Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture

The authors are grateful for the inputs from Caterina Batello, Jan Breithaupt, Carlo Cafiero, Marianna Campeanu, Reto Cumani, Rich Conant, Piero Conforti, Marie-Aude Even, Karen Franken, Andreas Gattinger, Pierre Gerber, Frank Hayer, Jippe Hoogeven, Stefan Hörtenhuber, Mathilde Iweins, John Lantham, Robert Mayo, Eric Meili, Soren Moller, Jamie Morrison, Alexander Müller, Noemi Nemes, Monica Petri, Tim Robinson, Nicolas Sagoff, Henning Steinfeld, Francesco Tubiello, Helga Willer, and thank Robert Home for checking the language. KHE gratefully acknowledges funding from ERC-2010-Stg-263522 (LUISE). The input of PS contributes to the DEVIL project (NE/M021327/1), funded under the Belmont Forum / FACCE-JPI. This paper contributes to the Global Land Project (www.globallandproject.org). The authors acknowledge funding for open access publication by the Institute of Environmental Decisions, Federal Institutes of Technology, Zurich.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Impacts of feeding less food-competing feedstuffs to livestock on global food system sustainability

Funding Christian Schader, Adrian Muller, Nadia El-Hage Scialabba, Judith Hecht, Anne Isensee, Harinder P.S. Makkar, Peter Klocke, Florian Leiber, Matthias Stolze, Urs Niggli thank FAO for funding this research. K.E. gratefully acknowledges funding from ERC-2010-Stg-263522 LUISE. Additional data and method details are provided in the supplementary materials. The contribution of P.S. is supported by funding from the Belmont Forum-FACCE-JPI Project ‘Delivering Food on Limited Land’ (DEVIL), with the UK contribution supported by NERC (NE/M021327/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The green halo: Mechanisms and limits of the eco-label effect

Consumers believe that “eco-labeled” products taste better, which, at least in part, may be an effect of the label. The purpose of the current series of experiments was to examine some mechanisms and limits of this eco-label effect. In Experiment 1, an eco-label effect of similar magnitude was found for taste ratings of both conventional and organic bananas. Experiment 2 showed eco-label effects for a wider range of judgmental dimensions (i.e., health, calories, vitamins/minerals, mental performance, and willingness to pay) and the effect was about the same in magnitude for judgments of grapes and raisins. Experiment 3, with water as the tasted product, found no eco-label effect on judgments of taste, calories and vitamins/minerals, but an effect on willingness to pay, judgments of health benefits and judgments of mental performance benefits. Experiments 2 and 3 also included questionnaires on social desirability traits, schizotypal traits and pro-environmental consumer traits. The last was the strongest predictor of the eco-label effect amongst the three. In all, the eco-label effect is a robust phenomenon, but depends on interactions between product type and judgmental dimension. Implications for several accounts of the effect are discussed

Economic vulnerability and resilience of small states

Agriculture, fisheries and forestry have, for centuries, provided the main source of livelihood for the population of many small islands. These activities still represents a major source of income for many small island developing states (SIDS) and the sustainable management of such activities remains crucial for the future of these states. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) enjoys a long history of partnership with SIDS. Since the launching of the Barbados Programme of Action in 1994, FAO has extended considerable technical assistance to SIDS and implemented a large number of regional and interregional projects. This chapter summarises the action taken by FAO in favour of SIDS with regard to the global trading environment, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, the environment in general, and capacity building.peer-reviewe

The energy efficiency of organic agriculture: A review

Growing populations and a constrained fossil-manufactured energy supply present a major challenge for society and there is a real need to develop forms of agriculture that are less dependent on finite energy sources. It has been suggested that organic agriculture can provide a more energy efficient approach due to its focus on sustainable production methods. This review has investigated the extent to which this is true for a range of farming systems. Data from about 50 studies were reviewed with results suggesting that organic farming performs better than conventional for nearly all crop types when energy use is expressed on a unit of area basis. Results are more variable per unit of product due to the lower yield for most organic crops. For livestock, ruminant production systems tend to be more energy efficient under organic management due to the production of forage in grass–clover leys. Conversely, organic poultry tend to perform worse in terms of energy use as a result of higher feed conversion ratios and mortality rates compared to conventional fully housed or free-range systems. With regard to energy sources, there is some evidence that organic farms use more renewable energy and have less of an impact on natural ecosystems. Human energy requirements on organic farms are also higher as a result of greater system diversity and manual weed control. Overall this review has found that most organic farming systems are more energy efficient than their conventional counterparts, although there are some notable exceptions