scholarly journals Restoring Nature at Lower Food Production Costs

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiorgos Vittis ◽  
Christian Folberth ◽  
Sophie-Charlotte Bundle ◽  
Michael Obersteiner
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Food Prices ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
High Yield ◽  
Economic Modelling ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Modelling Studies

Growing competition for land, water and energy call for global strategies ensuring affordable food production at minimum environmental impacts. Economic modelling studies suggest trade-off relationships between environmental sustainability and food prices. However, evidence based on empirical cost-functions supporting such trade-offs remains scarce at the global level. Here, based on cost engineering modelling, we show that optimised spatial allocation of 10 major crops, would reduce current costs of agricultural production by approximately 40% while improving environmental performance. Although production inputs per unit of output increase at local scales, a reduction of cultivated land of 50% overcompensates the slightly higher field-scale costs enabling improved overall cost-effectiveness. Our results suggest that long-run food prices are bound to continue to decrease under strong environmental policies. Policies supporting sustainability transitions in the land sector should focus on managing local barriers to the implementation of high-yield regenerative agricultural practices delivering multiple regional and global public goods.

Ecoagriculture for a Sustainable Food Future

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Chalmer
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Cultural Sensitivity ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Constant Input ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
European Farming

Global food security is dependent on ecologically viable production systems, but current agricultural practices are often at odds with environmental sustainability. Resolving this disparity is a huge task, but there is much that can be learned from traditional food production systems that persisted for thousands of years. Ecoagriculture for a Sustainable Food Future describes the ecological history of food production systems in Australia, showing how Aboriginal food systems collapsed when European farming methods were imposed on bushlands. The industrialised agricultural systems that are now prevalent across the world require constant input of finite resources, and continue to cause destructive environmental change. This book explores the damage that has arisen from farming systems unsuited to their environment, and presents compelling evidence that producing food is an ecological process that needs to be rethought in order to ensure resilient food production into the future. Cultural sensitivity Readers are warned that there may be words, descriptions and terms used in this book that are culturally sensitive, and which might not normally be used in certain public or community contexts. While this information may not reflect current understanding, it is provided by the author in a historical context.

Farmland preservation and sustainable agriculture: Grassroots and policy connections

2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43
Author(s):  
K.S. Korfmacher
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Agriculture ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Farmland Preservation ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Federal Policies ◽  
Support Organizations ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Policies And Programs

AbstractOver the long run, a sustainable food production system requires both a sufficient base of agricultural land and agricultural practices that do not degrade the land. However, current policies and programs for protecting agricultural land are not systematically integrated with those promoting sustainable agriculture. There are various ways that policymakers, agricultural support organizations, and researchers could better integrate farmland preservation and sustainable agriculture efforts. This paper suggests several approaches for developing such connections including: coordinating local, state, and federal policies, conducting related research, and developing integrated outreach and education programs.

scholarly journals Food Security

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Aparna Nayak
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Food Prices ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
World Population ◽  
Developing Regions

Global food security is one of the most unrelenting issues for humanity, and agricultural production is not sufficient in accomplishing this. However, earlier analyses of agricultural food production barely ever bring out the contrasts associated with economic development and different climatic zones. The world population is increasing day by day and climate change will be causing more extreme weather, higher temperatures and changed precipitation. The crop contributes about 20 % of the total dietary calories and proteins globally. There is 1% annual growth in food demand in the developing regions. The developing regions (including China and Central Asia) account for roughly 53 % of the total harvested area and 50 % of the production. Although, unmatched productivity growth from the Green Revolution since the 1960s dramatically transformed world food production, benefitting both producers and consumers through low production costs and low food prices. One of the key challenges today is to replace today’s food system with new ones for better sustainability. While the Green Revolution freed essential ecosystems from conversion to agriculture, it also created its own ecological problems. Moreover productivity increase is now slow or stagnant. Attaining the productivity gains needed to ensure food security will therefore require more than a repeat performance of the Green Revolution of the past. Future demand will need to be achieved through sustainable intensification that combines better crop resistance plants, adaptation to warmer climates, and less use of water, fuel, fertilizer, and labor. Meeting these challenges will require concerted efforts in research and innovation to develop and set up feasible solutions. Necessary investment will be required to realize sustainable productivity growth through better technologies and policy and institutional innovations that facilitate farmer adoption and adaptation. The persistent lessons from the Green Revolution and the recent efforts for sustainable escalation of food systems in South Asia and other developing nations will definitely providing useful insights for the future.

