4 pages, This article introduces the Regional Conservation Partnership Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. The program encourages partnerships among Extension professionals, conservation agency representatives, and farmers that focus on addressing natural resources concerns through the development and implementation of regional watershed plans. These plans assist farmers in practicing sustainable crop and animal production methods. Extension professionals will find the program useful as a tool for building collaborations at watershed and regional scales to promote agricultural production practices that enhance natural resources conservation.
8 pages, Reducing food waste is widely recognized as critical for improving resource efficiency and meeting the nutritional demand of a growing human population. Here we explore whether the sharing economy can provide meaningful assistance to reducing food waste in a relatively low-impact and environmentally-sound way. Analyzing 170,000 postings on a popular peer-to-peer food-sharing app, we find that over 19 months, 90t of food waste with an equivalent retail value of £0.7 million were collected by secondary consumers and diverted from disposal. An environmental analysis focused on Greater London reveals that these exchanges were responsible for avoiding emission of 87–156t of CO2eq. Our results indicate that most exchanges were among users associated with lower income yet higher levels of education. These findings, together with the high collection rates (60% on average) suggest that the sharing economy may offer powerful means for improving resource efficiency and reducing food waste.
