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- ItemThe role of nitrogen in achieving sustainable food systems for healthy diets(Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2020) Leip, Adrian; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Kugelberg, SusannaThe ‘food system’ urgently needs a sustainable transformation. Two major challenges have to be solved: the food system has to provide food security with healthy, accessible, affordable, safe and diverse food for all, and it has to do so within the safe operating space of the planetary boundaries, where the pollution from reactive nitrogen turned out to be the largest bottleneck. Here we argue that thinking strategically about how to balance nitrogen flows throughout the food system will make current food systems more resilient and robust. Looking from a material and a governance perspective on the food system, we highlight major nitrogen losses and policy blind spots originating from a compartmentalization of food system spheres. We conclude that a participatory and integrated approach to manage nitrogen flows throughout the food system is necessary to stay within regional and global nitrogen boundaries, and will additionally provide synergies with a sustainable and healthy diet for all. © 2020 The Authors
- ItemMeasures to increase the nitrogen use efficiency of European agricultural production(Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2020) Hutchings, Nicholas J.; Sørensen, Peter; Cordovil, Cláudia M.d.S.; Leip, Adrian; Amon, BarbaraInputs of nitrogen to agricultural production systems are necessary to produce food, feed and fibre, but nitrogen (N) losses from those systems represent a waste of a resource and a threat to both the environment and human health. The nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of an agricultural production system can be seen as an indicator of the balance between benefits and costs of primary food, feed and fibre production. Here, we used modelling to follow the fate of the virgin N input to different production systems (ruminant and granivore meat, dairy, arable), and to estimate their NUE at the system scale. We defined two ruminant meat production systems, depending on whether the land places constraints on farming practices. The other production systems were dairy, granivore and arable production on land without constraints. Two geographic regions were considered: Northern and Southern Europe. Measures to improve NUE were identified and allocated to Low, Medium and High ambition groups, with Low equating to the current situation in Europe for production systems that are broadly following good agricultural practice. The NUE of the production systems was similar to or higher in Southern than Northern Europe, with the maximum technical NUEs if all available measures are implemented were for North and South Europe, respectively, 82% and 92% for arable systems, 71% and 80% for granivores, 50% and 36% for ruminant meat production on constrained land, 53% and 55% for dairy production on unconstrained land and 46% and 62% for ruminant meat production on unconstrained land. The values for NUE found here tend to be higher than reported elsewhere, possibly due to the accounting for long-term residual effects of fertiliser and manure in our method. The greatest increase in NUE with the progressive implementation of higher ambition measures was in unconstrained granivore systems and the least was in constrained ruminant meat systems, reflecting the lower initial NUE of granivore systems and the larger number of measures applicable to confined livestock systems. Our work supports use of NUE as an indicator of the temporal trend in the costs and benefits of existing agricultural production systems, but highlights problems associated with its use as a sustainability criteria for livestock production systems. For arable systems, we consider well-founded the NUE value of 90% above which there is a high risk of soil N depletion, provided many measures to increase NUE are employed. For systems employing fewer measures, we suggest a value of 70% would be more appropriate. We conclude that while it is feasible to calculate the NUE of livestock production systems, the additional complexity required reduces its value as an indicator for benchmarking sustainability in practical agriculture. © 2020 The Authors
- ItemA protocol to develop Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture(Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2019) Mitter, Hermine; Techen, Anja-K.; Sinabell, Franz; Helming, Katharina; Kok, Kasper; Priess, Jörg A.; Schmid, Erwin; Bodirsky, Benjamin L.; Holman, Ian; Lehtonen, Heikki; Leip, Adrian; Le Mouël, Chantal; Mehdi, Bano; Michetti, Melania; Mittenzwei, Klaus; Mora, Olivier; Øygarden, Lillian; Reidsma, Pytrik; Schaldach, Rüdiger; Schönhart, MartinMoving towards a more sustainable future requires concerted actions, particularly in the context of global climate change. Integrated assessments of agricultural systems (IAAS) are considered valuable tools to provide sound information for policy and decision-making. IAAS use storylines to define socio-economic and environmental framework assumptions. While a set of qualitative global storylines, known as the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs), is available to inform integrated assessments at large scales, their spatial resolution and scope is insufficient for regional studies in agriculture. We present a protocol to operationalize the development of Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture – Eur-Agri-SSPs – to support IAAS. The proposed design of the storyline development process is based on six quality criteria: plausibility, vertical and horizontal consistency, salience, legitimacy, richness and creativity. Trade-offs between these criteria may occur. The process is science-driven and iterative to enhance plausibility and horizontal consistency. A nested approach is suggested to link storylines across scales while maintaining vertical consistency. Plausibility, legitimacy, salience, richness and creativity shall be stimulated in a participatory and interdisciplinary storyline development process. The quality criteria and process design requirements are combined in the protocol to increase conceptual and methodological transparency. The protocol specifies nine working steps. For each step, suitable methods are proposed and the intended level and format of stakeholder engagement are discussed. A key methodological challenge is to link global SSPs with regional perspectives provided by the stakeholders, while maintaining vertical consistency and stakeholder buy-in. We conclude that the protocol facilitates systematic development and evaluation of storylines, which can be transferred to other regions, sectors and scales and supports inter-comparisons of IAAS. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
- ItemShared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems: The Eur-Agri-SSPs(Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2020) Le Mouël, Chantal; Mathijs, Erik; Mehdi, Bano; Mittenzwei, Klaus; Mora, Olivier; Øistad, Knut; Øygarden, Lillian; Priess, Jörg A.; Reidsma, Pytrik; Schaldach, Rüdiger; Schönhart, Martin; Mitter, Hermine; Techen, Anja-K.; Sinabell, Franz; Helming, Katharina; Schmid, Erwin; Bodirsky, Benjamin L.; Holman, Ian; Kok, Kasper; Lehtonen, Heikki; Leip, AdrianScenarios describe plausible and internally consistent views of the future. They can be used by scientists, policymakers and entrepreneurs to explore the challenges of global environmental change given an appropriate level of spatial and sectoral detail and systematic development. We followed a nine-step protocol to extend and enrich a set of global scenarios – the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) – providing regional and sectoral detail for European agriculture and food systems using a one-to-one nesting participatory approach. The resulting five Eur-Agri-SSPs are titled (1) Agriculture on sustainable paths, (2) Agriculture on established paths, (3) Agriculture on separated paths, (4) Agriculture on unequal paths, and (5) Agriculture on high-tech paths. They describe alternative plausible qualitative evolutions of multiple drivers of particular importance and high uncertainty for European agriculture and food systems. The added value of the protocol-based storyline development process lies in the conceptual and methodological transparency and rigor; the stakeholder driven selection of the storyline elements; and consistency checks within and between the storylines. Compared to the global SSPs, the five Eur-Agri-SSPs provide rich thematic and regional details and are thus a solid basis for integrated assessments of agriculture and food systems and their response to future socio-economic and environmental changes. © 2020 The Author(s)