March 29 to April 5, 2024
Agriculture and Agroforestry - Soil - Food Security - Forest - Carbon
Agriculture - Agroecology - Agroecology solutions - Push-pull pest management - Citrus disease - Florida growers
3 April 2024
Florida growers eye agroecology solution to devastating citrus disease
* Virtually all of Florida’s citrus groves have been infected with citrus greening disease, also known by its Chinese name Huanglongbing, since the early 2000s.
* Despite billions of US dollars put toward rescue efforts, citrus production numbers are the lowest they have been since the Great Depression.
* Scientists from Argentina are now testing the agroecological method of push-pull pest management using an organic plant-hormone solution to lure pests away from citrus crops and toward “trap crops” instead.
* Proponents hope push-pull management, first developed in East Africa, could be part of the solution and lessen dependence on pesticides.
Agriculture - Ecological restoration - Natural regeneration - Indigenous science - Soil - Water - Western ecosystems
March 1, 2024
Underground seed banks hold promise for ecological restoration
Indigenous science is using natural regeneration to restore western ecosystems.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/56-3/underground-seed-banks-hold-promise-for-ecological-restoration/
Soil - Soil carbon - Climate - Climate goals - Australia - Study
2 April 2024
Australia’s soil to become net carbon emitter and threat to climate goals, report says
Modelling points to ‘huge’ soil emissions in interior rangelands, which are more sensitive to a warming climate
Agriculture - Cattle - Ranchers - Payment - Trees - Ecosystems
2 April 2024
Opinion - The case for paying ranchers to raise trees instead of cattle - Patrick Brown and Michael Eisen
Reducing cattle populations and restoring native ecoystems is our best chance to tackle global heating. Here’s one way to do it
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/02/cattle-trees-climate-change-solution
Agriculture - Soil Health - Sustainable Agriculture - Sustainable finance - Firms - Tesco - NatWest
28 March 2024
Tesco and NatWest launch discounted sustainable finance scheme for farmers
Retail giant Tesco has partnered with NatWest to launch a new discounted finance scheme for its farmers, providing them with preferential rates on finance to help them switch to sustainable farming methods.
https://www.edie.net/tesco-and-natwest-launch-discounted-sustainable-finance-scheme-for-farmers/
Agribusiness - Nature Loss - Grassland protections - Brazilian biomes - Brazil
28 March 2024
Agribusiness bill moves to block grassland protections in Brazilian biomes
* The Brazilian Congress is analyzing a bill that would leave all the country’s non-forestry vegetation unprotected, affecting an area twice the size of the United Kingdom.
* Behind the proposal are the interests of economic sectors such as agribusiness and real estate companies.
* The most affected biome would be the Pantanal wetlands, a Natural World Heritage Site known for its highly biodiverse grasslands and flooded fields.
Agriculture - Indian farmers - Price support - Crops - Climate threats - India
27 March 2024
What will it take to protect India’s angry farmers from climate threats?
Indebted farmers, facing falling yields and water scarcity, want legally guaranteed price support for more crops – but that may not fix their climate woes
Agriculture - Cattle Sector - Climate transitions - Sustainable Agriculture - Financial modeling tools - Brazil - Report
April 2024
Brazil’s Cattle Sector Amidst Climate Transitions
A new report from Orbitas, a Climate Advisers initiative, assessing Brazil's cattle sector and how climate action can impact its financial outlook, finds significant risks for maintaining business-as-usual practices and fast growing opportunities to invest in sustainable agriculture and emerging markets. The report is accompanied by interactive financial modeling tools to help investors, producers, buyers and other stakeholders understand how efforts to solve climate change will change market dynamics into the future. [source Nature4Climate]
https://orbitas.finance/brazil-cattle-climate-change-financial-impacts/
Agriculture - Agroforesterie - Cacao - Chocolat - Déforestation
30 mars 2024
Chocolat de Pâques : le goût amer d’une forêt qui brûle
Pourra-t-on encore consommer du cacao dans 20 ans ? Entre hausse des prix, crise écologique et baisse de la productivité, la filière doit aujourd’hui se transformer si elle veut survivre.
Agriculture - Agriculture régénérative - Agriculture agroforestière - Ferme
25 mars 2024
De la finance à la ferme : Benedikt Bösel ou la révolution de l’agriculture régénérative
Cet ancien banquier d’affaires allemand a transformé radicalement une exploitation familiale de 300 ans en un modèle d’agriculture régénérative et agroforestière.
