Manuscript deadline: 30 September 2023

The need for sustainable food production in a carbon-constrained economy is a pressing global challenge. The production, distribution, and consumption of food contribute to GHG emissions. Carbon Management is hosting a call for academic articles on the topic of “Towards Sustainable Food Production in a Carbon-Constrained Economy”. If you are passionate about this topic and have research to share, submit a manuscript HERE.

The 2023 Joint Croplands and Integrative Research Groups Annual Meeting took place in Seville, Spain and virtually on 17-18 January 2023.

The meeting was attended by participants from 24 countries and four partner organisations. The meeting report and selected presentations are now available for download HERE.

The Global Research Alliance (GRA) is very pleased to welcome Fiji as our 67th Member Country!

The vision of the Fijian Ministry of Agriculture is a sustainable, competitive, and resilient agriculture sector with the mission to create an enabling environment that accelerates sustainability, economic opportunities, climatic viability, food, and nutrition security for all Fijians. Fiji Ministry of Agriculture is eager to improve international cooperation, collaboration, and investment in public research activities. “The membership of the GRA will add value to our team in relevance to expert support and local capability building on climate change issues in the country.”

We look forward to working together to grow more food without growing more greenhouse gases.

The 67 member countries now participating in the activities of the Global Research Alliance are: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malawi, Mexico, Mongolia, Namibia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Samoa, Senegal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Viet Nam, Zambia, Zimbabwe

For more information on the GRA or how to become a member country please contact the GRA Secretariat.

Screening of Applications Begins: Immediately and continues until position is filled. For best consideration, apply by March 17, 2022.

Location: Kansas, USA

The USDA Southern Plains Climate Hub is partnering with Kansas State University to recruit a postdoc (Hub Fellow) that will be based in Manhattan, KS and will work with Logan Thompson, Susan Metzger and Andrés F. Cibils. They are seeking a highly motivated individual to work on livestock grazing and GHG dynamics in the Southern Plains.

For more information, click HERE.

Participants from 10 member countries of the Global Research Alliance (GRA) recently attended a meeting to plan the new GRA Flagship project “Development of context-specific emissions factors from the application of nitrogenous fertilisers” which was hosted by the Agricultural Climate Research Centre in Teagasc.

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from agricultural applications of nitrogenous fertiliser can vary significantly depending on how, where and when a fertilizer is used. Modifying farm systems and making changes to management practices, such as fertilizer type, timing, amount, rate and location of fertilizer application, has been shown to dramatically influence the amount of N₂O being emitted.

Marta Alfaro from Chile explained that the goal of the Flagship project is to encourage global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogenous fertilizer by enabling its usage to be more accurately reflected in national level greenhouse gas accounting, and to optimize nitrogen use efficiency in croplands and grasslands.

Tony van der Weerden from AgResearch New Zealand highlighted that quantifying the emissions from applying nitrogenous fertilizers in different situations in national inventories is a significant challenge for many countries. The Flagship project will greatly help in improving national greenhouse gas inventories around the world and identify practices for farmers to reduce emissions.

In Ireland and New Zealand research funding from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in Ireland and the Ministry of Primary Industries in New Zealand has been secured to build an international database to support greenhouse gas modelling for grassland soils. Dominika Krol, Teagasc said; ”This will help to support the GRA flagship project to compile existing data, and undertake new field measurements, to develop context specific emissions factors relating to the application of nitrogenous fertilizers for the purpose of inventory improvement including N₂O mitigation accounting.”

Karl Richards, Teagasc said that these exciting international projects are important ongoing research activities in the Teagasc Agricultural Climate Research Centre to help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms in Ireland and internationally.

Further Information
https://www.teagasc.ie/environment/climate-action/climate-centre/
https://globalresearchalliance.org/flagship-projects/n-fertilisers/

An online consultation is being organized by the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia on good examples and practices on green agriculture in the region but also beyond.

Your contributions to the online debate will be compiled and analyzed and will inform future work on the development of guidance for strengthening science-policy interfaces as well as science- and evidence-based policy processes for greening agrifood systems.

Please register to the Regional Technical Platform on Green Agriculture here to create new threads of discussions.

If you would like to receive similar information from FAO you can join the Livestock, Climate and Environment Community of Action here.