Analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on the grades of university education: A case study with economics students.

COVID-19 has been one of the major incidents in the global university education system in recent years. Its influence and effects on education are still difficult to determine today. Both students and teachers have had to change their study and work routines and disciplines, in many cases lacking the necessary infrastructure to adapt to online learning. Students had to start a new academic year with a complete return to face-to-face teaching without having overcome, in many cases, the incidence of online learning. This study, through 167 responses to a survey addressed to economics students at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, aims to analyse the causes of an improvement or a worsening of the academic performance of university students in the return to normality after having gone through COVID-19's restrictions. The results obtained show that students, students who attend tutorials and those who have evaluated online teaching positively, are the ones who have most improved their performance in the return to face-to-face teaching. And those who have suffered the physical and psychological consequences of COVID and those with less infrastructure and income have worsened their results.

Life cycle assessment of animal-based foods and plant-based protein-rich alternatives: an environmental perspective.

BACKGROUND: In the European Union proteins for food are largely animal based, consisting of meat and dairy products. Almost all soy but also a larger part of pulses and cereals consumed in the European Union are used for animal nutrition. While livestock is an important source of proteins, it also creates substantial environmental impacts. The food and feed system is closely linked to the planetary and health boundaries and a transformation to healthy diets will require substantial dietary shifts towards healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes. RESULTS: Extrudated vegetable meat alternatives consisting of protein combined with amaranth or buckwheat flour and a vegetable milk alternative made from lentil proteins were shown to have the potential to generate significantly less environmental impact than their animal-based counterparts in most of the environmental indicators examined, taking into account both functional units (mass and protein content). The underlying field-to-fork life cycle assessment models include several variants for both plant and animal foods. The optimized plant-based foods show a clear potential for improvement in the environmental footprints. CONCLUSIONS: Development of higher processed and therefore higher performing products is crucial for appealing to potential user groups beyond dedicated vegetarians and vegans and ultimately achieving market expansion. The Protein2Food project showed that prototypes made from European-grown legumes and pseudocereals are a valuable source for high-quality protein foods, and despite being substantially processed they could help reduce the environmental impact of food consumption. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.

Life cycle assessment of animal-based foods and plant-based protein-rich alternatives: a socio-economic perspective.

BACKGROUND: Extensive research shows that replacing animal protein with plant-based protein in the diet would strongly alleviate the environmental impact of the food system. However, much less attention has been given to the socio-economic considerations of dietary transitions. This study analyses the socio-economic performance of innovative legume-based food prototypes, developed in the Protein2Food research project, and conventional animal-based products (chicken meat and dairy milk). We implement a social life cycle assessment (sLCA) to quantify and compare their potential socio-economic impacts along the entire life cycle. RESULTS: Findings from this analysis show that legume-based prototypes and their respective animal-based counterparts have, overall, a comparable socio-economic performance. Looking at the disaggregated life cycle stages, socio-economic hotspots (points of most negative impacts) were mainly identified at the production stage in legume-based products. Farm-level net margin and profitability are low when compared with their animal equivalents. However, at the processing stage, there are socio-economic gains for plant-based products regarding lower unemployment rates. Finally, at the consumption stage, there are mixed results. Plant-based products show worse protein affordability but better nutritional contents (lower saturated fat and cholesterol) than their animal counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: To improve socio-economic performance of legume-based foods, greater emphasis should be placed upon developing improved processing technologies and supply chains. This would broaden the supply of sustainable protein-rich food options and make these products more economically attractive. The research illustrates that policies should be targeted to the different stages of the food value chain to optimize the development of innovative plant-based foods. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Evaluating Animal-Based Foods and Plant-Based Alternatives Using Multi-Criteria and SWOT Analyses.

Global diets have transitioned in recent decades with animal and processed products increasing. Promoting a reversal in these trends towards plant-based diets could reduce the environmental impacts of food systems and reduce the prevalence of non-communicable diseases and malnutrition. In Spain, a reference point for the Mediterranean diet (predominantly plant-source based), plant-based alternatives to traditional animal-based products are receiving increased attention. However, limited focus has been given to the opinions of stakeholder groups on the potential of these novel products. We evaluate the opinions of stakeholders within the Spanish agri-food sector, using multicriteria and SWOT analyses, on traditional and novel food products. Stakeholders involved in the supply chain of food products (producers, processors, and distributors) were critical of novel plant-based foods, highlighting problems with their taste, processing technology, and high prices. These results contrast with the perspectives of policymakers, researchers, environmental NGOs, and consumers who see novel products more positively - healthier, more sustainable, and highly profitable. These results illustrate the more traditional mindset seen in Spanish production systems, contrasting with the rapidly shifting tastes and demands of consumers and the potential legislative orientation of policymakers. This study calls for improved understanding and collaboration between stakeholders to better manage complex choices that affect the future of food systems during their needed transformation.

Integrated assessment of policy interventions for promoting sustainable irrigation in semi-arid environments: a hydro-economic modeling approach.

Sustaining irrigated agriculture to meet food production needs while maintaining aquatic ecosystems is at the heart of many policy debates in various parts of the world, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. Researchers and practitioners are increasingly calling for integrated approaches, and policy-makers are progressively supporting the inclusion of ecological and social aspects in water management programs. This paper contributes to this policy debate by providing an integrated economic-hydrologic modeling framework that captures the socio-economic and environmental effects of various policy initiatives and climate variability. This modeling integration includes a risk-based economic optimization model and a hydrologic water management simulation model that have been specified for the Middle Guadiana basin, a vulnerable drought-prone agro-ecological area with highly regulated river systems in southwest Spain. Namely, two key water policy interventions were investigated: the implementation of minimum environmental flows (supported by the European Water Framework Directive, EU WFD), and a reduction in the legal amount of water delivered for irrigation (planned measure included in the new Guadiana River Basin Management Plan, GRBMP, still under discussion). Results indicate that current patterns of excessive water use for irrigation in the basin may put environmental flow demands at risk, jeopardizing the WFD's goal of restoring the 'good ecological status' of water bodies by 2015. Conflicts between environmental and agricultural water uses will be stressed during prolonged dry episodes, and particularly in summer low-flow periods, when there is an important increase of crop irrigation water requirements. Securing minimum stream flows would entail a substantial reduction in irrigation water use for rice cultivation, which might affect the profitability and economic viability of small rice-growing farms located upstream in the river. The new GRBMP could contribute to balance competing water demands in the basin and to increase economic water productivity, but might not be sufficient to ensure the provision of environmental flows as required by the WFD. A thoroughly revision of the basin's water use concession system for irrigation seems to be needed in order to bring the GRBMP in line with the WFD objectives. Furthermore, the study illustrates that social, economic, institutional, and technological factors, in addition to bio-physical conditions, are important issues to be considered for designing and developing water management strategies. The research initiative presented in this paper demonstrates that hydro-economic models can explicitly integrate all these issues, constituting a valuable tool that could assist policy makers for implementing sustainable irrigation policies.