an Associate Professor in Water Management at the School of Energy, Environment and Agrifood. He has over 30 years’ experience in research and consultancy in the application of hydrology in managed rural environments, particularly irrigated agriculture in the UK and overseas. This has been applied to sustainable food supply chains, working with national and international organisations and major UK retailers.

This post is written by Elise Birkett, who is studying environmental studies and journalism at New York University, and Anna Davidsen Davies, who is a Brazilian NYU Environmental Studies and Public Health graduate now working in the recycling sector with TerraCycle in the U.S. The post has been edited by Mia MacDonald and Judy Bankman of Brighter Green, a New York-based public policy action tank that works on issues that span the environment, animals, and sustainability.

Matthew (Matt) Jordon is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, with research interests in sustainable ruminant production in the UK, payments for ecosystem services, and global food security. In particular, Matt is keen to conduct research that maximises engagement with the UK farming community to establish viable land management strategies that deliver a spectrum of ecosystem services from farmland alongside profitable food production. Matt grew up on a sheep and beef cattle farm in the north east of England, and studied undergraduate Biological Sciences, also at Oxford.

Dr Alexandra Sexton is a geographer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and has been studying the socio-political aspects of cellular agriculture and plant-based alternatives since 2013. She is currently a researcher on the 'Livestock, Environment and Planning' (LEAP) project funded by Wellcome's Our Planet, Our Health initiative. This blog is an overview of the open-access article Framing the future of food: The contested promises of alternative proteins written by Alexandra Sexton, Tara Garnett & Jamie Lorimer and published in Environment and Planning E: Nature & Space. Its findings were also included in a recent World Economic Forum report entitled ‘Meat: The Future Series – Alternative Proteins’.