World Food System Center, ETH Zurich’s Post

Come check out Dr. Alisher Mirzabaev, from IRRI's Tranformative Policies and Investments Unit as he discuss the economics of land and soils and their implications for sustainable agricultural policies. More information on the link below. #IRRI #Policies

📢Check out this interesting article: Mixed success for carbon payments and subsidies in support of forest restoration in the neotropics📄 Omar R. Lopez Alfano, president of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), participates Restoration of forests in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has the potential to contribute to international carbon mitigation targets. 🔗https://lnkd.in/ejxYuaF3 

With a focus on #geoeconomics and #ecology, another text I wrote centers on the efforts by the People's Republic of #China (PRC) to 'green' the #BeltandRoadInitiative (#BRI). It pledges to introduce mechanisms for carbon emission reduction and to build up managing policy capacity as a response to criticism by other countries. The text sheds light on the #integration of politics and ecology as well as the ongoing #sustainability debate worldwide.

🌱 Policy Brief: “Prospects for the Return to Economic Use of Ukraine’s Land Fund” A new publication by the “Agricultural Outlook Ukraine” Consortium (Polissia National University, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences, and the Center for Food and Land Use Research at the Kyiv School of Economics). ⬇️ Key Findings: •⁠ Soil Contamination: The war has caused significant soil contamination with heavy metals and explosive materials. •⁠ ⁠Loss of Agricultural Land: About 30% of Ukraine’s territory is currently inaccessible due to combat and contamination. •⁠ ⁠Land Decontamination Forecast: The decontamination process is expected to take approximately 10 years after the end of hostilities. •⁠ ⁠Return of Land to Use: Over 47% of currently inaccessible land, including significant arable land, forests, and pastures, will be returned to use.

Several things to consider if you want to vote for the most important discoveries/inventions of history. My vote goes to the invention of the process to separate Nitrogen from Air. Human Civilisation would have collapsed if not for the 'Haber-Bosch' process as its called today - after the German scientist Fritz Haber (and Carl Bosch) In the early 20th century, a growing population, decreasing agricultural land and a depleting yield meant that humans would have died of starvation. In the preceding centuries, a hungry Europe would send its men to despoil the tombs of Egypt - not in search of jewels or Gold, but of the Nitrogen in the bones of thousands of slaves who were buried there! The ability to artificially produce fertilizers from this Nitrogen would be life-saving, game-changing! This process doubled the amount of disposable Nitrogen; it provoked the demographic explosion that would quadruple human population from 1.6 to 7 billion in less than 100 years! . What invention would you vote for?

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟. 𝐖𝐞𝐧-𝐗𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐌𝐁 𝟐.𝟑 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚 (𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐂) 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 Prof. Wen-Xiong Wang was recently awarded with a 5-year “Key Project” from the National Science Foundation of China, with a total funding amount of 2.3 millions RMB. In this project, he will develop various novel technologies to study the microplastics in different functional marine organisms. Microplastic pollution has become one of the major environmental problems nowadays, thus it is critical to study the environmental risks of these microplastics in marine ecosystems.

Excited to share that the first article to come out of my dissertation has been published in the journal Ambio. The research comes out of fieldwork I did with CIFOR (now CIFOR-ICRAF) in Southern Province, Zambia in 2022. This case study develops a revised model of social-ecological resilience theory to better integrate social science into the theory which, to date, has been driven largely by ecological principles. Check it out below: https://lnkd.in/e5mrYhZ9

💡 Get to know our speakers and the papers they'll be presenting at the Independent Science for Development Council (ISDC)'s 2024 Science Forum.   Chun S. is a Spatial Econometrician with the CGIAR Initiative on Foresight and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, based in Rome, Italy. She is the first and corresponding author of one of the papers in the Agricultural Systems special issue on inclusive innovation, coauthored by Athanasios Petsakos and Elisabetta Gotor: 'Linguistic diversity, climate shock, and farmers-herder conflicts: Implications for inclusive innovations for agro-pastoralism systems'.   🔍 Highlights from the paper: ▪ In Africa, farmer-herder conflicts driven by linguistic differences can be further intensified by climatic shocks. ▪ Farmer-herder conflicts are more fatal in mixed-language districts ▪ The fatality rate increases significantly when drought occurs. ▪ Future droughts may result in strikingly different trends in conflict fatalities across districts. ▪ Linguistically inclusive innovations are crucial for de-escalating farmer-herder conflict in the face of climate shocks.   Read the full paper: https://bit.ly/3RyrYnf   🌐 Check out the full agenda of the #ISDCForum24 and register here: https://bit.ly/45bfcR4   #WithScienceWeCan #CGIARScienceWeek  

#PROGRACE_EMPHASIS 😲#DYK that prior to the 1992 UN Rio Conference, there were hardly any international rules on access/use of plant genetic resources? 💬Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio, Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea gave an overview of various international policy frameworks on the conservation, access & use of PGR👇 💡There are 2⃣ main international instruments that apply to PGR (both inspired by the CBD of 1992): 🔸Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization 🔸FAO International Plant Treaty 👆She also explained the access and benefit-sharing system (ABS), advantages & disadvantages of multilateral system and highlighted the value of an infrastructure with a (virtual) one-stop shop. #cropbiodiversity

🔔 Have you read our latest publication yet? Confronting the permacrisis: Time for a supra- governmental avantgarde by Fabian Zuleeg, Janis Emmanouilidis and Almut Möller; explores the many crisis facing the EU. This paper discusses the EU27 entering a new politico-institutional cycle, the tasks and obstacles ahead look daunting. Russia continues its war of aggression against Ukraine, and the EU will be confronted with an aggressive Moscow for years to come. The list of interrelated crises is ever extending, accompanied by fundamental transformations of Europe’s societies, driven by climate change and the loss of biodiversity, demography and ageing, and global technological revolutions. The ‘old West’ is suffering from increasing political fragmentation and polarisation, amounting to a clear danger for pluralist, liberal democracies. Yet, the multiple challenges linked to the European and global Zeitenwende should not be taken as an excuse for despair, introspection, inertia, and inaction but function as a rallying call: it is a moral imperative that we do all we can to change potential dismal outcomes for future generations. Read here 🎯 https://buff.ly/3Wr7Bez