scholarly journals Improving Food and Nutrition Security in Kenya’s Arid Lands-A Mini Review

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Michael N. I. Lokuruka
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
National Level ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Food Prices ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Food And Nutrition Security ◽  
Nutrition Security ◽  
Food And Nutrition

This paper presents a review of the literature on food and nutrition security in Kenya’s arid counties. It also provides strategies that can be adopted to improve food and nutrition security in the counties. Due to their aridity, they are associated with low economic, health, literacy and food and nutrition security indicators. They bear the brunt of food and nutrition insecurity and a proportionately higher percentage of their population faces starvation, whenever droughts occur. Stunting and wasting in the region’s children averages 28 and 14%, respectively. The figures compare poorly with the national averages of 4% and 11%, respectively. As the indices are related to quantity, diversity and quality of food intake, there is need to reduce food and nutrition insecurity in these Counties. Past efforts to reduce food and nutrition insecurity have failed, due to lack of long-term commitment from the National-level of Government, the use of inefficient farming technologies and low level of mechanization. Poverty, low and unpredictable rainfall for rain-fed agriculture, inconsistent livestock marketing of poor quality livestock, high crop production costs, high food prices also contribute to food and nutrition insecurity of the region. To improve food and nutrition security, it is recommended that the National-level of Government cedes the implementation of food production programmes to County Governments, while it strengthens food production policies, diversification of livelihoods and supports resilience-building. Other recommendations include innovating solar and wind-power devices to run machinery for food production, processing and preservation. Improvements in water harvesting, storage and pumping with wind and solar-powered equipment can also be explored. These improvements should eventually reduce dependence on food importation, which raises food prices, and de-incentivizes local farmers. Diversification of livelihoods, good governance and the application of appropriate technologies in food production, value addition and cooperation of the two levels of Government, are likely to gradually improve access and availability of quality and affordable food. The potential result is an improving food and nutrition security situation in Kenya’s arid Counties.

Development of an integrated indicator to assess the multi-dimensional global environmental impact of crop production.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark jwaideh ◽  
Carole Dalin
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Composite Indicator ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Development Goals

<p>Due to increased demand for food, feed, fibre and fuels, intensive resource-use for crop production causes depletion of finite natural resources imperils ecosystems’ integrity. Environmental sustainability is a major global challenge, as identified by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which indicate environmental protection, and higher food production (to end hunger and achieve food security and nutrition), as key goals. As such, the need to measure the environmental sustainability of agriculture globally is imperative to aid decision making for long term, multidisciplinary policy and research programs.</p><p>Composite indicators are popular tools to assess environmental performance due to their operational relevance in policy-making. However, the reliability of a composite indicator heavily depends not only on the meaningfulness and accuracy of the indicators embedded within, but also on the underlying methods used to construct the composite indicator. This research takes advantage of new spatially-explicit estimates of environmental impacts of global agriculture due to the use of fertiliser, water, land-use and emissions of greenhouse gases to build an integrated environmental sustainability indicator. Different constructions of a meaningful composite indicator are formed and assessed for their sensitivity to varying biophysical and resource input factors.</p><p>The tool will be used to analyse hotspots for environmental impacts and resource intensities, providing the initial analysis to aid institutions and governments at the strategic level to compare their level of sustainability, thus encouraging improvement of standards/ranking against other regions and implement drivers for behaviour and change. The study opens the opportunity to provide sustainable food production frameworks globally, group regions and analysis trade-offs/synergies between environmental impacts. Furthermore, by using emerging environmental datasets, this work generates new knowledge and understanding of globally significant environmental processes and profile these policy relevant insights; a process that is increasingly important for global agendas such as the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.</p>

An analysis of trade-offs in food production costs and soil conservation by an interregional programming and multigoal model

1980 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orhan Saygideger ◽  
Earl O. Heady ◽  
Gary F. Vocke ◽  
Vincent A. Sposito
Keyword(s):  
Soil Conservation ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Interregional Programming

Global research paradigms in chickpea economics: An approach with Indian scenario

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Mazid ◽  
Farha Naz ◽  
Khalil Khan
Keyword(s):  
Current Status ◽  
High Yield ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Economic Modelling ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Field Exposure ◽  
Farm Diversification ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Agriculture Products

