Characterising the biophysical, economic and social impacts of soil carbon sequestration as a greenhouse gas removal technology.

To limit warming to well below 2°C, most scenario projections rely on greenhouse gas removal technologies (GGRTs); one such GGRT uses soil carbon sequestration (SCS) in agricultural land. In addition to their role in mitigating climate change, SCS practices play a role in delivering agroecosystem resilience, climate change adaptability and food security. Environmental heterogeneity and differences in agricultural practices challenge the practical implementation of SCS, and our analysis addresses the associated knowledge gap. Previous assessments have focused on global potentials, but there is a need among policymakers to operationalise SCS. Here, we assess a range of practices already proposed to deliver SCS, and distil these into a subset of specific measures. We provide a multidisciplinary summary of the barriers and potential incentives towards practical implementation of these measures. First, we identify specific practices with potential for both a positive impact on SCS at farm level and an uptake rate compatible with global impact. These focus on: (a) optimising crop primary productivity (e.g. nutrient optimisation, pH management, irrigation); (b) reducing soil disturbance and managing soil physical properties (e.g. improved rotations, minimum till); (c) minimising deliberate removal of C or lateral transport via erosion processes (e.g. support measures, bare fallow reduction); (d) addition of C produced outside the system (e.g. organic manure amendments, biochar addition); (e) provision of additional C inputs within the cropping system (e.g. agroforestry, cover cropping). We then consider economic and non-cost barriers and incentives for land managers implementing these measures, along with the potential externalised impacts of implementation. This offers a framework and reference point for holistic assessment of the impacts of SCS. Finally, we summarise and discuss the ability of extant scientific approaches to quantify the technical potential and externalities of SCS measures, and the barriers and incentives to their implementation in global agricultural systems.

Policy and Practice Certainty for Effective Uptake of Diffuse Pollution Practices in A Light-Touch Regulated Country.

Although the link between agriculture and diffuse water pollution has been understood for decades, there is still a need to implement effective measures to address this issue. In countries with light-touch regulation, such as New Zealand and Australia, most efforts to promote environmental management practices have relied on voluntary initiatives such as participatory research and extension programmes; the success of which is largely dependent on farmers' willingness and ability to adopt these practices. Increased understanding of the factors influencing farmer decision-making in this area would aid the promotion of effective advisory services. This study provides insights from 52 qualitative interviews with farmers and from observations of nine farmer meetings and field days. We qualitatively identify factors that influence farmer decision-making regarding the voluntary uptake of water quality practices and develop a typology for categorising farmers according to the factors that influence their decision-making. We find that in light-touch regulated countries certainty around policy and also around the effectiveness of practices is essential, particularly for farmers who delay action until compelled to act due to succession or regulation. The contribution of this paper is threefold: (i) it identifies factors influencing decision-making around the uptake of water quality practices in a light-touch regulated country; (ii) it develops a typology of different farmer types; and (iii) it provides recommendations on policy approaches for countries with light-touch regulation, which has potential relevance for any countries facing changes regarding their agricultural policy, such as post-Brexit policy in the UK.

Optimizing ex situ genetic resource collections for European livestock conservation.

Ex situ collections offer the potential to reduce extinction risks, affording option to society in maintaining future breeding opportunities for productivity and heritage traits. However, how much should we be seeking to collect and conserve in gene banks, and where? We developed a mathematical model to optimize logistical decisions of breed conservation choices and to evaluate alternative scenarios for efficiently re-allocating genetic materials currently stored in different European gene banks, allowing for cross-country collections, cost and cryogenic capacity differentials. We show how alternative allocations for the breeds that are currently stored in 11 European gene banks could reduce overall conservation costs by around 20% by selecting cryogenic banks that have relatively lower combination of fixed and collection costs, and are geographically closer to collection regions. Our results show that centralizing collections in one gene bank would double the costs, relative to collective European collections approaches. We also calculate marginal costs of collections and show that increasing diversity within the gene banks implies in higher costs per conserved breed.

Making real options analysis more accessible for climate change adaptation. An application to afforestation as a flood management measure in the Scottish Borders.

