International Archives - Page 2 of 3

Strengthening food markets across the rural-urban continuum

The importance of maintaining functioning food markets in the face of global food supply chain vulnerability and disruption has brought new attention to markets that support local and territorial food systems. Drawing on lessons from Covid-19 impacts on rural and urban regions and their populations, our author presents proposals for these markets – formal and informal alike – to cope with future shocks.
The world has been living through the Coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) since early 2020 with differing impacts and responses between rural and urban areas. The pandemic began in cities and spread to rural areas over the course of 2020, and continues to evolve as new variants keep spreading. Local and national governments, the private sector, civil society, donors and the UN system pivoted in 2020 to analyse impacts of Covid-19 and, based on new evidence, apply interventions to address the most Covid-vulnerable. The capacity to understand and respond to protect populations in poorer countries has been uneven and far more challenging in rural areas, especially in the Global South.

Public food procurement for sustainable food systems and healthy diets

Sustainable Public Food Procurement (PFP) represents a key game changer for food systems transformation. It can influence both food consumption and food production patterns. It can deliver multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits towards sustainable food systems for healthy diets.

This publication aims to contribute to the improved understanding, dissemination, and use of PFP as a development tool in particular in the case of school meals programmes. In this Volume 2, researchers, policymakers, and development partners can find extensive evidence of the instruments, enablers, and barriers for PFP implementation. It also provides case studies with local, regional, and national experiences from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.

Economic and environmental performance of controlled-environment supply chains for leaf lettuce

We assess landed costs and selected environmental metrics for field-based and controlled-environment agriculture greenhouse (GH) supply chains for leaf lettuce delivered to New York City. Landed costs for a GH are 46 to 174 per cent higher than field production, with the lower value for an automated GH located in the peri-urban area. Energy use and global warming potential per kg lettuce delivered were larger for the GH, particularly if located in a peri-urban area. Water use was much higher for the field-based supply chain. Controlled-environment GH technologies will require further development to meet goals for lower costs and environmental impact.

Regenerative Grazing, Carbon, and Climate

Can regenerative agriculture mitigate climate change? Does regenerative grazing sequester more carbon? Arguments abound as to the role of regenerative agriculture—and grazing specifically—as a natural climate solution, each with their own supporting and dissenting evidence. Understanding the way that carbon is introduced to the atmosphere, captured by soils, and stored by soils is critical to defining a position on this topic.

Strengthening Urban Rural Linkages for Sustainable Development

Accounting for the hidden costs of agrifood systems in data-scarce contexts: Background paper for The State of Food and Agriculture 2023

This background paper to The State of Food and Agriculture 2023 reviews the methods used, as well as the data required, to estimate the hidden environmental, social and health costs associated with agrifood systems. The studies analysed are based on the true cost accounting approach, which can facilitate improved decision-making by policymakers, businesses, farmers, investors and consumers. The reviewed studies demonstrate that hidden costs of agrifood systems are considerable, and that action is needed at global, national and local levels.

To apply true cost accounting at the country level, the methods developed must be downscaled and the data limitations overcome. This review goes through each cost category – environmental, social and health – and proposes approaches to deal with them, with a focus on country-level estimates and analysis, especially in data-scarce countries. Where data are not available or time is limited, methods combining secondary data are suggested. In some cases, the suggestion is to collaborate with research centres.
The paper further argues that, when addressing hidden costs in agrifood systems, trade-offs may arise, which may require the use of more complex tools, such as partial and general equilibrium models, to analyse their impacts on different areas. In general, the extent of the compromise will be minimized if there are at least as many policy instruments as there are objectives. For example, if a country seeks to restore fish stocks and address rural poverty, restricting catch alone could increase poverty in the artisanal fishing community. Adding income support, however, could allow both objectives to be met.

PSIII-9 Hempseed Meal as an Effective Protein Supplement for Finishing Wethers

As our global agriculture landscape continues to change it has become more important than ever to find sustainable alternatives to feed livestock. Hempseed and its derivatives may provide alternative sources of nutrients for inclusion in livestock diets, however, due to the paucity of research on hemp and its byproducts, there is no authorization of the inclusion of these products in food animal diets. We hypothesized that the digestibility and use of hempseed meal would be similar to other livestock protein sources. Forty Western White-Faced wethers were used in a completely randomized block design with 5 treatments. These treatments included diets formulated to be near isonitrogenous with 0, 5, 10, 15, or 20% of diet DM as hemp seed meal, primarily as a substitute for dried distillers grains with solubles. Wethers were fed the diets individually for 90 d, which was followed by a 5 d balance trial with a total collection of urine and feces. There were no differences in DM intake (P = 0.44) or average daily gain (P= .16) between treatments. There were no differences in DM digestibility (P = 0.86) or N digestibility (P = 0.29) between treatments, although there was a slight increase in P digestibility as hemp meal inclusion increased until it represented 15% of the dietary DM (P = 0.02). There were no differences in the digestibility of Ca (P=0.44), Mg (P = 0.10), K (P = 0.85), or Na (P = 0.54). There were no differences in urinary N excretion (P=0.33) or urinary urea excretion (P=0.34) between treatments. Additionally, blood chemistry constituents were also not affected by treatment (P ≥ 0.10). Based on these data, it is concluded that hemp seed meal is a comparable protein supplement for sheep with no identified deleterious effects.

