Cécile Godde

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation | CSIRO · Agriculture and Food

Agricultural and livestock production involves significant trade-offs between multiple sustainable development goals, including reducing hunger and poverty, and reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses. Here we describe a multi-objective optimization tool for livestock production to evaluate trade-offs among environmental and economic objectives wit...

Climate variability threatens food system stability, particularly among smallholders in developing countries who depend on rainfed agriculture. Farm diversification could be a relevant adaptation strategy in this context as a greater number of species or a more even distribution of crops is postulated to have a stabilizing effect on farm output as...

Livestock are a critically important component of the food system, although the sector needs a profound transformation to ensure that it contributes to a rapid transition towards sustainable food systems. This chapter reviews and synthesises the evidence available on changes in demand for livestock products in the last few decades, and the multiple...

Ensuring sustainable food systems requires vastly reducing their environmental and health costs while making healthy and sustainable food affordable to all. One of the central problems of current food systems is that many of the costs of harmful foods are externalized, i.e., are not reflected in market prices. At the same time, the benefits of heal...

Beef production represents a complex global sustainability challenge including reducing poverty and hunger and the need for climate action. Understanding the trade-offs between these goals at a global scale and at resolutions to inform land use is critical for a global transition towards sustainable beef. Here we optimize global beef production at...

Extreme events, such as those caused by climate change, economic or geopolitical shocks, and pest or disease epidemics, threaten global food security. The complexity of causation, as well as the myriad ways that an event, or a sequence of events, creates cascading and systemic impacts, poses significant challenges to food systems research and polic...

Diversity in agricultural systems is often presented as having benefits for multiple purposes like food and nutrition security in low- and middle-income countries. Our review aims to give an overview of the strength and direction of the diversity-food security relationship as presented in research published since 2010, based on a comprehensive sear...

Although the role of livestock in future food systems is debated, animal proteins are unlikely to completely disappear from our diet. Grasslands are a key source of primary productivity for livestock, and feed‐food competition is often limited on such land. Previous research on the potential for sustainable grazing has focused on restricted geograp...

Livestock are a critically important component of the food system, however, the sector needs a profound transformation to ensure that it contributes to a rapid transition towards sustainable food systems. This paper reviews and synthesizes the evidence available on changes in demand for livestock products in the last few decades, and the multiple s...

Ensuring sustainable food systems requires vastly reducing its environmental and health costs while making healthy and sustainable food affordable to all. One of the central problems of current food systems is that many of the costs of harmful foods are externalized, i.e. are not reflected in market prices. At the same time, the benefits of healthf...

The potential impacts of climate change on current livestock systems worldwide is a major concern, and yet the topic is covered to a limited extent in global reports such as the ones produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In this article, we review the risk of climate-related impacts along the land-based livestock food supply ch...

Food system innovations will be instrumental to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, major innovation breakthroughs can trigger profound and disruptive changes, leading to simultaneous and interlinked reconfigurations of multiple parts of the global food system. The emergence of new technologies or social solutions, the...

Australia's rangeland communities, industries, and environment are under increasing pressures from anthropogenic activities and global changes more broadly. We conducted a horizon scan to identify and prioritise key challenges facing Australian rangelands and their communities, and outline possible avenues to address these challenges, with a partic...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Australia’s rangeland communities, industries, and environment are under increasing pressures from anthropogenic activities and global changes more broadly. We conducted a horizon scan to identify and prioritise key challenges facing Australian rangelands and their communities, and outline possible avenues to address these challenges, with a partic...

Sustainable development of India’s food system must ensure a growing population is fed while minimizing both widespread malnutrition and the environmental impacts of food production. After assessing current adequacy of nutrient supplies at the national level, associated natural resource use (land, fresh water) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, we...

Water scarcity is a global issue that disproportionately affects small-scale farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Through geospatial analysis, we estimated that less than 37% of small-scale farms probably have irrigation in water scarce regions across LMICs, compared with 42% of non-small-scale farms. Through a literature synthesis...

Grazing systems emit greenhouse gases, which can, under specific agro-ecological conditions, be partly or entirely offset by soil carbon sequestration. However, any sequestration is time-limited, reversible, and at a global level outweighed by emissions from grazing systems. Thus, grazing systems are globally a net contributor to climate change and...

Future technologies and systemic innovation are critical for the profound transformation the food system needs. These innovations range from food production, land use and emissions, all the way to improved diets and waste management. Here, we identify these technologies, assess their readiness and propose eight action points that could accelerate t...

Rangelands are one of the Earth’s major ice-free land cover types. They provide food and support livelihoods for millions of people in addition to delivering important ecosystems services. However, rangelands are at threat from climate change, although the extent and magnitude of the potential impacts are poorly understood. Any declines in vegetati...

Grazing livestock are an important source of food and income for millions of people worldwide. Changes in mean climate and increasing climate variability are affecting grasslands’ carrying capacity, thus threatening the livelihood of millions of people as well as the health of grassland ecosystems. Compared with cropping systems, relatively little...

The increase in global consumption of animal source food (ASF) (by more than 40kg/person/year in the last 25 years) has driven livestock production systems in many countries towards intensification. This has significant consequences for land use. Identifying how best to navigate the trade-offs of using land for livestock production depends on under...

The objectives of this research are to assess the greenhouse gas mitigation potential of carbon policies applied to the ruminant livestock sector [inclusive of the major ruminant species—cattle (Bos Taurus and Bos indicus), sheep (Ovis aries), and goats (Capra hircus)], with particular emphasis on understanding the adjustment challenges posed by ma...

Pastures and rangelands underpin global meat and milk production and are a critical resource for millions of people dependent on livestock for food security1,2. Forage growth, which is highly climate dependent3,4, is potentially vulnerable to climate change, although precisely where and to what extent remains relatively unexplored. In this study, w...

Grazing systems dynamics are driven by a complex combination of socio-economic, political and en-vironmental contexts. Although the driversand dynamics can be highly location-specific, we focus ondescribing global trends as well as trends by agro-ecological, socio-economic and political contexts. Globalgrasslands have expanded in area over the last...

The report dissects claims made by different stakeholders in the debate about so called ‘grass-fed’ beef, the greenhouse gases the animals emit, and the possibility that, through their grazing actions, they can help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It evaluates these claims and counterclaims against the best available science, providing a...

Livestock provides an important source of income and nourishment for around one billion rural households worldwide. Demand for livestock food products is increasing, especially in developing countries, and there are opportunities to increase production to meet local demand and increase farm incomes. Estimating the scale of livestock yield gaps and...

Supplementary material

Livestock provides an important source of income and nourishment for around one billion rural households worldwide. Demand for livestock food products is increasing, especially in developing countries, and there are opportunities to increase production to meet local demand and increase farm incomes. Estimating the scale of livestock yield gaps and...

It is estimated that more than a billion people rely on wild foods as a source of protein, nutrients and income, all contributing to food security. However, because wild foods are not considered food commodities, and therefore don’t appear in food balance sheets, their contribution to food security is often overlooked. We reviewed >80 studies focus...

Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils has the capacity to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to improve soil biological, physical, and chemical properties. The review of literature pertaining to soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics within Australian grain farming systems does not enable us to conclude on the best farming practices to...

In this study we estimate yield gaps for mixed crop–livestock smallholder farmers in seven Sub-Saharan African sites covering six countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Senegal and Burkina Faso). We also assess their potential to increase food production and reduce the GHG emission intensity of their products, as a result of closing these yi...

Supplementary material for Closing system-wide yield gaps to increase food production and mitigate GHGs among mixed crop-livestock smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa