Food sovereignty encompasses the right of humans to have access to, and to produce, healthy and culturally appropriate food. Food sovereignty exists within the “social” pillar of sustainability and ...sustainable food production. Over time, and as a result of colonialism and neo-liberal food regimes, Indigenous food system patterns in boreal regions have been disrupted. Imports make local food production economically infeasible. The intersection of food sovereignty and international trade is understudied. Food insecurity cycles are likely to perpetuate without deliberate action and government intervention. Policies that facilitate local access, and ownership, of agriculture and food processing facilities may foster food sovereignty. Indigenous community governance, and agricultural practices, are critical to restoring environmental and social sustainability.
China's Loess Plateau is a highly distressed region where intensive crop production has been undermined by high soil erosion rates that threaten the long-term livelihood of its inhabitants. Regional ...policy goals aim to balance economic performance with the sustainable use of natural resources. From a practical perspective, challenges arise when measuring sustainability levels that mix multiple dimensions, scales, and benchmarks. This study addresses these challenges by comparing the sustainability of agricultural systems across varied crops, land types, and cropping techniques in China's Loess Plateau. Sustainability levels for each system are compared to benchmarks using data envelopment analysis, which is then used to calculate a sustainable value (SV). The SV approach provides a monetary measure of sustainability that includes economic, environmental and social dimensions. Results demonstrate that the most sustainable agricultural systems in the Loess Plateau involve machine intensive cropping systems, a corn–soybean–corn rotation, mulching, furrows ridging, and bench terracing.
•Sustainable value (SV) can be used to evaluate sustainability of cropping systems.•The SV was compared for more than 2000 cropping systems in China's Loess Plateau.•On average, SV was −$264/ha. Sustainable efficiency was 69%.•Terracing, mulching, furrow ridging, and rotations increased sustainability.•SV can be enhanced by estimating custom benchmarks with data envelope analysis.
•Conservation easements protect agricultural landscapes through private agreements.•This study evaluates both landowner and land trust preferences.•Conservation on private land requires landowner and ...land trust cooperation.•Managerial control, public access, trust, and financial compensation are relevant.•Reducing search and transaction costs increases efficiency and transactions.
Conservation easements offer sustainable land use and environmental conservation through land use restrictions. Opportunities exist to improve the efficiency by which parties interested in conservation easement transactions are matched, which may contribute to the overall protection of agricultural landscapes. This study utilizes stated choice questions to elicit preferences for conservation easements by both landowners, as potential easement suppliers, and land trust professionals as potential easement demanders. A random utility model is estimated for landowners and for land trust professionals. Results indicate both preference overlap and preference divergence between these two sets of respondents. Significant opportunities exist to reduce search and transactions costs, improve easement acceptance, and increase environmental protection via increased transaction frequency of conservation easements in this emerging market. When negotiating with landowners, land trusts need to be aware of concerns related to issues such as managerial control, public access, lack of trust, and financial compensation. Moreover, heterogeneity amongst participants regarding these issues suggests some agricultural landowners may be more or less concerned about these issues.
This paper models the economic feasibility of growing the oilseed crop Camelina sativa (“camelina”) in the western United States to produce value-added protein feed supplement and an SVO-based ...biofuel. Modeled in eastern Colorado, this study demonstrates that camelina can be grown profitably both as a commodity and as an energy biofuel. These findings, along with the stochastic crop rotation budget and profitability sensitivity analysis, reflect unique contributions to the literature. The study's stochastic break-even analysis demonstrates a 0.51 probability of growing camelina profitably when diesel prices reach 1.15 $ L−1. Results also show that the sale of camelina meal has the greatest impact on profitability. Yet once the price of diesel fuel exceeds 0.90 $ L−1, the farmer generates more revenue from the ability to offset diesel fuel purchases than the revenues generated from the sale of camelina meal. A risk analysis using second degree stochastic dominance demonstrates that a risk-averse farmer would choose to grow camelina if the price of diesel equals or exceeds 1.31 $ L−1. The article concludes that camelina can offset on-farm diesel use, making it economically feasible for farmers to grow their own fuel. As a result, camelina production may increase farm income, diversify rural economic development, and contribute to the attainment of energy policy goals.