Climate change uncertainty makes decisions for adaptation investments challenging, in particular when long time horizons and large irreversible upfront costs are involved. Often the costs will be immediate and clear, but the benefits may be uncertain and only occur in the distant future. Robust decision-making methods such as real options analysis (ROA) handle uncertainty better and are therefore useful to guide decision-making for climate change adaptation. ROA allows for learning about climate change by developing flexible strategies that can be adjusted over time. Practical examples of ROA to climate change adaptation are still relatively limited and tend to be complex. We propose an application that makes ROA more accessible to policy-makers by using the user-friendly and freely available UK climate data of the UKCP09 weather generator, which provides projections of future rainfall, deriving transition probabilities for the ROA in a straightforward way and demonstrating how the analysis can be implemented in spreadsheet format using backward induction. The application is to afforestation as a natural flood management measure (NFM) in a rural catchment in Scotland. The applicability of ROA to broadleaf afforestation as a NFM has not been previously investigated. Different ROA strategies are presented based on varying the damage cost from flooding, fixed cost and the discount rate. The results illustrate how learning can lower the overall investment cost of climate change adaptation but also that the cost structure of afforestation does not lend itself very well to ROA.

Losses, inefficiencies and waste in the global food system.

Losses at every stage in the food system influence the extent to which nutritional requirements of a growing global population can be sustainably met. Inefficiencies and losses in agricultural production and consumer behaviour all play a role. This paper aims to understand better the magnitude of different losses and to provide insights into how these influence overall food system efficiency. We take a systems view from primary production of agricultural biomass through to human food requirements and consumption. Quantities and losses over ten stages are calculated and compared in terms of dry mass, wet mass, 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 associated with 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 over-consumption, defined as food consumption in excess of nutritional requirements, is included as an additional inefficiency, 48.4% of harvested crops were found to be lost (53.2% of energy and 42.3% of protein). Over-eating was found to be at least as large a contributor to food system losses as consumer food waste. 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.

Disaggregated N2O emission factors in China based on cropping parameters create a robust approach to the IPCC Tier 2 methodology.

China accounts for a third of global nitrogen fertilizer consumption. Under an International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 2 assessment, emission factors (EFs) are developed for the major crop types using country-specific data. IPCC advises a separate calculation for the direct nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions of rice cultivation from that of cropland and the consideration of the water regime used for irrigation. In this paper we combine these requirements in two independent analyses, using different data quality acceptance thresholds, to determine the influential parameters on emissions with which to disaggregate and create N2O EFs. Across China, the N2O EF for lowland horticulture was slightly higher (between 0.74% and 1.26% of fertilizer applied) than that for upland crops (values ranging between 0.40% and 1.54%), and significantly higher than for rice (values ranging between 0.29% and 0.66% on temporarily drained soils, and between 0.15% and 0.37% on un-drained soils). Higher EFs for rice were associated with longer periods of drained soil and the use of compound fertilizer; lower emissions were associated with the use of urea or acid soils. Higher EFs for upland crops were associated with clay soil, compound fertilizer or maize crops; lower EFs were associated with sandy soil and the use of urea. Variation in emissions for lowland vegetable crops was closely associated with crop type. The two independent analyses in this study produced consistent disaggregated N2O EFs for rice and mixed crops, showing that the use of influential cropping parameters can produce robust EFs for China.

Worldviews, values and perspectives towards the future of the livestock sector.

The livestock sector is under increasing pressure to respond to numerous sustainability and health challenges related to the production and consumption of livestock products. However, political and market barriers and conflicting worldviews and values across the environmental, socio-economic and political domains have led to considerable sector inertia, and government inaction. The processes that lead to the formulation of perspectives in this space, and that shape action (or inaction), are currently under-researched. This paper presents results of a mixed methods exploration of the influence of environmental worldviews, values, and demographic factors on perspectives towards the future of the livestock sector. The approach combines survey and interview data derived from a sample of livestock representatives (N = 307). Respondents with higher pro-environmental, ecocentric and relational worldviews and values favour more behaviour-oriented solutions. Those with lower pro-environmental and higher techno-centric worldviews and values favour technological solutions to improve the efficiency of production and to enable continued patterns of meat consumption. Demographic variation and qualitative data emphasise the need to recognise cultural and geographic nuance in narratives. This study improves our understanding of the processes that lead to the formulation of perspectives, enabling the development of more holistic solutions that acknowledge all voices in an increasingly polarised debate. Adopting more pluralistic, relational methodologies will therefore be paramount in developing solutions for sustainable livestock futures.