Increasing Anthropogenic Disturbance Restricts Wildebeest Movement Across East African Grazing Systems

The ability to move is essential for animals to find mates, escape predation, and meet energy and water demands. This is especially important across grazing systems where vegetation productivity can vary drastically between seasons or years. With grasslands undergoing significant changes due to climate change and anthropogenic development, there is an urgent need to determine the relative impacts of these pressures on the movement capacity of native herbivores. To measure these impacts, we fitted 36 white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) with GPS collars across three study areas in southern Kenya (Amboseli Basin, Athi-Kaputiei Plains, and Mara) to test the relationship between movement (e.g., directional persistence, speed, home range crossing time) and gradients of vegetation productivity (i.e., NDVI) and anthropogenic disturbance. As expected, wildebeest moved the most (21.0 km day–1; CI: 18.7–23.3) across areas where movement was facilitated by low human footprint and necessitated by low vegetation productivity (Amboseli Basin). However, in areas with moderate vegetation productivity (Athi-Kaputiei Plains), wildebeest moved the least (13.3 km day–1; CI: 11.0–15.5). This deviation from expectations was largely explained by impediments to movement associated with a large human footprint. Notably, the movements of wildebeest in this area were also less directed than the other study populations, suggesting that anthropogenic disturbance (i.e., roads, fences, and the expansion of settlements) impacts the ability of wildebeest to move and access available resources. In areas with high vegetation productivity and moderate human footprint (Mara), we observed intermediate levels of daily movement (14.2 km day–1; CI: 12.3–16.1). Wildebeest across each of the study systems used grassland habitats outside of protected areas extensively, highlighting the importance of unprotected landscapes for conserving mobile species. These results provide unique insights into the interactive effects of climate and anthropogenic development on the movements of a dominant herbivore in East Africa and present a cautionary tale for the development of grazing ecosystems elsewhere.

Exploring Climate Change Driven Changes in Kenyan Forest Cover and Carbon Sequestration Potential

The ability of forests to sequester carbon has made afforestation a critical tool in climate change mitigation. Deployed under the broad umbrella of nature-based climate solutions or forest carbon offset programs, afforestation efforts are underway across the globe, with the tropics serving as critical venues for these efforts. Forests, however, are themselves vulnerable to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change such as increased temperatures, more frequent fires, and disease outbreaks. As efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions stutter, the longevity of these afforestation efforts and their intended benefits remains underexplored. We investigated this issue in the context of ongoing afforestation efforts in Kenya. These afforestation efforts are underway to meet a constitutionally mandated national forest cover of 10%. Using L-Range, a model that simulates plant growth and the flow of carbon within rangeland ecosystems, we explored how existing and potential Kenyan forests will respond under different scenarios of climate change. We performed simulation experiments with L-Range using remotely sensed information for forest, land cover, and soil composition. Climate change impacts were explored using CMIP6 climate projections for three future emission-mitigation scenarios (SSP 1-RCP 2.6, SSP 2 – RCP 4.5, and SSP 3 – RCP 7.0). We also explored the additive impacts of increased fire frequency on forest cover. For each of these scenarios we calculated the change in forest cover and carbon sequestered within forests in the years 2050 and 2100 relative to a baseline year of 2010. We found that in Kenya, evergreen forests in particular experience spatially variable losses in extent under all scenarios (up to -5%). These losses in extent were accompanied by a decline in the amount of carbon sequestered within soils. We interpret these forest cover changes within the social context of each SSP-RCP scenario and ongoing afforestation efforts. Our findings suggest that the climate change mitigation potential from afforestation may be characterized by diminishing returns in the absence of concerted global efforts to rein in carbon emissions, and that real-time monitoring via ground and remotely sensed platforms will play a critical role in planning for an uncertain future.

Ecological Change and Livestock Governance in a Peruvian Ecological Change and Livestock Governance in a Peruvian National Park

Abstract: While the grazing of livestock has occurred for millennia in the Andes, current sustainability
debates center on concerns with co-managing climate change and pastoralism. These discussions have special resonance in places protected by the state for biodiversity, scenery, and sustainable and traditional land uses, such as those found in protected areas and biosphere reserves. For this article, we integrate data from a social-ecological research project on the land use systems that affect high-elevation ecosystems in Peru’s Huascarán National Park, with special emphasis on the wetlands. We used land cover and land use data and insights from interactions with pastoralists to show that (1) wet meadows dominate the lower reaches of the park, while peatlands predominate above 4000 m
elevation; (2) wet meadows are most useful for traditional grazing systems, while the peatlands are especially susceptible to trampling by livestock; and (3) there is limited ecological space at the highest elevations for the successful future upward relocation of either land use or potential habitats for species identified as of concern. We explore the implications of these findings for the adaptive strategies of biophysical and social processes in terms of livelihoods and biodiversity in and around a protected area. We conclude that there are many additional opportunities to be explored to inform the management of ecosystem services and provide improvements for the adaptive capacity of
communities and park managers.

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