Food supply

Developing a Sustainable Food and Farming System

The current research of Dr Wayne Martindale was presented to the Yorkshire Agricultural society Food and Farming Group. This presentation provided an outlook to other researchers evidence in the context of work being carried out by Wayne within CFI at SHU. This work is concerned with energy balances and resource use in the farm, food and consumer supply chain.  The aim of the presentation is to show evidence for developing a sustainable food system.  this ultimately means energy efficiency must be optimised and most modern farming systems that do this- that is conventional and integrated systems- will show the better energy returns.  Organic systems do not show energy returns that are as favourable and they provide an excellent example of food markets where success is determined by a complex interaction of culture, market and external costs.

Data capture in supply chains

(1) sensors and remote sensing resources (2) applying sensor/data acquisition to policy and strategic planning (3) modelling natural resources 

Sensing NDVI : Detecting land use cover is becoming a pre-requisit for determining forecasts and impact of climate, agriculture and virtually any development. The value of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)has been shown across many disciplines. This site provides an idea of NDVI potential. The NDVI data set is available on a 16 day basis for the six year period between 2001 and 2006. The product is derived from bands 1 and 2 of the MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on board NASA's Terra satellite. A time-series of NDVI observations can be used to examine the dynamics of the growing season or monitor phenomena such as droughts.

Power mapping: A satellite image of the Earth at night proves enlightening. Areas of high power utilization illuminate the Earth to provide a complex network of towns, cities and urban development. This approach is now reportedly used to provide even more accurate indicators of GDP than governmental reported statistics.
Power is consumed at high levels where the standard of living and quality of life is highest. This is blindingly obvious and we can not stop colonisation of coastal zones and areas of high ecosystem value. We can not stop people wanting to live on the seafront or anywhere else. It would not make sense, environmentalists might seem uncomfortable with life when the obvious surfaces. What can be done is we can educate and raise awareness of unresponsibility. Sending packaging back to the people who produce does not solve anything, taxing larger cars does not solve anything, the former results in less waste being recycled and the later results in more revenue for the government. Consumers deciding not to buy these resources changes everything. Monitoring GDP in real time without a reporting filter might offer access to

29 Degrees of freedom for crop yield? A recent report suggests that more accurate prediction of crop yields are now possible using degree days, indeed a  critical point in degree days seems to be 29 Celsius.  This is the threshold for determiation of decresed yields.  Indeed the optimum emperature window for cereal crops might be limited with 25 Celsius being optimal and 29 Celsius devastating over prolonged periods.  Such extension of Tsum methods can be of great use in forecasting crop yields and the data for this could be gathered remotely. 

References

Defra. 2006. Food Industry Sustainability Strategy (FISS)
Deloitte. 2007. An appetite for change, food and beverage 2012
Foresight. 2007. Tackling obesities: future choices report
Popkin B M, Siega-Riz A M. 2001. Where’s the Fat? Trends in U.S. Diets 1965–1996. Preventive Medicine 32:245–254. 
Defra. 2006b. The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development
Defra. 2007. Public Understanding of Sustainable Consumption of Food. A research report completed for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by Opinion Leader.
Defra. 2008. A framework for pro-environmental behaviours.
UK Cabinet Office Strategy Unit. 2008. Food: an analysis of the issues, discussion paper.
UK Parliament Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee - Seventh Report. 2009
Popkin B M. 2001. Nutrition in transition: The changing global nutrition challenge Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 10:S13–S18 (Supplement).