Getting pastoral systems productivity right.

Beef production in pasture-based systems is increasingly contested due to related biophysical and environmental challenges. Addressing these requires rigorous science-based evidence to inform private decisions and public policies. Increasing yields and simultaneously reducing the negative environmental impacts of agricultural and livestock production are central to sustainable intensification approaches. Yet, stocking rate, the commonly used metric for animal productivity in pastures, or more broadly, of sustainable intensification in pastoral production systems, warrants scrutiny to signpost successful transformative change of food systems and to avoid provision of misleading policy advice. Here we discuss why future studies would benefit of considering the two constituent elements of productivity in pastoral systems - animal performance (kg of animal product/head) and stocking rates (heads/ha) -, rather than stocking rates alone.

Taxation of veterinary antibiotics to reduce antimicrobial resistance.

Routine usage of antibiotics for animal health is a key driver of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in food-producing animals. Taxation is a possible approach to incentivise appropriate antibiotic usage in food-producing animals. Taxation can be applied flatly across all antibiotic classes, targeted to single antibiotic classes, or scaled based on resistance in each class, so called "differential" taxation. However, quantifying the potential impact of taxation is challenging, due to the nonlinear and unintuitive response of AMR dynamics to interventions and changes in antibiotic usage caused by alterations in price. We combine epidemiological models with price elasticities of demand for veterinary antibiotics, to compare the potential benefits of taxation schemes with currently implemented bans on antibiotic usage. Taxation strategies had effects comparable to bans on antibiotic usage in food-producing animals to reduce average resistance prevalence and prevent increases in overall infection. Taxation could also maximise the average number of antibiotics with a resistance prevalence of under 25% and potentially generate annual global revenues of ∼1 billion US$ under a 50% taxation to current prices of food-producing animal antibiotics. Differential taxation was also able to maintain a high availability of antibiotics over time compared to single and flat taxation strategies, while also having the lowest rates of intervention failure and highest potential revenue across all taxation strategies. These findings suggest that taxation should be further explored as a tool to combat the ongoing AMR crisis.

Sustainability policies and practices at veterinary centres in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

BACKGROUND: Veterinary professionals operate at the human-animal-environment interface and are concerned about sustainability issues. This study examined the extent to which sustainability is represented in policy and enacted in veterinary practice settings, as reported by practice representatives. METHODS: An online survey was completed by 392 veterinary centre representatives in the UK and Republic of Ireland to identify existing policies and practices around the environmental impacts of veterinary services and animal husbandry, responsible medicine use, animal welfare and social wellbeing. RESULTS: A minority of respondents were aware of an environmental policy at their practice (17%, 68/392). Many others were undertaking waste reduction initiatives, but wider environmental interventions were infrequently reported. The majority were aware of medicine stewardship and animal welfare policies or guidelines, but a minority reported social wellbeing policies (40%, 117/289) and the provision of advice to clients on the environmental impacts of animal husbandry (31%, 92/300). LIMITATIONS: The bias arising from the small convenience sample of practice representatives and potential discrepancies between the claims of survey respondents and their practices' policies and activities are acknowledged. CONCLUSION: Results depict a value-action gap between the concern of veterinary professionals towards sustainability and the policies and practices at their workplaces. Building on progress in the sector, wider adoption of comprehensive policies and practices, with guidance, could enhance veterinary contributions to the sustainability agenda, in particular to mitigate the environmental externalities of veterinary services and animal care and ensure safe, fair and inclusive workplaces.

From a documented past of the Jersey breed in Africa to a profit index linked future.