•This is a stochastic budget analysis of growing camelina as SVO-based biofuel.•Results demonstrate economic feasibility for producers to grow their own fuel.•Camelina production can diversify regional and national energy portfolios.•Camelina production can contribute to on-farm energy independence.
As the average age of agricultural producers continues to rise, farm succession planning and the large number of anticipated land transfers are expected to transform rural American agricultural ...production and landscapes. Policy tools like conservation easements (CEs) can facilitate agricultural land preservation through “dead hand control” by restricting the development through binding legal contracts that can be transferred across generations. We examine whether agricultural landowners seek CE agreements to keep the land in agriculture for intergenerational bequest, rather than selling the land for financial gains that could be enjoyed immediately or passed to heirs. We assess whether this may be influenced by landowner conservation ethic or perceived threat to sense of place. We analyze the survey data collected from 2,270 agricultural landowners in Colorado and Wyoming utilizing a random utility model estimation. We find that landowners are less likely to reject a CE agreement when there is a desire to bequest agricultural land to the next generation or a perceived threat to sense of place; however, conservation ethic mitigates intergenerational bequest effects. This indicates that conservation ethic encompasses a desire to pass land to the next generation. Our findings contribute to the conservation literature by advocating for the regenerative approach to land conservation rather than the theory of planned behavior.
Biochar has been advocated as a method of sequestering carbon while simultaneously improving crop yields and agro‐ecosystem sustainability. It can be produced from a wide variety of biomass ...feedstocks using different thermochemical conversion technologies with or without the recovery of energy coproducts, resulting in chars of differing quality and a range of overall system greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation outcomes. This analysis expands on previous sustainability studies by proposing a mechanistic life cycle GHG and economic operating cost assessment model for the coproduction of biochar and bioenergy from biomass residue feedstocks, with a case study for north‐central Colorado presented. Production is modeled as a continuous function of temperature for slow pyrolysis, fast pyrolysis, and gasification systems. Biochar environmental benefits (C sequestration, N2O suppression, crop yield improvements) are predicted in terms of expected liming value and recalcitrance. System‐level net GHG mitigation is computed, and net returns are estimated that reflect the variable economic costs of production, the agronomic value of biochar based on agricultural limestone or fertilizer displacement, and the value of GHG mitigation, with results compared to the alternate use of char for energy production. Case study results indicate that slow pyrolysis systems can mitigate up to 1.4 Mg CO2eq/Mg feedstock consumed, provided a favorable feedstock is utilized, production air pollutant emissions are mitigated, and energy coproducts are recovered. The model suggests that while financial returns are generally greater when char is consumed for energy (biocoal) than when used as a soil amendment (biochar), chars produced through high‐temperature conversion processes will have greater GHG‐mitigation value as biochar. The biochar scenario reaches economic parity at carbon prices as low as $50/Mg CO2eq for optimal scenarios, despite conservative modeling assumptions. This model is a step toward spatially explicit assessment and optimization of biochar system design across different feedstocks, conversion technologies, and agricultural soils.
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•We explore the utility of social media and machine learning to fill gaps in mapping ecosystem services.•Social media provides a low-cost indicator for mapping cultural ecosystem ...services.•Machine learning improves data manipulation during ecosystem service mapping.•Variable importance in Random Forest identifies key pointers and indicators for mapping recreation.•Nature based recreation is related to environmental and landscape characteristics.
Crowdsourced geotagged social media data and machine learning approaches have emerged as promising tools for mapping ecosystem services, especially cultural ecosystem services that are difficult to assess. Here, we use recreation to show how social media data, machine learning, and spatial analysis techniques can improve our understanding of human-nature interactions and the mapping of recreational ecosystem services. We extracted 80,500 photographs taken in non-urban areas of the Tahoe Central Sierra Initiative project area in California between 2005 and 2019 that were posted to the photo sharing application Flickr and used these as a proxy for recreational visits to the area. Automated image content analysis was used to identify the objects and concepts in the photographs and uncover the types of nature experiences that are important to visitors. Additionally, variable importance, a Random Forest machine learning technique, was used to examine the environmental and landscape variables that drive recreation in the area and to create a classification model that predicts the recreation potential of the entire area based on important variables. The automated image content analysis identified 1,239 unique labels linked to recreation, with mountains, hills, and rocks being the most prominent features (22%). Our Random Forest model indicates that vegetation cover, land cover, elevation, smoke days, and landscape features are major drivers of recreation in the area and are of interest to visitors in the area. The model predicted that 25.9% of the area has the potential to support recreational visits. Most of these recreation potential areas are in protected areas (77.8%), predominantly in conifer forests (66%) and within national forest boundaries, especially the Tahoe National Forest area (37.6%). These results show that recreational ecosystem services vary across landscapes and illustrate the need for improved mapping approaches to determine the provision of ecosystem services in different places. The analysis provides novel insights into the various ways social media data and machine learning techniques can be powerful components of ecosystem service research and how they hold great potential for monitoring and informing management interventions on ecosystem service provision, especially in places with limited traditional onsite visitation data.
