Climate SMART Agriculture: How well does the agricultural sector in Luxembourg perform in terms of climate change?

peer reviewedIn Luxembourg, the agricultural sector was responsible for 711.7 Gg CO2-equivalents in 2016, which corresponds to 6.95 % of the total country greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Over 50 % of the farms are specialist grazing livestock farms. The beef and cattle milk production account globally together for over 60 % of the sector’s global emissions. Thus, the climate impact of the whole agricultural sector in Luxembourg can be significantly lowered by reducing the GHG emissions of the specialist grazing livestock sector. However, beyond farm type, the GHG emissions of a farm are also influenced by other factors, such as management systems and farming practices. To enable a transition towards a more climate-positive agriculture, insights into the sustainability performance in terms of climate change are needed. The aim of this study is to determine the current sustainability performance of the Luxembourgish specialist grazing livestock sector in terms of climate change. The climate impact of the different specialist grazing livestock farm types (OTE (orientation technico-économique) 45 - Specialist dairying; OTE 46 - Specialist cattle - rearing and fattening and OTE 47 - Cattle - dairying, rearing and fattening combined) and of different management systems (conventional or organic) was assessed at farm-level. Furthermore, the relationship between the sustainability performance in terms of climate change and other areas of sustainability is being studied. Farming practices of 60 farms typical for Luxembourg in regard to their share of arable land and permanent grassland (OTE 45: 3 farms; OTE 46: 15; OTE 45: 11; Conventional: 44; Organic: 16) and their respective sustainability implications were assessed in 2019 according to the FAO SAFA Guidelines (Guidelines for the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems, 2014) using the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment RouTine (SMART)-Farm Tool (v5.0). Organic farms were highly overrepresented, with 26.7 % in the sample compared to 5 % of all Luxembourgish farms. The data was collected during a farm visit and a 3 h interview with the farm manager. The impact of management system and farm type on the SAFA-goal achievement for the sub-theme Greenhouse Gases (GHG) were studied. The results show that the sustainability performances of the participating farms were moderate to good. Goal achievement for the sub-theme GHG was moderate and did not differ significantly between the three farm types (OTE 45: 53.3 % ±3.9 SD goal achievement; OTE 46: 55.6 % ±7.3 SD; OTE 47: 54.6 % ±6.9 SD). Organic farms showed a significantly higher mean goal achievement for GHG than conventional farms (p-value < 0.001) (organic: 58.3 % ±6.0 SD; conventional: 52.6 % ±4.4 SD). For indicators positively impacting GHG, the organic and the OTE 46 farms had generally higher ratings. Correlations between GHG and the other sub-themes were mainly in the Environmental Integrity dimension, showing that implementing climate-positive farming practices can also improve other ecological aspects. The indicator analysis identified the following linchpins: increase in protein autarky, closing of farming cycles and holistic approach with strategic decision making leading to harmonized actions towards a sustainable and climate positive farming system

Integrated analysis of the impacts of organic farming at farm and food system level in Luxembourg

The Luxembourg government aims to achieve 20% organic agriculture until 2025 and 100% organic agriculture until 2050. The aim of the project is to analyse the impact such a change will have at the farm, as well as on the food system level in Luxembourg. This will be done by conducting a sustainability assessment at the farm-level and the food system-level. For the farm-level sustainability assessment, farm management systems and their respective sustainability implications according to the FAO SAFA Guidelines (Guidelines for the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems) will be assessed using the SMART-Farm Tool. At the food system-level, the mass-flow model of the agriculture and food sector Soil and Organic Livestock (SOL)-Model will be employed to analyse the environmental implications of dietary patterns and agriculture production systems, where the data from the farm-level assessment will be used to increase specificity of the scenarios

Climate SMART Agriculture: How well does the agricultural sector in Luxembourg perform in terms of climate change?