The paper reports on the prevalence and performance of the Jersey cattle breed in Africa, highlighting its geographic distribution and describing the reported performance and other related characteristics from the early 1900s to the present day. The review examines the contribution of Jersey cattle in increasing the volume and efficiency of milk production across the continent. Data relating to the Jersey cattle breed has been reported in more than 30 African countries based on available material published between 1964 and 2020. A key encompassing parameter of any reference was a well-described consideration of the Jersey cattle breed (as pure or crossbred with other exotic and/or indigenous breeds) with reported performance within a variety of production systems and agro-ecologies in Africa. The main focus was on breed and performance parameters, breed types, percentage of different breed types in specific environments, reproduction method and fertility; survival and longevity; disease incidence; and production efficiency metrics such as: feed efficiency (milk unit per dry matter intake, DMI) and milk yield (MY) per unit of body weight (BW). The main performance descriptors identified were based on observations on resilience under both abiotic (heat, nutrition) and biotic (incidences of pests and diseases) stressors, milk production, BW, nutrition and utilisation of feed resources. From the literature consulted, we grouped key dairy cattle performance characteristics reported in each country under the following areas to aid comparisons; a. Milk production (Milk nutrient value, daily MY, lifetime MY and annual MY); b. Fertility traits and AFC; c. Survival and longevity, d. Production efficiency (Feed efficiency, milk per unit BW and milk per unit DMI and e. Disease incidences. Results of the review showed that the smaller stature and lower maintenance nutrient requirements of the Jersey breed means that it is better suited to tolerate the tropical production conditions in the African small-scale dairy farming sector. Detailed analyses on MY and survival showed that Jersey crosses with exotic and African indigenous breeds performed better than purebred cattle with strong evidence to support the suitability of the Jersey breed in crossbreeding with indigenous breeds for use in smallholder production systems.

Factors Influencing Antibiotic Prescribing Behavior and Understanding of Antimicrobial Resistance Among Veterinarians in Assam, India.

This study investigates factors influencing veterinarians' antibiotic prescribing behaviors and their understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The study used a telephone survey of 50 veterinarians conducted in five districts in Assam state, India. The survey sought information on the most prevalent animal diseases, veterinarians' awareness of potential preventive measures, including factors determining antimicrobial prescribing; the types of antimicrobials used for different health conditions in different species, and possible options to reduce antimicrobial use (AMU). The majority (86%) of respondents worked for the government, 98% reported having no written policy for the use of veterinary health products, and 58% have no on-site diagnostic facilities. Ceftriaxone, Enrofloxacin, and Oxytetracycline were the antibiotics (ABX) most frequently prescribed, by 76, 68, and 54% of veterinarians, respectively. These ABX were prescribed mainly for respiratory health problems and mastitis in cattle, and gastrointestinal infections in buffaloes, sheep, goat, and pigs. Severity of clinical symptoms, economic status of the livestock owner, and withdrawal period for ABX were ranked as very important factors for giving ABX. Less than two thirds (64%) were aware of the government ban for Colistin and only 2% were aware of a national plan for AMR. This study highlighted that ABX prescription is mostly based on tentative diagnosis given the lack of diagnostic facilities in most veterinary clinics. There is a need to enhance veterinary healthcare and to improve communication between policy makers and field veterinarians and, importantly, a need to disseminate clear prescribing guidelines on prudent AMU.

Ex situ and in situ data for endangered livestock breeds in Spain.

Improvements in ex situ storage of genetic and reproductive materials offer an alternative for endangered livestock breed conservation. This paper presents a dataset for current ex situ collections and in situ population for 179 Spanish livestock breeds of seven species, cattle, sheep, pig, chicken, goat, horse and donkey. Ex situ data was obtained via survey administered to 18 functioning gene banks in Spain and relates to the reproductive genetic materials (semen doses) of 210 livestock breeds distributed across the gene banks. In situ data combines CENSUS information with linear regression techniques and relates to the geographic distribution of 179 Spanish autochthonous livestock breeds (2009-2018), and in situ population projections and extinction probabilities (2019-2060). We use a decision variable defining an "acceptable level of risk" that allows decision makers to specify tolerable levels of in situ breed endangerment when taking ex situ collection and storage decisions.

Modelling Common Agricultural Policy-Water Framework Directive interactions and cost-effectiveness of measures to reduce nitrogen pollution.

Selecting cost-effective measures to regulate agricultural water pollution to conform to the Water Framework Directive presents multiple challenges. A bio-economic modelling approach is presented that has been used to explore the water quality and economic effects of the 2003 Common Agricultural Policy Reform and to assess the cost-effectiveness of input quotas and emission standards against nitrate leaching, in a representative case study catchment in Scotland. The approach combines a biophysical model (NDICEA) with a mathematical programming model (FSSIM-MP). The results indicate only small changes due to the Reform, with the main changes in farmers' decision making and the associated economic and water quality indicators depending on crop price changes, and suggest the use of target fertilisation in relation to crop and soil requirements, as opposed to measures targeting farm total or average nitrogen use.

