Global land systems are increasingly shaped by international trade of agricultural products. An increasing number of studies have quantified the implications of agricultural trade for single ...different aspects of land system sustainability. Bringing together studies across different sustainability dimensions, this review investigates how global agricultural trade flows have affected land systems and resulting impacts on food and nutrient availability, natural habitat conversion, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem carbon storage. We show that the effects of trade on land systems are highly heterogeneous across regions and commodities, revealing both synergies and trade-offs between improved nutrition and environmental conservation. For instance, we find that while the concentration of cereal production in North America has spared land, the increased demand for tropical products induced by trade has negatively impacted tropical ecosystems. Based on the current state of knowledge, we identify six pathways for how future research can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how agricultural trade can positively contribute to meeting global sustainability goals.
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Reviewing studies that quantify trends in agricultural trade, its impacts on nutrient availability, habitat conversion, biodiversity loss, and carbon storage reveals highly heterogeneous impacts. While trade can lead to more efficient land-use allocation, for instance through concentrating cereal production in regions with low carbon and biodiversity impacts, trade-induced demand for tropical products negatively affects carbon- and biodiversity-rich systems. We identify six ways how future research can contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability implications of agricultural trade.
Persistent ecological and socio-economic impacts from the expansion of industrial monocultures in the tropics have raised land use sustainability to the top of the environmental policy agenda. As ...major crops such as soy continue to experience growing market demand and threaten both natural ecosystems and traditional populations, a number of multi-stakeholder governance initiatives have been established around agricultural commodity chains or key landscapes. Effectiveness in curbing unsustainable land use, however, remains limited. In this context, innovative initiatives have blurred the lines to combine both supply chain and landscape governance. We analyze such arrangements-here conceptualized as commodity-centric landscape governance (CCLG)-with an in-depth case study of the Cerrado Working Group, a multi-stakeholder initiative led by civil society and the soy agribusiness to address land use change in that savanna landscape in Brazil. The paper examines how that initiative has come about, its agenda, as well as usually underexposed political dimensions using agenda-setting theory. The research is based on extensive fieldwork in Brazil, with data collected through document analysis and 56 key-informant interviews. The findings suggest that a sustainable development agenda for the Cerrado has been substantially narrowed to become mostly one of conversion-free soy supply, serving more the interests of that agroindustry and its consumers than those of the landscape's most vulnerable stakeholders, such as local communities. While the Cerrado Working Group has importantly broadened the policy scope beyond commodity certification, its limited inclusiveness and a skewed agenda have led to instruments that target only soy farmers as beneficiaries. We conclude that, although effective for targeting conversion drivers, CCLG can crystallize and reinforce existing land use patterns by granting disproportionate power to dominant stakeholders, thus limiting the agenda to incremental changes. As a consequence, distant demand-side actors may exert greater governance authority than the landscape's own population. If embodying norms of inclusiveness and equitable participation, CCLG may serve as an entry point, but it does not per se replace inclusive land-use planning and integrated landscape governance.
Information sharing lies at the core of most governance interventions within agro-food commodity supply-chains, such as certification standards or direct trade relationships. However, actors have ...little information available to guide sustainable consumption decisions beyond simple labels. Blockchain technology can potentially alleviate the numerous sustainability problems related to agro-food commodity supply-chains by fostering traceability and transparency. Despite significant research on blockchain, there is limited understanding of the concrete barriers and benefits and potential applications of blockchain in real-world settings. Here, we present a case study of blockchain implementation in a coffee supply-chain. Our aim is to assess the potential of blockchain technology to promote sustainability in coffee supply chains through increased traceability and transparency and to identify barriers and opportunities for this. While our pilot implementation clearly illustrates certain benefits of blockchain, it also suggests that blockchain is no silver bullet for delivering agro-food supply chain sustainability. Knowledge on provenance and transparency of information on quality and sustainability can help trigger transformation of consumer behaviour, but the actual value lies in digitising the supply chain to increase efficiency and reduce costs, disputes, and fraud, while providing more insight end-to-end through product provenance and chain-of-custody information. We identify a need to understand and minimize supply chain barriers before we can reap the full benefits of digitalization and decentralization provided by blockchain technology.
