This is taken from CCAF’S latest e-newsletter.  CCAFS is the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, a partnership between the Consultative Group on International Agricultural CGIAR and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP).

The journal, PloS Medicine has published its latest issue which focuses on ‘big food’ – a series of 7 articles that examine the activities and influence of the food and beverage industry on health.

Defra’s Green Food Project has published its report. This project was tasked to consider how production and consumption could change in the future, and whether/how it was possible to reconcile the goals of increasing production and improving the environment. 

This report presents findings based on an interdisciplinary systems level scenario approach designed specifically to address complex societal problems. The project was funded by the Sustainable Consumption Institute to explore how the UK food system may develop and change in response to futures bounded by more or less extreme climate impacts and emission cuts. The UK is taken as a case study to explore suites of possible futures that address adaptation, mitigation and demand.

In a paper in PLOS One, researcher Gregory Okin suggests that the diets of carnivorous pets, like cats and dogs, have a significant impact on climate change. He estimates that in the U.S. alone, cats and dogs are responsible for 25-30 percent of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the country. In the U.S. there are 163 million cats and dogs, which together eat as much food as all the people in France. Okin found that to feed these animals the US releases 64 million tons of CO2.

'Virtuous Circles: Values, Systems and Sustainability’, a recently published book by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), articulates an alternative future in which food, energy and water supplies are sustainable and in the control of local communities.  It focuses on local communities as the driver of alternative means of designing resilient food systems.

In June 2011, Arla Foods launched its Global Environmental Strategy 2020, which maps the entire environmental impact of its dairy products and includes a pledge to reduce global CO2 emissions by 25% by 2020 within the areas of production, haulage and packaging.