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TMG Research gGmbH aims to help develop a more systematic understanding of how agri-food systems can be transformed as part of a project on the Assessment and Communication of Climate Impacts of Food (CLIF), funded through the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and jointly implemented with corsus and WWF Germany. This project promotes sustainable consumption patterns and helps companies, policymakers, and consumers choose more sustainable options in relation to food. The main contribution of TMG to this project is in developing a more systematic understanding of how to transform agri-food systems by publishing a series of strategic reports on the current status of agri-food systems and the likely drivers and agents of their transformation. This report is part of the FORESEE (4C) series on The Transformation of Agri-Food Systems in Times of Multiple Crises, which explores the status quo of the current agri-food system in the light of challenges linked to the multiple crises. This part of the series reviews the blind spots and gaps in the debate around agri-food systems transformation and how these hinder the transformation. Furthermore, this report offers recommendations on how to address these gaps to facilitate an agri-food system transformation aligned to the leading themes of people, planet, and prosperity. The report was drafted by TMG with contributions from an extended group of experts.

TMG Research gGmbH aims to help develop a more systematic understanding of how agri-food systems can be transformed as part of a project on the Assessment and Communication of Climate Impacts of Food (CLIF), funded through the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and jointly implemented with corsus and WWF Germany. This project promotes sustainable consumption patterns and helps companies, policymakers, and consumers choose more sustainable options in relation to food. The main contribution of TMG to this project is in developing a more systematic understanding of how to transform agri-food systems by publishing a series of strategic reports on the current status of agri-food systems and the likely drivers and agents of their transformation. This report is part of the FORESEE (4C) series on The Transformation of Agri-Food Systems in Times of Multiple Crises, which explores the current agri-food system in light of challenges linked to the four crises known as the 4 Cs (Climate, Covid-19, Conflict, and Cost of externalities). This part of the series reviews the state of the debate around agri-food systems transformation from the perspective of different organisations that represent a wide range of actors and stakeholders. Furthermore, this report provides an overview of the different proposed approaches to achieving the goals of agri-food system transformation aligned to the themes of people, planet, and prosperity. The report was drafted by TMG in consultations with an extended group of experts.

Global agriculture aims to minimize its impacts on environment and human health while maintaining its productivity. This requires a comprehensive understanding of its benefits and costs to ecosystems and society. Here, we apply a new evaluation framework developed by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgriFood) to assess key benefits and costs on the production side of genetically modified (GM) and organic corn systems in Minnesota, USA. The market value of GM corn is $4.5 billion, and only $31.8 million for organic corn using production data and market prices of 2017. GM corn generates revenue of $1488 per hectare (at $121 per MT), which is significantly lower than the organic corn at $2793 per hectare (at $294 per MT). Using a novel three-stage wellbeing valuation, analysis of the associations between corn production intensity and subjective measures of general health and wellbeing indicates that the total non-financial health cost associated with GM corn is $427.50 per hectare or $1.3 billion annually. We also find that the total annual environmental cost associated with GM corn production is $179 per hectare or $557.65 million within Minnesota. The use of the evaluation framework can help to improve decision making at farm and policy level to develop sustainable agriculture in order to minimize environmental and health related costs to society and economy.

There is an increasing public and scientific debate about the potential for True Cost Accounting (TCA) and the need for TCA to play an important role in the policies and decisions of all agri-food system stakeholders, including those of governments, businesses, communities, and every citizen. In recent decades, the recognition of the need for a new and encompassing accounting system that takes into account the hidden environmental costs of production has started to change the economic thinking far beyond conservation circles. The appreciation of the negative (and sometimes positive) impacts of production on the environment has become common, together with the recognition that economic reporting does not adequately consider the impacts of activities on the natural resource base, or on social wellbeing and human health. However, there is a wide gap between the multitude of colorful Corporate Social Responsibilities reports and actual company impacts on natural, human, and social resources, precisely because the mainstream international standards of economic accounting and reporting exclude externalities. With the current awareness of the true (or full) costs of economic activities, it is time to go beyond discussion and design of TCA approaches and move towards implementation. A range of opportunities is explored in this chapter, as well as likely challenges. From a theory of change perspective, much is being done by the TCA community of practice, but less attention is paid to who needs to do what differently for TCA to succeed. Scientific and methodological breakthroughs will keep emerging and offering new opportunities to improve TCA measurements. However, tangible effects on policy and decision-making are essentially related to socio-political processes. It is only through social processes that lead to a consensus on an agreed set of processes and overall framework that trust will be built for making choices that establish sustainable food systems. Thus, it is the mobilization of governments and multi-stakeholder community networks that will be crucial to the effective realization of TCA’s potential.