In Luxembourg, the agricultural sector was responsible for 711.7 Gg CO2-equivalents in 2016, which corresponds to 6.95 % of the total country greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Over 50 % of the farms are specialist grazing livestock farms. The beef and cattle milk production account globally together for over 60 % of the sector’s global emissions. Thus, the climate impact of the whole agricultural sector in Luxembourg can be significantly lowered by reducing the GHG emissions of the specialist grazing livestock sector. However, beyond farm type, the GHG emissions of a farm are also influenced by other factors, such as management systems and farming practices. To enable a transition towards a more climate-positive agriculture, insights into the sustainability performance in terms of climate change are needed. The aim of this study is to determine the current sustainability performance of the Luxembourgish specialist grazing livestock sector in terms of climate change. The climate impact of the different specialist grazing livestock farm types (OTE (orientation technico-économique) 45 - Specialist dairying; OTE 46 - Specialist cattle - rearing and fattening and OTE 47 - Cattle - dairying, rearing and fattening combined) and of different management systems (conventional or organic) was assessed at farm-level. Furthermore, the relationship between the sustainability performance in terms of climate change and other areas of sustainability is being studied. Farming practices of 60 farms typical for Luxembourg in regard to their share of arable land and permanent grassland (OTE 45: 3 farms; OTE 46: 15; OTE 45: 11; Conventional: 44; Organic: 16) and their respective sustainability implications were assessed in 2019 according to the FAO SAFA Guidelines (Guidelines for the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems, 2014) using the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment RouTine (SMART)-Farm Tool (v5.0). Organic farms were highly overrepresented, with 26.7 % in the sample compared to 5 % of all Luxembourgish farms. The data was collected during a farm visit and a 3 h interview with the farm manager. The impact of management system and farm type on the SAFA-goal achievement for the sub-theme Greenhouse Gases (GHG) were studied. The results show that the sustainability performances of the participating farms were moderate to good. Goal achievement for the sub-theme GHG was moderate and did not differ significantly between the three farm types (OTE 45: 53.3 % ±3.9 SD goal achievement; OTE 46: 55.6 % ±7.3 SD; OTE 47: 54.6 % ±6.9 SD). Organic farms showed a significantly higher mean goal achievement for GHG than conventional farms (p-value < 0.001) (organic: 58.3 % ±6.0 SD; conventional: 52.6 % ±4.4 SD). For indicators positively impacting GHG, the organic and the OTE 46 farms had generally higher ratings. Correlations between GHG and the other sub-themes were mainly in the Environmental Integrity dimension, showing that implementing climate-positive farming practices can also improve other ecological aspects. The indicator analysis identified the following linchpins: increase in protein autarky, closing of farming cycles and holistic approach with strategic decision making leading to harmonized actions towards a sustainable and climate positive farming system

Multiomics resolution of molecular events during a day in the life of Chlamydomonas.

The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii displays metabolic flexibility in response to a changing environment. We analyzed expression patterns of its three genomes in cells grown under light-dark cycles. Nearly 85% of transcribed genes show differential expression, with different sets of transcripts being up-regulated over the course of the day to coordinate cellular growth before undergoing cell division. Parallel measurements of select metabolites and pigments, physiological parameters, and a subset of proteins allow us to infer metabolic events and to evaluate the impact of the transcriptome on the proteome. Among the findings are the observations that Chlamydomonas exhibits lower respiratory activity at night compared with the day; multiple fermentation pathways, some oxygen-sensitive, are expressed at night in aerated cultures; we propose that the ferredoxin, FDX9, is potentially the electron donor to hydrogenases. The light stress-responsive genes PSBS, LHCSR1, and LHCSR3 show an acute response to lights-on at dawn under abrupt dark-to-light transitions, while LHCSR3 genes also exhibit a later, second burst in expression in the middle of the day dependent on light intensity. Each response to light (acute and sustained) can be selectively activated under specific conditions. Our expression dataset, complemented with coexpression networks and metabolite profiling, should constitute an excellent resource for the algal and plant communities

Modelling the porewater chemistry of the Callovian–Oxfordian formation at a regional scale

International audienceIn ANDRA's studies to characterize the Callovian-Oxfordian formation, porewater chemistry is a key topic. Indeed, chemistry determines the durability of the repository materials (bentonite, concrete, metals, nuclear glass) and the speciation (and thus the mobility) of radionuclides. The method developed in the frame of the THERMOAR project enables the acquisition of a complete set of data from core samples to model the porewater chemistry. The method requires a detailed mineralogical study, a model of free-water/bound-water distribution, leaching experiments, adsorbed ion measurements, ion-exchange constant acquisition, and CO2 partial-pressure measurements. These experiments and measurements were done on samples from the site of the Meuse/Haute-Marne laboratory and from ANDRA's regional boreholes. The regional stability of a great number of parameters can be observed, except for a decrease of the Na and Cl concentration following a NE-SW axis passing through the laboratory. The water/rock equilibrium model makes it possible to calculate the chemical composition of interstitial waters of the formation

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase&nbsp;1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation&nbsp;disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age&nbsp; 6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score&nbsp; 652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc&nbsp;= 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N&nbsp;= 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in&nbsp;Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in&nbsp;Asia&nbsp;and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701

Considering clay rock heterogeneity in radionuclide retention

International audienc

Integrated Analysis Of The Impacts Of Organic Farming At Farm And Food System Level In Luxembourg

The Luxembourg government aims to achieve 20% organic agriculture until 2025 and 100% organic agriculture until 2050. The aim of the project is to analyse the impact such a change will have at the farm, as well as on the food system level in Luxembourg. This will be done by conducting a sustainability assessment at the farm-level and the food system-level. For the farm-level sustainability assessment, farm management systems and their respective sustainability implications according to the FAO SAFA Guidelines (Guidelines for the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems) will be assessed using the SMART-Farm Tool. At the food system-level, the mass-flow model of the agriculture and food sector Soil and Organic Livestock (SOL)-Model will be employed to analyse the environmental implications of dietary patterns and agriculture production systems, where the data from the farm-level assessment will be used to increase specificity of the scenarios