•We show how social media data is useful for estimating recreational use and trip costs.•This approach can fill data gaps in the valuation of ecosystem services.•Recreational use is higher for ...domestic visitors who take day trips to recreate.•Estimated trip costs are $156 per person, per day trip.•When adjusted by field data, annual social media based travel costs are higher.
Understanding the economic value of ecosystem services is necessary to facilitate sustainable land use management, and to inform policy and decision making. However, valuing and monetizing ecosystem services remains challenging. Benefit-transfer and non-market valuation methods typically rely on administrative data and surveys, but this is time consuming, limited, and requires much more resources. Social media and other types of big data provide accessible and georeferenced data that can be incorporated into valuation approaches. We use recreation as an example and the Tahoe Central Sierra Initiative (TCSI) project area in California as a case study to explore the usefulness of such data in estimating travel costs that form an integral part of determining the value of recreational ecosystem services through the travel cost model. We estimated 6,951 person user days of recreation from 2,245 visitors who uploaded photographs to the Flickr photo-sharing application between 2005 and 2019. We used metadata from the images to infer visitor origins and estimate trip distance and costs of travel for visitors that took day trips (<500 miles (∼800 kms) roundtrip) to the area. Our results show that the most demand for recreational opportunities in the TCSI came from domestic visitors, particularly those from California and Nevada who took day trips. On average, visitors spent $156 per single day trip. The total cost of travel for recreational visits to the TCSI for the period was $491,500 (an average of $32,800 per year). However, when adjusted to align with actual visitation, the travel costs could range from $1.35 to $1.84 billion per year. Estimating recreational use and highlighting the travel cost for recreational opportunities illustrates how crowdsourced data can refine valuation approaches such as the widely used travel cost approach, which may fill in data gaps in valuing ecosystem services.
•IoT4Ag Engineering Research Center established on September 1, 2020.•IoT sense-communication-response systems to optimize practices for every plant.•Sensors, robotics, and energy and communication ...devices to data-driven models.•Training an educated and diverse workforce.•Addressing the societal grand challenge of food, energy, and water security.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center (ERC) for the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (IoT4Ag) was established on September 1, 2020 and launched its collaborative programs across the four NSF ERC pillars of convergent research, engineering workforce development, diversity and culture of inclusion, and innovation ecosystem. IoT4Ag unites an interdisciplinary cadre of faculty and students from the University of Pennsylvania, Purdue University, the University of California-Merced, and the University of Florida, with partners in education, government, industry, and the end-user farming community. The IoT4Ag mission is to create and translate to practice Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for precision agriculture and to train an educated and diverse workforce that will address the societal grand challenge of food, energy, and water security for decades to come.
This study proposes the use of marginal abatement cost curves to calculate environmental damages of agricultural systems in China's Loess Plateau. Total system costs and revenues, management ...characteristics and pollution attributes are imputed into a directional output distance function, which is then used to determine shadow prices and abatement cost curves for soil and nitrogen loss. Marginal abatement costs curves are an effective way to compare economic and conservation tradeoffs when field-specific data are scarce. The results show that sustainable agricultural practices can balance soil conservation and agricultural production; land need not be retired, as is current policy.
•Trade-offs between crop production and soil conservation are evaluated.•Shadow prices and abatement cost curves are calculated for soil and nitrogen pollution.•Abatement cost curves can identify lands that can be farmed with conservation.•Land use changes need not be extreme to meet soil degradation targets.•Crop income can be balanced with environmental conservation.
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