Agricultural practices need to change to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. How to achieve the SDGs is heavily contested. Here we propose a policy framework that triggers the required transition. Organic agriculture, although not a silver bullet, is a useful component in such strategy.

Organic agriculture is proposed as a promising approach to achieving sustainable food systems, but its feasibility is also contested. We use a food systems model that addresses agronomic characteristics of organic agriculture to analyze the role that organic agriculture could play in sustainable food systems. Here we show that a 100% conversion to organic agriculture needs more land than conventional agriculture but reduces N-surplus and pesticide use. However, in combination with reductions of food wastage and food-competing feed from arable land, with correspondingly reduced production and consumption of animal products, land use under organic agriculture remains below the reference scenario. Other indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions also improve, but adequate nitrogen supply is challenging. Besides focusing on production, sustainable food systems need to address waste, crop–grass–livestock interdependencies and human consumption. None of the corresponding strategies needs full implementation and their combined partial implementation delivers a more sustainable food future., Organic agriculture requires fewer inputs but produces lower yields than conventional farming. Here, via a modeling approach, Muller et al. predict that if food waste and meat consumption are reduced, organic agriculture could feed the world without requiring cropland expansion.

This chapter reviews epidemiological, toxicological and clinical trials literature to inform on the major disease groups that should be systematically researched in terms of eco-agri-food system risk factors. Disease groups covered include both nutrition-related diseases, as well as agriculture-related diseases linked to agricultural chemicals found in food and the environment, including: hunger-related morbidity, obesity and metabolic disorders; cardio-vascular diseases; food-borne-infections and zoonotic diseases; anti-microbial-resistant infections; chronic respiratory diseases; neoplasms; developmental and reproductive deficiencies (endocrine disruption); neuro-degenerative diseases; immune system disorders, food allergy and other food hypersensitivities; gastro-intestinal tract disorders; and poisoning, injury and certain other consequences of external causes. This paper highlights the need to consider the whole eco-agri-food system when considering the impact of the food system on human health, including overlapping pathways, from access to food and nutrition and dietary patterns, through food and environmental quality, to occupational hazards. In particular, it advocates for a system approach to scientific analysis, as a basis for decision-making to prevent chronic and non-communicable diseases related to eco-agri-food systems.

It has been suggested that conversion to organic farming contributes to soil carbon sequestration, but until now a comprehensive quantitative assessment has been lacking. Therefore, datasets from 74 studies from pairwise comparisons of organic vs. nonorganic farming systems were subjected to metaanalysis to identify differences in soil organic carbon (SOC). We found significant differences and higher values for organically farmed soils of 0.18 ± 0.06% points (mean ± 95% confidence interval) for SOC concentrations, 3.50 ± 1.08 Mg C ha −1 for stocks, and 0.45 ± 0.21 Mg C ha −1 y −1 for sequestration rates compared with nonorganic management. Metaregression did not deliver clear results on drivers, but differences in external C inputs and crop rotations seemed important. Restricting the analysis to zero net input organic systems and retaining only the datasets with highest data quality (measured soil bulk densities and external C and N inputs), the mean difference in SOC stocks between the farming systems was still significant (1.98 ± 1.50 Mg C ha −1 ), whereas the difference in sequestration rates became insignificant (0.07 ± 0.08 Mg C ha −1 y −1 ). Analyzing zero net input systems for all data without this quality requirement revealed significant, positive differences in SOC concentrations and stocks (0.13 ± 0.09% points and 2.16 ± 1.65 Mg C ha −1 , respectively) and insignificant differences for sequestration rates (0.27 ± 0.37 Mg C ha −1 y −1 ). The data mainly cover top soil and temperate zones, whereas only few data from tropical regions and subsoil horizons exist. Summarizing, this study shows that organic farming has the potential to accumulate soil carbon.

