Blog for People, Food and Nature

By Lauriane Mouysset, University of Cambridge Modern agriculture and associated farming intensification has been identified as a major cause of declining biodiversity in farmlands. Nevertheless, the world’s growing population must be fed, and a balance must be struck between the ecological and economic objectives of managing farmland and their surrounding landscapes. Economic ...

By EcoPlanet Bamboo Group The Bonn Challenge aims to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020. Commercial bamboo plantations can help achieve these goals by serving as an alternative to traditional timber and as a resource to stimulate national and local economies and reduce foreign imports. Bamboo is a rapidly growing […] ...

By Dr. John Paull, School of Land & Food, University of Tasmania, Australia Todmorden may be a small, drab, post-industrial English village but it has one big, bold and bright idea. This Yorkshire village decided to “do something, take action” about the disconnect between food production and consumers. The Incredible Edible idea is to seize […] ...

When you hear “low emissions agriculture,” what comes to mind? Before attending a discussion at the World Bank on Meeting Global Food Needs with Lower Emissions, I envisioned an emphasis on food miles and chemical fertilizer use. But, the recent IPCC assessment report suggests that it’s really all about soil management in agricultural landscapes and figuring […] ...

By Irene Hoffmann, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations When we were invited to contribute to the book “Diversifying Food and Diets: Using Agricultural Biodiversity to Improve Nutrition and Health”, my colleague Roswitha Baumung and I were faced with an interesting challenge. Agricultural biodiversity, including livestock breeds, is important for food and ...

The 38th Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) met from March 25–29, 2014 to complete the Fifth Assessment Report on adaptation, vulnerability and climate change impacts. And, although this extensive report covers a range of topics and geographies, it is also very pertinent to the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature’s focus […] ...

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) acknowledges the fact that climate change is a crosscutting issue with the need for an integrated approach to food security, environmental quality, human welfare and other development goals. Agriculture is uniquely situated between climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, because it is both a major contributor to the world’s changin ...

The United Nation’s International Day of Forests and the Tree brings attention to these aspects of our landscapes. Forests and trees fill many roles, ranging from cultural and spiritual importance to sustenance, livelihoods, watershed protection and important carbon sinks in the face of climate change. Despite the many purposes and capacities of forests, we are destroyin ...

By Emmanuel Torquebiau, French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) Multipurpose mosaic landscapes can simultaneously serve the objectives of biodiversity conservation and agricultural production. This beautiful vision is also a formidable challenge because conservation of natural resources has historically been at odds with the development paradig ...

By Emma van der Zanden/Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam; Alexander van Oudenhoven/Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University; Matthias Schröter/Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University Ecosystem services are a contested but useful concept for highlighting the benefits that humans get from healthy ecosystems and la ...