The State of Food and Agriculture

A comprehensive summary of studies that simulate climate change impacts on agriculture are now reported in a meta-analysis. Findings suggest that, without measures to adapt to changing conditions, aggregate yield losses should be expected for wheat, rice and maize in temperate and tropical growing regions even under relatively moderate levels of local warming.

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A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation

This paper presents the output of our fifth annual horizon-scanning exercise, which aims to identify topics that increasingly may affect conservation of biological diversity, but have yet to be widely considered. A team of professional horizon scanners, researchers, practitioners, and a journalist identified 15 topics which were identified via an iterative, Delphi-like process. The 15 topics include a carbon market induced financial crash, rapid geographic expansion of macroalgal cultivation, genetic control of invasive species, probiotic therapy for amphibians, and an emerging snake fungal disease.

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Horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2011

Contemporary food production and consumption cannot be regarded as sustainable and raises problems with its wide scope involving diverse actors. Moreover, in the face of demographic change and a gr...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15487733.2013.11908111

Sustainable food consumption: an overview of contemporary issues and policies

Food system resilience: Defining the concept

Despite a significant growth in food production over the past half-century, one of the most important challenges facing society today is how to feed an expected population of some nine billion by the middle of the 20th century. To meet the expected demand for food without significant increases in prices, it has been estimated that we need to produce 70-100 per cent more food, in light of the growing impacts of climate change, concerns over energy security, regional dietary shifts and the Millennium Development target of halving world poverty and hunger by 2015. The goal for the agricultural sector is no longer simply to maximize productivity, but to optimize across a far more complex landscape of production, rural development, environmental, social justice and food consumption outcomes. However, there remain significant challenges to developing national and international policies that support the wide emergence of more sustainable forms of land use and efficient agricultural production. The lack of information flow between scientists, practitioners and policy makers is known to exacerbate the difficulties, despite increased emphasis upon evidence-based policy. In this paper, we seek to improve dialogue and understanding between agricultural research and policy by identifying the 100 most important questions for global agriculture. These have been compiled using a horizon-scanning approach with leading experts and representatives of major agricultural organizations worldwide. The aim is to use sound scientific evidence to inform decision making and guide policy makers in the future direction of agricultural research priorities and policy support. If addressed, we anticipate that these questions will have a significant impact on global agricultural practices worldwide, while improving the synergy between agricultural policy, practice and research. This research forms part of the UK Government's Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures project.

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The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture

The following paper provides a critical and storied account of how my literal and literary encounters with Eastern Tent Caterpillars invites me to re-encounter space as a concept and a living reality that shapes my research, my perception of myself as a researcher, and my perception of myself as a body. More specifically, observing caterpillars’ spatial relations challenges me to embrace space(s) as lively and packed with non-uniform potentials for world-building; accepting space as alive demands that the body-in-space (in my case, a white, settler, woman, and former anorexic body) be marked as a non-neutral world-building agent alongside other spatial bodies. This paper ponders some of the discomforts, tensions, and promises of embracing embodied research as an always-creative and potentially intrusive spatial act, and it explains how my research has helped me shift my focus from how much space my body inhibits—where less is always good, more is always bad— to what relationships I am building through and in my embodied research. 

Jan Kees Vis

Papers

The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture

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