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2. Not all light spectra were created equal: can we harvest light for optimum food-energy co-generation?
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Camporese, Matteo (author) and Abou Najm, Majdi (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-12
- Published:
- United States: Wiley Periodicals LLC
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12886
- Journal Title:
- Earth's Future
- Journal Title Details:
- Volume 10, Issue 12
- Notes:
- 16pgs, Humanity's growing appetites for food and energy are placing unprecedented yield targets on our lands. Chasing those ever-expanding land intensification targets gave rise to monocultures and sharpened the divide between food and energy production groups. Here, we argue that this does not have to be a zero-sum game if food and energy can be co-generated in the same land. Co-generation can lead to sustainable intensification but requires a paradigm shift in the way we manage our resources, particularly light. Using an extended model of plant photosynthesis and transpiration, we demonstrate how plants react to different incident light spectra and show that manipulating light could be effective for boosting land and water efficiencies, thus potentially improving soil health. This knowledge can possibly unlock the real potential of promising modern agricultural technologies that target optimization of light allocations such as agrivoltaics. This study suggests that the blue part of the light spectrum is less efficient in terms of carbon assimilation and water use and could be more effectively used to produce solar energy, while the red part could efficiently produce biomass. A sensitivity analysis to the most important crop and environmental variables (irradiance, air temperature, humidity, and CO2 concentration) shows that plant response to different light treatments is sensitive to environmental boundary conditions and is species-specific. Therefore, further research is necessary to assess which crops and climates are more suitable to optimize the proposed food-water-energy nexus.
3. Options for reforming agricultural subsidies from health, climate, and economic perspectives
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Springmann, M. (author) and Freund, F. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01-10
- Published:
- USA: Springer Nature
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12611
- Journal Title:
- Nature Communications
- Journal Title Details:
- V. 13, N.82
- Notes:
- 7pgs, Agricultural subsidies are an important factor for influencing food production and therefore part of a food system that is seen as neither healthy nor sustainable. Here we analyse options for reforming agricultural subsidies in line with health and climate-change objectives on one side, and economic objectives on the other. Using an integrated modelling framework including economic, environmental, and health assessments, we find that on a global scale several reform options could lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and improvements in population health without reductions in economic welfare. Those include a repurposing of up to half of agricultural subsidies to support the production of foods with beneficial health and environmental characteristics, including fruits, vegetables, and other horticultural products, and combining such repurposing with a more equal distribution of subsidy payments globally. The findings suggest that reforming agricultural subsidy schemes based on health and climate-change objectives can be economically feasible and contribute to transitions towards healthy and sustainable food systems
4. Role of information and communication technologies towards sustainability transitions in agriculture and food systems
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Nwafor, S.C. (author), Agba, S.A. (author), Ugbem-Onah, C. (author), and Uwandu, Q.C. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-08-31
- Published:
- Nigeria: Agricultural Society of Nigeria
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12760
- Journal Title:
- Nigerian Agricultural Journal
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 53, N.2
- Notes:
- 6 pages, Food sustainability transitions refer to transformation processes necessary to move towards sustainable food systems. Digitization is one of the most important ongoing transformation processes in global agriculture and food chains. The review paper explores the contribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to transition towards sustainability along the food chain (production, processing, distribution, consumption). It also reviewed the Challenges to ICT Use in the Food Chain. From the review, it was found that ICT has enormous roles to play in boasting food production and promoting equitable distribution and marketing of food produce. ICTs can contribute to agro-food sustainability transition by increasing resource productivity, reducing inefficiencies, decreasing management costs, and improving food chain coordination. Key challenges to effective utilization of ICT in promoting food security were identified to include lack of access to ICT tools, low literacy level, and inadequate capital among others.