Energy implications of the 21st century agrarian transition

Regional irrigation expansion can support climate-resilient crop production in post-invasion Ukraine

Ukraine supplies a large proportion of grain and oilseeds to the world market and faces disruptions from the Russian invasion in 2022. Here we explore the combined effects of the invasion and climate change on Ukraine's irrigation. In 2021, only 1.6% of Ukraine's cropland was irrigated. Of this portion, 73% experienced substantial declines in irrigated crop production following the invasion. We estimate that by the mid-twenty-first century, three-quarters of croplands will experience water shortages, making business-as-usual rain-fed agricultural practices inadequate in addressing the challenges posed by climate change. We explore how leveraging local surface and groundwater resources could enable sustainable irrigation expansion over 18 million hectares of croplands and form a viable climate adaptation strategy. Finally, we identify regions for implementing enhancements or expansions of irrigation systems that can foster a more resilient agricultural sector-underscoring the growing importance of irrigation in sustaining crop production in Ukraine.

Feasibility of mitigation measures for agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. A systematic review

The UK Government has set an ambitious target of achieving a national "net-zero" greenhouse gas economy by 2050. Agriculture is arguably placed at the heart of achieving net zero, as it plays a unique role as both a producer of GHG emissions and a sector that has the capacity via land use to capture carbon (C) when managed appropriately, thus reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Agriculture's importance, particularly in a UK-specific perspective, which is also applicable to many other temperate climate nations globally, is that the majority of land use nationwide is allocated to farming. Here, we present a systematic review based on peer-reviewed literature and relevant "grey" reports to address the question "how can the agricultural sector in the UK reduce, or offset, its direct agricultural emissions at the farm level?" We considered the implications of mitigation measures in terms of food security and import reliance, energy, environmental degradation, and value for money. We identified 52 relevant studies covering major foods produced and consumed in the UK. Our findings indicate that many mitigation measures can indeed contribute to net zero through GHG emissions reduction, offsetting, and bioenergy production, pending their uptake by farmers. While the environmental impacts of mitigation measures were covered well within the reviewed literature, corresponding implications regarding energy, food security, and farmer attitudes towards adoption received scant attention. We also provide an open-access, informative, and comprehensive dataset for agri-environment stakeholders and policymakers to identify the most promising mitigation measures. This research is of critical value to researchers, land managers, and policymakers as an interim guideline resource while more quantitative evidence becomes available through the ongoing lab-, field-, and farm-scale trials which will improve the reliability of agricultural sustainability modelling in the future.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-023-00938-0.

Global impacts of extractive and industrial development projects on Indigenous Peoples' lifeways, lands, and rights

To what extent do extractive and industrial development pressures affect Indigenous Peoples' lifeways, lands, and rights globally? We analyze 3081 environmental conflicts over development projects to quantify Indigenous Peoples' exposure to 11 reported social-environmental impacts jeopardizing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples are affected in at least 34% of all documented environmental conflicts worldwide. More than three-fourths of these conflicts are caused by mining, fossil fuels, dam projects, and the agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and livestock (AFFL) sector. Landscape loss (56% of cases), livelihood loss (52%), and land dispossession (50%) are reported to occur globally most often and are significantly more frequent in the AFFL sector. The resulting burdens jeopardize Indigenous rights and impede the realization of global environmental justice.

Diversifying agrifood systems to ensure global food security following the Russia–Ukraine crisis

The recent Russia–Ukraine conflict has raised significant concerns about global food security, leaving many countries with restricted access to imported staple food crops, particularly wheat and sunflower oil, sending food prices soaring with other adverse consequences in the food supply chain. This detrimental effect is particularly prominent for low-income countries relying on grain imports, with record-high food prices and inflation affecting their livelihoods. This review discusses the role of Russia and Ukraine in the global food system and the impact of the Russia–Ukraine conflict on food security. It also highlights how diversifying four areas of agrifood systems—markets, production, crops, and technology can contribute to achieving food supply chain resilience for future food security and sustainability.

Global expansion of sustainable irrigation limited by water storage

Providing affordable and nutritious food to a growing and increasingly affluent global population requires multifaceted approaches to target supply and demand aspects. On the supply side, expanding irrigation is key to increase future food production, yet associated needs for storing water and implications of providing that water storage, remain unknown. Here, we quantify biophysical potentials for storage-fed sustainable irrigation-irrigation that neither depletes freshwater resources nor expands croplands but requires water to be stored before use-and study implications for food security and infrastructure. We find that water storage is crucial for future food systems because 460 km3/yr of sustainable blue water, enough to grow food for 1.15 billion people, can only be used for irrigation after storage. Even if all identified future dams were to contribute water to irrigation, water stored in dammed reservoirs could only supply 209 ± 50 km3/yr to irrigation and grow food for 631 ± 145 million people. In the face of this gap and the major socioecologic externalities from future dams, our results highlight limits of gray infrastructure for future irrigation and urge to increase irrigation efficiency, change to less water-intensive cropping systems, and deploy alternative storage solutions at scale.

Influencing Factors and Mechanism of Rural Carbon Emissions in Ecologically Fragile Energy Areas—Taking Ejin Horo Banner in Inner Mongolia as an Example

To achieve carbon neutrality in our country, studying the carbon emissions of rural residents in ecologically fragile energy areas is an important way to scientifically explore a green and low-carbon development mechanism of rural regional systems. Taking Ejin Horo Banner as an example, and based on the survey data drawn from it, this paper analyzes the characteristics and mechanism of carbon emissions in rural regional systems by using the methods of the carbon emissions factor method and multiple stepwise regression. The result showed that: (1) in the total composition of carbon emissions in Ejin Horo Banner, the sources of rural carbon emissions had remarkable characteristics. Energy consumption and livestock and poultry breeding accounted for the largest proportion, 63.89% and 22.72%, respectively. (2) In the family attributes of the rural villages in Ejin Horo Banner, the two factors that had the greatest correlation with the total carbon emissions were age and income. In energy consumption, the largest correlation coefficient with carbon emissions was 0.804 for coal, and the lowest was 0.550 for gasoline. In agricultural inputs, chemical fertilizer had the strongest correlation with carbon emissions, with a correlation coefficient of 0.734, and irrigation had the weakest, with a correlation coefficient of 0.657. In livestock production, cattle had the strongest correlation with carbon emissions, with a correlation coefficient of 0.724. In family life, the factors of daily diet consumption had a strong correlation with carbon emissions, among which the highest was the liquor consumption at 0.784, and the lowest was wastewater treatment at 0.442. (3) The multiple stepwise regression result showed that in the three production and living sectors of energy consumption, agricultural and animal husbandry investment, and household life, 21 factors had a significant predictive power on the carbon emissions in the rural regional systems of Ejin Horo Banner. Through the analysis, it was found that accelerating the popularization of green energy-saving technology, promoting the transformation of rural traditional energy utilization, improving energy efficiency, and advocating a green lifestyle are the important ways to realize rural green development in ecologically fragile energy areas.

A tailored and red-emissive type I photosensitizer to potentiate photodynamic immunotherapy

Photodynamic immunotherapy (PDIT) emerges and shows great potentials in eradicating malignant tumors for the advantages on simultaneously damaging primary tumors, inhibiting tumors metastasis and recurrence. However, hypoxic microenvironment of tumor...