| 1. |
- Lothrop Stoddard, Frederick, et al.
(författare)
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Grain legume production in Europe for food, feed and meat-substitution
- 2023
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Ingår i: Global Food Security. - 2211-9124. ; 39
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Partial shifts from animal-based to plant-based proteins in human diets could reduce environmental pressure from food systems and serve human health. Grain legumes can play an important role here. They are one of the few agricultural commodities for which Europe is not nearly self-sufficient. Here, we assessed area expansion and yield increases needed for European self-sufficiency of faba bean, pea and soybean. We show that such production could use substantially less cropland (4–8%) and reduce GHG emissions (7–22% current meat production) when substituting for animal-derived food proteins. We discuss changes required in food and agricultural systems to make grain legumes competitive with cereals for farmers and how their cultivation can help to increase sustainability of European cropping systems.
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| 2. |
- van Ittersum, Martin
(författare)
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Daily bias-corrected weather data and daily simulated growth data of maize, millet, sorghum, and wheat in the changing climate of sub-Saharan Africa
- 2024
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Ingår i: Data in Brief. - 2352-3409. ; 54
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Crop models are the primary means by which agricultural scientists assess climate change impacts on crop production. Site-based and high-quality weather and climate data is essential for agronomically and physiologically sound crop simulations under historical and future climate scenarios. Here, we describe a bias-corrected dataset of daily agro-meteorological data for 109 reference weather stations distributed across key production areas of maize, millet, sorghum, and wheat in ten sub-Saharan African countries. The dataset leverages extensive ground observations from the Global Yield Gap Atlas (GYGA), an existing climate change projections dataset from the Inter-Sectoral Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP), and a calibrated crop simulation model (the WOrld FOod Studies -WOFOST). The weather data were bias-corrected using the delta method, which is widely used in climate change impact studies. The bias -corrected dataset encompasses daily values of maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation rate, and global radiation obtained from five models participating in the Sixth Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), as well as simulated daily growth variables for the four crops. The data covers three periods: historical (1995-2014), 2030 (2020- 2039), and 2050 (2040-2059). The simulation of daily growth dynamics for maize, millet, sorghum, and wheat growth was performed using the daily weather data and the WOFOST crop model, under potential and water -limited potential conditions. The crop simulation outputs were evaluated using national agronomic expertise. The presented datasets, including the weather dataset and daily simulated crop growth outputs, hold substantial potential for further use in the investigation of future climate change impacts in sub-Saharan Africa. The daily weather data can be used as an input into other modelling frameworks for crops or other sectors (e.g., hydrology). The weather and crop growth data can provide key insights about agro-meteorological conditions and water -limited crop output to inform adaptation priorities and benchmark (gridded) crop simulations. Finally, the weather and simulated growth data can also be used for training machine learning techniques for extrapolation purposes. (c) 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY -NC -ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )
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| 3. |
- van Ittersum, Martin
(författare)
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Intensifying rice production to reduce imports and land conversion in Africa
- 2024
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - 2041-1723. ; 15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Africa produces around 60% of the rice the continent consumes, relying heavily on rice imports to fulfill the rest of the domestic demand. Over the past 10 years, the rice-agricultural area increased nearly 40%, while average yield remained stagnant. Here we used a process-based crop simulation modelling approach combined with local weather, soil, and management datasets to evaluate the potential to increase rice production on existing cropland area in Africa and assess cropland expansion and rice imports by year 2050 for different scenarios of yield intensification. We find that Africa can avoid further increases in rice imports, and even reduce them, through a combination of cropland expansion following the historical trend together with closure of the current exploitable yield gap by half or more. Without substantial increase in rice yields, meeting future rice demand will require larger rice imports and/or land conversion than now.Here the authors demonstrate that cropland expansion following the historical trend together with closing the current exploitable yield gap by half or more across Africa reduces the continent's reliance on land conversions and imports by 2050.
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| 4. |
- van Ittersum, Martin
(författare)
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Interventions to increase circularity and reduce environmental impacts in food systems
- 2024
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Ingår i: AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 53, s. 359-375
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Applying specific circularity interventions to the food system may have environmental benefits. Using an iterative linear food system optimisation model (FOODSOM), we assess how changes in human diets, imports and exports, and the utilisation of waste streams impact land use and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). After including these circularity principles, land use and GHG emissions were on average 40% and 68% lower than in the current food system, primarily driven by a reduction in production volumes and a shift towards feeding the domestic population. Shifting from the current diet to a circular diet decreased land use with 43% and GHG emissions with 52%. Allowing up to half of each nutrient in the human diet to be imported, while balancing imports with equal exports in terms of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, also decreased land use (up to 34%) and GHG emissions (up to 26%) compared to no imported food. Our findings show that circularity interventions should not be implemented mutually exclusively; by combining a circular diet with imported food and fully utilising waste streams, the lowest land use and GHG emissions can be realised.
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