Economics of pulse production is still in its infancy, even though literature on the subject has grown in tandem with the volume of business and attention received by the export-import culture, consumed and traded amount. With a distinct shift in the trend of chickpea production within India and obtained high yield productivity, new constraints have cropped up in the productivity sector of chickpea. In spite of these constraints, innovations in chickpea production have come up; for example, low input livelihood pulse based agriculture systems, sustainable and ecological agriculture, etc. in many parts of the world. These have a definite bearing on the long-run payoffs from small-scale agriculture. Moreover, Chickpea production in tropical countries has been found to be economically viable as a farm diversification strategy and as an independent commercial activity, turning our attention on bio-economic modelling. Cross-price effects of chickpea based agriculture products, effects of trade and non-trade barriers on these products, potential conflicts between the development of chickpea production for export and agriculture for subsistence consumption are the other serious concerns that need to be addressed. With the ever-increasing demand for varietal items based on chickpea in the international market, more research on demand-elasticities and its analysis would be appropriate, especially in the Indian context for the evaluation of the current status and prediction of future scenario of chickpea production. Evaluation of the prevalent chickpea based agriculture technologies can be strengthened by specific farm technical-efficiency studies, which is another area that demands attention in the chickpea economics research. To address such leads and lags, global pulse economists in the country need to take up these challenges by having real time field exposure to different segments of chickpea production.

scholarly journals Integrating the Value of Natural Capital in Evidence-Based Policy Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onil Banerjee ◽  
Martin Cicowiez ◽  
Renato Vargas
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Economic Modelling ◽  
National Accounts ◽  
Performance Measurements ◽  
System Of National Accounts ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Analytical Frameworks

This paper describes how Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) can be integrated into economy wide analytical frameworks to enhance evidence based decision making. Examples from applications of the Integrated Environmental Economic Modelling (IEEM) Platform show how explicitly accounting for the contributions of the environment to the economy in economic forecasting can lead to substantially different policy recommendations, overcoming some of the scope limitations of traditional economic performance analysis. Furthermore, the paper describes how NCA can be integrated into more traditional economic performance measurements, such as the System of National Accounts and their indicators such as adjusted Gross Domestic Product and Genuine Savings. Integration of natural capital into economy-wide analytical frameworks leads to better policy uptake of research findings and it empowers policymakers to avoid short-sighted decisions, which, although they can generate short-term economic gain, can have adverse consequences for economic, social, and environmental sustainability in the long run.

scholarly journals A Science-Policy Framework for a Green Economic Recovery After the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodoros Zachariadis ◽  
Elias Giannakis ◽  
Constantinos Taliotis ◽  
Marios Karmellos ◽  
Nestor Fylaktos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
European Union Country ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Environmental Objectives ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Current Production ◽  
Economic Stimulus ◽  
Multi Stakeholder

Abstract As current production and consumption patterns of humanity exceed planetary boundaries, many opinion leaders have stressed the need to adopt green economic stimulus policies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we provide an integrated multi-stakeholder framework to design an economic recovery strategy aligned with sustainability objectives. We first employ quantitative energy and economic models and then design a multi-criteria decision process in which we engage social actors from government, enterprises, and civil society. As a case study, we select green recovery measures that are relevant for a European Union country and assess their appropriateness with numerous criteria related to socio-economic and environmental sustainability and resilience. Results highlight trade-offs between immediate and long-run effects, between economic and environmental objectives, and between expert evidence and societal priorities. Importantly, we find that a ‘return-to-normal’ economic stimulus is not only environmentally unsustainable but also economically inferior to most green recovery schemes.

Impact of Sustainability Reporting on Firm Performance of Companies in India

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyanka Garg
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Sustainability Reporting ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Marginal Lands ◽  
Great Ability ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Core Idea

The core idea of sustainability is that current decisions should not impair the prospects for maintaining or improving future living standards (Repetto, 1986). GRI (2006) defined sustainability as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The challenges of sustainable development are many and it is widely accepted that organizations have not only a responsibility but also a great ability to exert positive change on the state of the worlds economy, and environmental and social conditions. Further, the issue of environmental sustainability is intertwined with that of poverty and inequity. The causative relationship runs both ways- increased poverty and loss of rural livelihoods accelerates environmental degradation as displaced people put greater pressure on forests, fisheries, and marginal lands. The present study has made an attempt to investigate the relationship between sustainability reporting and financial performance of companies in India. Data have been collected with the help of annual reports of selected companies and Prowess Database. Collected data have been analyzed with the help of SPSS 16.0. The study shows that sustainability reporting practices of companies has improved over the time. Further, research reveals that sustainability reporting practices of a firm impact its performance negatively in short run while positively in long run.

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