Developing integrated environmental indicators for sustainable global food production and trade

The proposed research aims to improve understanding of the environmental impact and sustainability of global food production and trade, and to propose solutions to alleviate this impact.
The natural environment, providing us with essential resources and ecosystem services, is under increasing pressure from human activities. Importantly, increasing demand for food, due to population growth and socio-economic development, have led to the intensive use of water, land, and fertilisers in agriculture. Irrigation accounts for more than two thirds of freshwater withdrawn globally, and agriculture occupies more than one third of the Earth's land surface and emits a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, food production will need to significantly increase to feed about two additional billion people by 2050. Ensuring environmentally sustainable, sufficient food production is thus a difficult and pressing global challenge.

To address this challenge, my research will provide critical improvements in our current understanding of the multiple environmental impacts of agriculture, by accounting for different practices and local conditions across the world. This will allow a comprehensive assessment of agricultural sustainability and help to quantify trade-offs associated with different agricultural management strategies. Indeed, as agricultural practices are tightly linked (e.g. water and soil management), it is essential to consider all major environmental aspects to avoid the unintended consequences of strategies focused on a single aspect. The research will also consider trade; following recent globalisation, international food trade has grown rapidly since the 1980s, allowing for the development of major export-oriented agricultural regions. This crucial role of trade in global agricultural systems will be integrated in the evaluation of potential pathways to achieve environmentally sustainable agriculture.

The proposed research addresses critical areas of integration necessary to assess pathways to sustainable agriculture: (1) comprehensive estimation of environmental impacts, (2) integration across a range of products (crops and livestock), (3) innovative quantitative measures of sustainability and (4) simultaneous linking of all environmental stresses with global trade.

To reach my research objectives, I will combine emerging environmental datasets and models to consistently estimate the potential environmental impacts of food production, via water and land resource use, eutrophication (ecosystem pollution through nutrient leakage) and climate change. I will then apply innovative techniques to combine these estimates into spatially detailed indicators of the environmental sustainability of global food production. This ambitious and innovative research project will provide the first tool to simultaneously evaluate the major environmental impacts of food systems. It is highly significant as it targets the key global challenges of environmental sustainability and food security. I will then combine the indicators with international food trade data to analyse the increasingly significant linkages between food producing regions and remote consumers. Finally, I will use the developed global datasets, indicators, and trade analysis to carry out country level case studies assessing pathways to achieving environmental sustainability of food production and supply.

The research draws from environmental footprint analysis, which has been used successfully to both understand and stimulate policy interest in global resource use and scarcity. More recently, the interactions between water, food, trade and the climate have been increasingly recognised in many studies pinpointing the need for multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches. Using state-of-the-art, emerging environmental datasets, this work will generate new knowledge on globally significant environmental processes and profile policy relevant insights.

The proposed research aims to improve the estimation and utilisation of information on the environmental sustainability of global food production and supply. As the project targets the crucial issues of food security and sustainable agriculture, the associated results dissemination modes are designed to be highly beneficial to a range of users.
There is strong socio-economic and political interest in these topics, as shown by the activities led by major national and international bodies, such as international agencies (e.g. United Nations - Sustainable Development Goals, and the World Bank - Global Agriculture and Food Security program), government entities (e.g. European Commission - The Food Security Thematic Programme, and U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), and also in the private sector (e.g. Sainsbury's Carbon footprint initiative) and at the household level (consumer preferences for environmentally friendly foods).

The continuous engagement of experts and stakeholders in the research process, and the broad dissemination of policy relevant findings are carefully designed to ensure socio-economic impact of my research.
This research has the potential to achieve the following benefits for users:
(i) Tools to assess and plan for sustainable food supply, for use by importing countries' agriculture and trade policy makers and food retailers.
(ii) Information about environmental impacts of imported products for consumers, food agencies and retailers in importing and producing countries
(iii) Information to decide the most effective agricultural strategies towards environmental sustainability for food trade, agriculture, water and environmental policy makers and food producers, in producing and exporting countries.
(iv) Sustainable food security, ecosystem services (e.g. recreational activity), health benefits via nutrition and clean environment to the general public.

To engage with policy makers, practitioners and the general public, a number of activities and engagement mechanisms have been designed at the core of this project.

I will set up an advisory group that will both help co-design and follow the results of the research project. Group members will include my project partners, Prof. Smith, Prof. Benton and Dr. Hanasaki, as well as other academic and policy experts, e.g. Prof. Martin Parry (Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London), Prof. Raimund Bleischwitz (Institute for Sustainable Resources at University College London) and leaders of the Programmes on Climate & Environment and Agricultural Development & Policy (Overseas Development Institute), with whom I have established contacts; and potentially members of the Global Water Partnership, the OECD, and U.K. departments (e.g. Defra and DFID), which have strong ties with my project mentors and/or the host Institution.
I also plan to regularly consult with relevant stakeholders, e.g. experts from relevant U.K. (e.g. Defra, DFID, DECC) or foreign bodies with interest in environmental sustainability and food security (e.g. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (international), Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (U.S.) and the Global Footprint Network (international)).
I will disseminate the outcomes of this project in a number of ways in addition to peer-reviewed articles, to reach wider audiences. For example, the research findings will be published as a Working Paper in the Grantham Research Institute Working Paper series.
The Grantham Research Institute will also issue press releases profiling key results to over 500 key journalists to attract the attention of the media and thus the general public.
The extensive research and policy networks of project partners will be an additional opportunity to disseminate the research findings to other type of audiences, via the U.K. Global Food Security Programme led by Prof. Benton and the Food Systems for Scottish Food Security Alliance, led by Prof. Smith.