Sols - Sols forestiers - Carbone - Stockage carbone - Etude
1er avril 2024
Certains sols forestiers stockent plus de carbone que d'autres
Les sols forestiers stockent plus de carbone que les arbres, mais le libèrent en grande quantité lors de perturbations naturelles ou de coupes de bois. Les modalités de ces processus devraient être prises en compte dans le calcul du bilan carbone, selon une étude de l'institut WSL.
Policies and Governments
U.S. - Congress - Agriculture - Conservation - Farm groups - Farmers - Lawmakers
4 April 2024
Farm groups want lawmakers to spend more on conservation
A coalition of groups urged congressional appropriators to boost funding in fiscal 2025 for technical assistance to farmers.
UN - Convention on Biological Diversity - UN biodiversity chief - Astrid Schomaker - Germany
3 April 2024
UN names veteran EU official Astrid Schomaker as new biodiversity chief
German’s appointment to head Convention on Biological Diversity follows global failure to meet any targets on protecting ecosystems
Japan - Nature positive strategy - International impact - international supply chains
30 March 2024
Japan aims at international impact in nature positive strategy
Japan has released a strategy to help companies become ‘nature positive’ both at home and in their international supply chains, reports Stian Reklev.
https://carbon-pulse.com/273147/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
EU - EU countries - Rules - Deforestation - Anti-deforestation law
26 March 2024
Majority of EU countries ask bloc to scale back deforestation law
BRUSSELS, March 26 (Reuters) - Some 20 members of the European Union asked Brussels to scale back and possibly suspend the bloc's anti-deforestation law on Tuesday, saying the policy would harm farmers, in the latest blowback against Europe's environmental agenda.
Europe - European policymakers - Rules - Agriculture - Farmers - Pesticide - Nature
3 April 2024
Europe's restless farmers are forcing policymakers to act
BRUSSELS, April 3 (Reuters) - European policymakers have scaled back rules to protect nature, drawn up limits on the import of tariff-free Ukrainian grains and scrapped new legislation limiting pesticide use as farmers' protests resonate with voters ahead of elections.
France - Agriculture - Conseil des ministres - Projet de loi - Souveraineté agricole
3 avril 2024
Agriculture : devant le conseil des ministres, un nouveau projet de loi pour produire plus, avec moins de contraintes
Après plusieurs reports, le projet de loi d’orientation pour la souveraineté agricole, profondément remanié depuis janvier sous la pression syndicale, est présenté mercredi 3 avril.
France - Agriculture - Conseil des ministres - Projet de loi agricole - Transition écologique
3 avril 2024
Un projet de loi agricole sans transition écologique présenté en conseil des ministres
France - Fonctionnaires - Réseau écologiste - Safer - Agroécologie
27 mars 2024
Comment des fonctionnaires veulent réorienter les Safer vers l’agroécologie ?
Les Safer doivent devenir un acteur majeur de la transition agroécologique, préconise le réseau écologiste de fonctionnaires Le Lierre dans une note publiée à quelques jours de la présentation du projet de loi d’orientation agricole.
https://www.reussir.fr/comment-des-fonctionnaires-veulent-reorienter-les-safer-vers-lagroecologie
Research and Studies
Soil - Fungal community composition - Forest carbon storage - European continent - Study
16 March 2024
Fungal community composition predicts forest carbon storage at a continental scale - Mark A. Anthony and all
Forest soils harbor hyper-diverse microbial communities which fundamentally regulate carbon and nutrient cycling across the globe. Directly testing hypotheses on how microbiome diversity is linked to forest carbon storage has been difficult, due to a lack of paired data on microbiome diversity and in situ observations of forest carbon accumulation and storage. Here, we investigated the relationship between soil microbiomes and forest carbon across 238 forest inventory plots spanning 15 European countries. We show that the composition and diversity of fungal, but not bacterial, species is tightly coupled to both forest biotic conditions and a seven-fold variation in tree growth rates and biomass carbon stocks when controlling for the effects of dominant tree type, climate, and other environmental factors. This linkage is particularly strong for symbiotic endophytic and ectomycorrhizal fungi known to directly facilitate tree growth. Since tree growth rates in this system are closely and positively correlated with belowground soil carbon stocks, we conclude that fungal composition is a strong predictor of overall forest carbon storage across the European continent.