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It has been demonstrated that most people have a limited understanding of atmospheric CO
2
accumulation. Labeled stock-flow (SF) failure, this phenomenon has even been suggested as an explanation for ...weak climate policy support. Drawing on a typology of knowledge, we set out to nuance previous research by distinguishing between different types of knowledge of CO
2
accumulation among the public and by exploring ways of reasoning underlying SF failure. A mixed methods approach was used and participants (
N
= 214) were enrolled in an open online course. We find that ostensibly similar SF tasks show seemingly contradictory results in terms of people’s understanding of CO
2
accumulation. Participants performed significantly better on stock stabilization tasks that explicitly ask about the relationship between stocks and flows, compared with a typical SF task that does not direct the participants’ attention to what knowledge they should use. This suggests that people possess declarative and procedural knowledge of accumulation (knowing about the principles of mass balance, i.e.,
what
and
how
to use them) but lack conditional knowledge of accumulation (knowing
when
to use these principles). Additionally, through a thematic analysis of answers to an open-ended question, we identified three overarching ways of reasoning when dealing with SF tasks: system, pattern, and phenomenological reasoning, providing additional theoretical insights to explain the large difference in performance between the different SF tasks. These more nuanced perspectives on SF failure can help inform interventions aimed at increasing climate science literacy and point to the need for more detailed explorations of public knowledge needed to leverage climate policy support.
Climate policy will create both disincentives and incentives for tropical deforestation. Disincentives if the carbon emissions from forest clearing are priced, as is currently being discussed within ...the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); incentives as a price on carbon will increase the demand for carbon-neutral energy sources, including bioenergy, making deforestation for biomass cultivation increasingly profitable. The question is whether the increased cost for forest clearing, through the price on carbon emissions, will be enough to counter-balance the increased profitability of deforestation through the escalating value of agricultural land. In an attempt to answer this question we analyze the profitability of tropical deforestation and subsequent bioenergy production, taking oil palm plantations as an illustrative example. We estimate that deforesting for palm oil bioenergy production is likely to remain highly profitable, even in the face of a price on the carbon emissions from forest clearing. Current efforts to include carbon emissions from tropical deforestation in a future international climate regime, while a step in the right direction, may therefore not suffice as protection for the world’s tropical forests. Additional, and stronger, protection measures for the world’s tropical forests will still be needed.
Profitability (in USD/ha) of deforesting for bioenergy under a REDD+ scheme. Display omitted
► We analyze the competition between REDD+ and bioenergy on tropical forest land. ► On >40% of forest land ...revenues from bioenergy plantations exceed those from REDD+. ► These results are most pronounced for oil palm bioenergy in Latin America and Africa. ► Results are robust to changes in assumed bioenergy (palm oil and sugar cane) yields. ► Conservation policies need to be resilient to changes in incentives for deforestation.
The land competition between tropical bioenergy plantations and payments for forest carbon conservation (e.g., through an international scheme for Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, REDD+) is modeled using spatially explicit data on biofuel feedstock (oil palm and sugar cane) suitability and forest biomass carbon stocks. The results show that a price on the (avoided) carbon emissions from deforestation at the same level as those from fossil fuel use makes clearing for high yielding bioenergy crops unprofitable on about 60% of the tropical evergreen forest area. For the remaining 40% deforestation remains the most profitable option. Continued profitability of forest clearing is most pronounced for oil palm bioenergy systems in Latin America and Africa, with REDD+ making deforestation for sugar cane plantations unprofitable on 97% of evergreen forest land. Results are shown to be relatively robust to assumptions regarding potential yields and to the addition of a ‘biodiversity premium’ on land use change emissions. While REDD+ may play an important role in stemming biodiversity loss and reducing carbon emissions from tropical deforestation in the near future, in the longer run reliance on a system that values forests solely for their carbon retention capacities poses a serious risk. It is imperative that the institutions and policies currently being established as part of REDD+ readiness activities are resilient to future changes in the incentive structures facing tropical forest countries due to, e.g., climate policy induced demand for biofuels.
