Integrating the economic and environmental performance of agricultural systems: a demonstration using Farm Business Survey data and Farmscoper

There is a continued need to monitor the environmental impacts of agricultural systems while also ensuring sufficient agricultural production. However, it can be difficult to collect relevant environmental data on a large enough number of farms and studies that do so often neglect to consider the financial drivers that ultimately determine many aspects of farm management and performance. This paper outlines a methodology for generating environmental indicators from the Farm Business Survey (FBS), an extensive annual economic survey of representative farms in England and Wales. Data were extracted from the FBS for a sample of East Anglian cereal farms and south western dairy farms and converted where necessary to use as inputs in ‘Farmscoper’; farm-level estimates of nitrate, phosphorus and sediment loadings and ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions were generated using the Farmscoper model. Nitrate losses to water, ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions were positively correlated with food energy production per unit area for both farm types; phosphorus loading was also correlated with food energy on the dairy farms. Environmental efficiency indicators, as measured by either total food energy or financial output per unit of negative environmental effect, were calculated; greenhouse gas emission efficiency (using either measure of agricultural output) and nitrate loading efficiency (using financial output) were positively correlated with profitability on cereal farms. No other environmental efficiency measures were significantly associated with farm profitability and none were significant on the dairy farms. These findings suggest that an improvement in economic performance can also improve environmental efficiency, but that this depends on the farm type and negative environmental externality in question. In a wider context, the augmentation of FBS-type data to generate additional environmental indicators can provide useful insights into ongoing research and policy issues around sustainable agricultural production

Drivers for global agricultural land use change: The nexus of diet, population, yield and bioenergy

The nexus of population growth and changing diets has increased the demands placed on agriculture to supply food for human consumption, animal feed and fuel. Rising incomes lead to dietary changes, from staple crops, towards commodities with greater land requirements, e.g. meat and dairy products. Despite yield improvements partially offsetting increases in demand, agricultural land has still been expanding, causing potential harm to ecosystems, e.g. through deforestation. We use country-level panel data (1961-2011) to allocate the land areas used to produce food for human consumption, waste and biofuels, and to attribute the food production area changes to diet, population and yields drivers. The results show that the production of animal products dominates agricultural land use and land use change over the 50-year period, accounting for 65% of land use change. The rate of extensification of animal production was found to have reduced more recently, principally due to the smaller effect of population growth. The area used for bioenergy was shown to be relatively small, but formed a substantial contribution (36%) to net agricultural expansion in the most recent period. Nevertheless, in comparison to dietary shifts in animal products, bioenergy accounted for less than a tenth of the increase in demand for agricultural land. Population expansion has been the largest driver for agricultural land use change, but dietary changes are a significant and growing driver. China was a notable exception, where dietary transitions dominate food consumption changes, due to rapidly rising incomes. This suggests that future dietary changes will become the principal driver for land use change, pointing to the potential need for demand-side measures to regulate agricultural expansion. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Losses, inefficiencies and waste in the global food system

Losses at every stage in the food systeminfluence the extent towhich nutritional requirements of a growing global population can be sustainablymet. Inefficiencies and losses in agricultural production and consumer behaviour all play a role. This paper aims to understand better themagnitude of different losses and to provide insights into how these influence overall food system efficiency.We take a systems view fromprimary production of agricultural biomass through to human food requirements and consumption. Quantities and losses over ten stages are calculated and compared in terms of drymass, wetmass, protein and energy. The comparison reveals significant differences between these measurements, and the potential for wet mass figures used in previous studies to be misleading. The results suggest that due to cumulative losses, the proportion of global agricultural dry biomass consumed as food is just 6% (9.0% for energy and 7.6% for protein), and 24.8% of harvest biomass (31.9% for energy and 27.8% for protein). The highest rates of loss are associatedwith livestock production, although the largest absolute losses of biomass occur prior to harvest. Losses of harvested crops were also found to be substantial, with 44.0% of crop dry matter (36.9% of energy and 50.1% of protein) lost prior to human consumption. If human overconsumption, defined as food consumption in excess of nutritional requirements, is included as an additional inefficiency, 48.4% of harvested cropswere found to be lost (53.2% of energy and 42.3% of protein). Over-eatingwas found to be at least as large a contributor to food systemlosses as consumer foodwaste. The findings suggest that influencing consumer behaviour, e.g. to eat less animal products, or to reduce per capita consumption closer to nutrient requirements, offer substantial potential to improve food security for the rising global population in a sustainable manner

Adaptation of global land use and management intensity to changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide

Land use contributes to environmental change, but is also influenced by such changes. Climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels\u27 changes alter agricultural crop productivity, plant water requirements and irrigation water availability. The global food system needs to respond and adapt to these changes, for example, by altering agricultural practices, including the crop types or intensity of management, or shifting cultivated areas within and between countries. As impacts and associated adaptation responses are spatially specific, understanding the land use adaptation to environmental changes requires crop productivity representations that capture spatial variations. The impact of variation in management practices, including fertiliser and irrigation rates, also needs to be considered. To date, models of global land use have selected agricultural expansion or intensification levels using relatively aggregate spatial representations, typically at a regional level, that are not able to characterise the details of these spatially differentiated responses. Here, we show results from a novel global modelling approach using more detailed biophysically derived yield responses to inputs with greater spatial specificity than previously possible. The approach couples a dynamic global vegetative model (LPJ-GUESS) with a new land use and food system model (PLUMv2), with results benchmarked against historical land use change from 1970. Land use outcomes to 2100 were explored, suggesting that increased intensity of climate forcing reduces the inputs required for food production, due to the fertilisation and enhanced water use efficiency effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but requiring substantial shifts in the global and local patterns of production. The results suggest that adaptation in the global agriculture and food system has substantial capacity to diminish the negative impacts and gain greater benefits from positive outcomes of climate change. Consequently, agricultural expansion and intensification may be lower than found in previous studies where spatial details and processes consideration were more constrained

Bovine herpesvirus 1 abortion: current prevalence in the United Kingdom and evidence of hematogenous spread within the fetus in natural cases

9 páginas.While Bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1) has been known as a cause of bovine abortion for nearly 50 years, information is limited on the current prevalence of BoHV-1 abortion in the United Kingdom, or about the mode of virus dissemination to cause infection of the fetus. The present study aimed to investigate these issues by surveying the prevalence of BoHV-1 in abortion cases in the United Kingdom, and comparing diagnostic methods to determine which are most efficient in BoHV-1–induced abortion. Where BoHV-1 DNA was detected, viral load was compared in fetal tissues, using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), supported by histopathology and immunohistochemistry (IHC) to investigate virus dissemination in bovine abortions. A total of 400 U.K. bovine abortion cases were studied; PCR detected BoHV-1 nucleic acids in 10 cases, suggestive histopathological lesions were observed in 8, and positive IHC staining was observed in 9. In routine diagnosis, BoHV-1 was identified in 2 of these cases, highlighting the utility of using molecular diagnostic tests such as real-time PCR to achieve high sensitivity in potentially autolyzed tissues. The study of different fetal samples showed the highest viral load in the liver, along with severe multifocal necrotic hepatitis, suggesting either a clear tropism of the virus for this organ or that it is the first location to be reached in the fetus. Presence of viral antigen in endothelial cells of the placenta, brain, or heart suggest a hematogenous spread of virus from placenta to the liver, through the umbilical vein, and then to the rest of the organs via fetal blood vessels.Moredun Scientific Limited Scottish GovernmentPeer reviewe