This brief argues that rooftop gardens in cities could supply cities with more than three quarters of their vegetable requirements. The brief from the European Commission is based on evidence from a case study from Bologna, Italy.

Ministers of the European Parliament have voted to adopt a new EU regulation aimed at improving the welfare of animals, encouraging farmers to practice good husbandry that helps prevent disease outbreaks and importantly intensify the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

In a recent blog-post on the UN’s Academic Impact website, Sonja Vermeulen and Andy Challinor write the third piece in a series on Food security and climate change entitled “Global Models Must Meet Grassroots Action to Deliver Climate Solutions for Farmers”. 

This article in Nature Climate Change titled Cropping frequency and area response to climate variability can exceed yield response, suggests that previous studies may have underestimated the impact of climate change on the world’s food supply.

In this paper, researchers from a range of research institutions investigate the likely ‘transformational adaptations’ that will be necessary over the next century to maintain agricultural yields in sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper in Science discusses the potential of yield increase incentives as a way of convincing farmers to save land to protect biodiversity rather than increasing farmland.   The increase of agricultural land is one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions in tropical countries. This paper argues that increasing yields on existing agricultural land can provide farmers with the incentive to spare land for wildlife and nature.

This study, published in The Lancet, concludes that climate change will have a dampening effect on progress being made to reduce the number of people who are hungry and malnourished. It concludes that climate change will reduce the number of avoided deaths by 529,000 – or, put another way – will be responsible for 529,000 additional and avoidable deaths by 2050.

Meat consumption in the context of climate change can be regulated in various ways and this interesting (and very clearly written) article uses the example of a hypothetical EU tax on meat consumption. It addresses legal issues concerning three possible designs of a hypothetical EU tax on consumption of domestic and imported meat.

A new paper argues that organic farming has significant potential to feed a growing world population as global temperatures increase.  The researchers examine the performance of organic farming in light of four key sustainability metrics: productivity, environmental impact, economic viability and social wellbeing.