Exploring global food system shocks, scenarios and outcomes.

Globalised food supply chains are increasingly susceptible to systemic risks, with natural, social and economic shocks in one region potentially leading to price spikes and supply changes experienced at the global scale. Projections commonly extrapolate from recent histories and adopt a 'business as usual' approach that risks failing to take account of shocks or unpredictable events that can have dramatic consequences for the status quo, as seen with the global Covid-19 pandemic. This study used an explorative stakeholder process and shock centred narratives to discuss the potential impact of a diversity of shocks, examining system characteristics and trends that may amplify their impact. Through the development of scenarios, stakeholders revealed concerns about the stability of the food system and the social, economic and environmental consequence of food related shocks. Increasing connectivity served as a mechanism to heighten volatility and vulnerability within all scenarios, with reliance on singular crops and technologies (i.e. low diversity) throughout systems highlighted as another potential source of vulnerability. The growing role of social media in shaping attitudes and behaviours towards food, and the increasing role of automation emerged as contemporary areas of concern, which have thus far been little explored within the literature.

Forest-linked livelihoods in a globalized world.

Forests have re-taken centre stage in global conversations about sustainability, climate and biodiversity. Here, we use a horizon scanning approach to identify five large-scale trends that are likely to have substantial medium- and long-term effects on forests and forest livelihoods: forest megadisturbances; changing rural demographics; the rise of the middle-class in low- and middle-income countries; increased availability, access and use of digital technologies; and large-scale infrastructure development. These trends represent human and environmental processes that are exceptionally large in geographical extent and magnitude, and difficult to reverse. They are creating new agricultural and urban frontiers, changing existing rural landscapes and practices, opening spaces for novel conservation priorities and facilitating an unprecedented development of monitoring and evaluation platforms that can be used by local communities, civil society organizations, governments and international donors. Understanding these larger-scale dynamics is key to support not only the critical role of forests in meeting livelihood aspirations locally, but also a range of other sustainability challenges more globally. We argue that a better understanding of these trends and the identification of levers for change requires that the research community not only continue to build on case studies that have dominated research efforts so far, but place a greater emphasis on causality and causal mechanisms, and generate a deeper understanding of how local, national and international geographical scales interact.

A framework for improved one health governance and policy making for antimicrobial use.

There is a need to develop an evaluation framework to identify intervention priorities to reduce antimicrobial use (AMU) across clinical, agricultural and environmental settings. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) can be conceptualised and therefore potentially managed in the same way as an environmental pollution problem. That is, over-use of antimicrobial medicines as inputs to human and animal health leads to unintended leakage of resistance genes that further combine with natural or intrinsic resistance in the environment. The diffuse nature of this leakage means that the private use decision is typically neither cognisant, nor made responsible for the wider social cost, which is the depletion of wider antibiotic effectiveness, a common pool resource or public good. To address this so-called market failure, some authors have suggested a potential to learn from similar management challenges encountered in the sphere of global climate change, specifically, capping use of medically important drugs analogous to limits set on greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing on experience of the economics of greenhouse gas mitigation, this paper explores a potential framework to develop AMU budgets based on a systematic comparative appraisal of the technical, economic, behavioural and policy feasibility of AMU reduction interventions across the One Health domains. The suggested framework responds to a call for global efforts to develop multi-dimensional metrics and a transparent focus to motivate research and policy, and ultimately to inform national and global AMR governance.

An economic evaluation of the control of three notifiable fish diseases in the United Kingdom.

We summarised the challenges faced in an ex ante cost-benefit appraisal of United Kingdom government spending on disease surveillance for three notifiable fish diseases: infectious salmon anaemia (ISA), viral haemorrhagic septicaemia (VHS) and infectious haemorrhagic necrosis (IHN). We used a social cost-benefit analysis and adopted a national perspective. We compared costs of current public and private surveillance effort with the benefits stated in terms of the avoided private and social costs of potential disease outbreaks. Spending on ISA and VHS were predicted to be efficient; the benefit-cost ratios were always >or=3.2 for ISA and >or=5.8 for VHS for all nine scenarios examined for each infection. However, the benefit-cost ratio for IHN was predicted never to exceed 1.6, and was <1.0 in five of the nine scenarios-so spending on IHN would be harder to justify.