This article discusses the mitigation and adaptation potential of organic agricultural systems along three main features: farming system design, cropland management and grassland and livestock management. An important potential contribution of organically managed systems to climate change mitigation is identified in the careful management of nutrients and, hence, the reduction of N2O emissions from soils. Another high mitigation potential of organic agriculture lies in carbon sequestration in soils. In a first estimate, the emission reduction potential by abstention from mineral fertilizers is calculated to be about 20% and the compensation potential by carbon sequestration to be about 40–72% of the world's current annual agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but further research is needed to consolidate these numbers. On the adaptation side, organic agriculture systems have a strong potential for building resilient food systems in the face of uncertainties, through farm diversification and building soil fertility with organic matter. Additionally, organic agriculture offers alternatives to energy-intensive production inputs such as synthetic fertilizers which are likely to be further limited for poor rural populations by rising energy prices. In developing countries, organic agricultural systems achieve equal or even higher yields, as compared to the current conventional practices, which translate into a potentially important option for food security and sustainable livelihoods for the rural poor in times of climate change. Certified organic products cater for higher income options for farmers and, therefore, can serve as promoters for climate-friendly farming practices worldwide.

Increasing efficiency in livestock production and reducing the share of animal products in human consumption are two strategies to curb the adverse environmental impacts of the livestock sector. Here, we explore the room for sustainable livestock production by modelling the impacts and constraints of a third strategy in which livestock feed components that compete with direct human food crop production are reduced. Thus, in the outmost scenario, animals are fed only from grassland and by-products from food production. We show that this strategy could provide sufficient food (equal amounts of human-digestible energy and a similar protein/calorie ratio as in the reference scenario for 2050) and reduce environmental impacts compared with the reference scenario (in the most extreme case of zero human-edible concentrate feed: greenhouse gas emissions −18%; arable land occupation −26%, N-surplus −46%; P-surplus −40%; non-renewable energy use −36%, pesticide use intensity −22%, freshwater use −21%, soil erosion potential −12%). These results occur despite the fact that environmental efficiency of livestock production is reduced compared with the reference scenario, which is the consequence of the grassland-based feed for ruminants and the less optimal feeding rations based on by-products for non-ruminants. This apparent contradiction results from considerable reductions of animal products in human diets (protein intake per capita from livestock products reduced by 71%). We show that such a strategy focusing on feed components which do not compete with direct human food consumption offers a viable complement to strategies focusing on increased efficiency in production or reduced shares of animal products in consumption., Journal of the Royal Society. Interface, 12 (113), ISSN:1742-5689, ISSN:1742-5662

In their letter, Leifeld et al. (1) argue that our metaanalysis to identify differences in soil organic carbon (SOC) between organic (OF) and nonorganic farming [conventional farming (CF)] (2) selected CF systems that were nonrepresentative. This was not the case. We included data from all available pairwise field comparisons between OF and CF identified in the literature. The observed difference in external carbon (C) inputs between OF and CF did not result from a bias in the selection of studies/treatments but was attributable to the fact that the field comparisons we analyzed (2) were not from fertilization experiments but from pairwise farming system comparisons where the design and the underlying treatments reflected the current farming practices in the region in which the studies were conducted at the time the experiments were initiated.

This psoter presents information on the following - The concept of organic farming in the context of climate change - Carbon sequestration on organic farms - Consequences of an area-wide conversion to organic agriculture