The livestock sector is estimated to account for 15% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 80% of which originate from ruminant animal systems due to high emissions of methane (CH4) from enteric ...fermentation and manure management. However, recent analyses have argued that the carbon footprint (CF) of ruminant meat and dairy products are substantially reduced if one adopts alternative metrics for comparing emissions of GHGs-e.g., the 100 year global temperature change potential (GTP100), instead of the commonly used 100 year global warming potential (GWP100)-due to a lower valuation of CH4 emissions. This raises the question of which metric to use. Ideally, the choice of metric should be related to a climate policy goal. Here, we argue that basing current GHG metrics solely on temperature impact 100 years into the future is inconsistent with the current global climate goal of limiting warming to 2 °C, a limit that is likely to be reached well within 100 years. A reasonable GTP value for CH4, accounting for current projections for when 2 °C warming will be reached, is about 18, leading to a current CF of 19 kg CO2-eq. per kilo beef (carcass weight, average European system), 20% lower than if evaluated using GWP100. Further, we show that an application of the GTP metric consistent with a 2 °C climate limit leads to the valuation of CH4 increasing rapidly over time as the temperature ceiling is approached. This means that the CF for beef would rise by around 2.5% per year in the coming decades, surpassing the GWP based footprint in only ten years. Consequently, the impact on the livestock sector of substituting GTPs for GWPs would be modest in the near term, but could potentially be very large in the future due to a much higher (>50%) and rapidly appreciating CF.
Any system to compensate countries for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) requires a historical reference level against which future performance can be measured. Here ...we examine the possibilities Sri Lanka, a small forest country with limited data on forest carbon stocks, has to get ready for REDD+. We construct a historical reference level using available forest inventory data combined with updated 2008 and 2009 in situ carbon density data for Sri Lankan forests. Furthermore, we use a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to attribute the clearing of Sri Lankan forests in the latest years for which national forest inventory data are available, 1992–1996, to various proximate drivers and to estimate the opportunity cost of forest conservation. We estimate that baseline deforestation emissions in Sri Lanka amounted to 17MtCO2yr−1 in the 1992–1996 period, but conclude that it is challenging for Sri Lanka to produce a robust and accurate reference level due to the lack of nationally based inventories. We find that the majority of forest clearing (87%) is due to small-scale, rainfed farming, with the two other major drivers being rice and tea cultivation. Further, Sri Lankan revenues from REDD+ participation could be substantial, but they are sensitive to REDD+ policy transaction cost, highly uncertain timber revenues, and particularly the carbon price paid for emission reductions. The latter needs to be higher than $5–10/tCO2 if there are to be substantial incentives for Sri Lanka to participate in REDD+. There is, however, a large gap in the knowledge of deforestation drivers that needs to be filled if Sri Lanka is to formulate an effective policy response to forest degradation in REDD+. For successful REDD+ implementation in Sri Lanka to happen, technological assistance, readiness assistance, and continued political momentum are crucial.
► Developing a REDD+ reference level for Sri Lanka is currently hampered by few forest inventories. ► Emissions from deforestation are 17MtCO2/year 1992–1996 and 12 MtCO2/year 1996–2010. ► Clear gaps in the understanding of deforestation drivers and costs of forest conservation exist. ► The gains to Sri Lanka from REDD+ could be considerable, if compensation exceeds $5–10/tCO2. ► Political will and capacity-building is needed for improved forest resource management.
Transparency and equitability are key for improved sustainability outcomes in global value chains. Blockchain technology has been touted as a tool for achieving these ends. However, due to the ...limited empirical evidence, claims on transparency and sustainability benefits are largely theoretical. We lack an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks for upstream actors within global value chains and how this affects technology adoption. Addressing this gap, we conduct an empirical study to identify the drivers and obstacles for coffee producers in Colombia in adopting blockchain. We base our research on an event-driven and permissioned blockchain model, specifically designed for this research. Applying the Participation Capacity Framework and conducting semi-structured interviews with coffee producers and key informants, we analyze adoption attitudes towards the blockchain application. We further identify opportunities and drawbacks from the producers’ perspective. We set these findings in the context of the Global Value Chain research, considering the existing power relations in the coffee value chain. The top-down nature of blockchain projects raises distributive concerns, as resource investments, implementation burden, and risks are significantly higher upstream, whereas downstream lead firms will benefit most. We identify data squeeze as an additional channel of sustainable supplier squeeze relevant in the case of blockchain initiatives. Data squeeze implies lead firms turning the data obtained through, likely unpaid, labour of blockchain participants into a monetizable assets and marketable value through branding and advertisement. Based on the findings, we identify potential design dimensions and implementation features that can contribute to materializing producer benefits, thus mitigating the risk of a sustainability-driven supplier squeeze.
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