Laurence Smith

• BSc(Hons), PhD
• Lecturer at University of Reading

BACKGROUND As the agro‐industry produces considerable amounts of by‐products globally, it is acknowledged that there is a need to address the environmental issues related to their disposal and the resource competition between food for humans and feed for animals. The aim of this study was to explore, in vitro, the effects of various by‐products fro...

One hundred percent pasture-fed beef production has been suggested as a promising approach for sustainable ruminant farming, due to the potential benefits that can accrue across a range of sustainability domains. This study aimed to investigate the impacts across the four domains of sustainability of a wholesale switch from conventional to 100% pas...

Soyabean is considered an unsustainable protein source for livestock feeds because of the large quantity of input and energy required to cultivate and process it. Other protein-based agro-industrial co-products that are less input-intensive, can mitigate methane (CH4) production and may therefore be more sustainable options instead soyabean. The ob...

Organic food systems are recognised as an important component in meeting United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. A leverage points perspective can help to identify approaches which have the potential to facilitate transformative systemic change towards organic and sustainable farming. Using fuzzy cognitive maps developed from expert sta...

CONTEXT: Life cycle analysis (LCA) is increasingly used to assess the environmental impacts of primary food production. As an alternative, impacts can be assessed at the farm level using holistic sustainability assessment tools. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether an integrated approach combining a “detailed and narrow” L...

How do agricultural policies in the EU need to change to increase the sustainability of livestock production, and what measures could encourage sustainable practices whilst minimising trade-offs? Addressing such questions is crucial to ensure progress towards proclaimed targets whilst moving production levels to planetary boundaries. However, a lac...

The UK government has pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Ambitious targets have been set to plant nearly a million hectares of new woodland in the UK by 2050 to meet these net-zero commitments. More than 70% of UK’s land is used for agricultural production and to meet these targets the Climate Change Committee has estimat...

Animal production intensification puts pressure on resources, leads to environmental impacts, animal welfare and biodiversity issues. Livestock products provide key components of the human diet and contribute to rural territories through ecosystem services such as nutrient and biomass recycling. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is key to assess environm...

Diet is a key modulator of non‐communicable diseases, and food production represents a major cause of environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, ‘nudging’ people to make better food choices is challenging, as factors including affordability, convenience and taste often take priority over the achievement of health and environmental...

There is an urgent need for transformational change in agriculture to address current and future issues caused by climate change, biodiversity loss and socio-ecological disruption. But change is slow to come and is hindered by a lack of transdisciplinary evidence on potential approaches which take a systems approach. The research described here was...

CONTEXT: Agroforestry is gaining interest in in Europe however the trade-offs associated with its uptake are still uncertain. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to explore the sustainability trade-offs and synergies associated with a range of agroforestry systems in Europe and assess the underlying reasons for different performance regardin...

Organic agriculture is widely accepted as a strategy to reduce the environmental impacts of food production and help achieve global climate and biodiversity targets. However, studies concluding that organic farming could satisfy global food demand have overlooked the key role that nitrogen plays in sustaining crop yields. Using a spatially explicit...

Sustainability assessment is a complex field and its uptake amongst agricultural producers limited. Furthermore, the scope of current sustainability assessment tools does not extend to systems in which food production is integrated with production of non-food biomass (e.g. agroforestry). Participatory approaches to tool development offer a means to...

Agroforestry systems have multifunctional roles in enhancing agronomic productivity, co-production of diversity of food and non-food products and provision of ecosystem services. The knowledge of the performance of agroforestry systems compared with monoculture is scarce and scattered. Hence, the objective of the study was to analyze the agronomic...

European sheep and goat farming faces diverse challenges at global or local scales and constitutes an important sector for many countries, playing important sociocultural, economic and environmental roles. A closer examination of the overall sustainability of the sector is necessary to assess the performance of different farm types in various geogr...

Agriculture is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and must feature in efforts to reduce emissions. Organic farming might contribute to this through decreased use of farm inputs and increased soil carbon sequestration, but it might also exacerbate emissions through greater food production elsewhere to make up for lower orga...

Estimates of soil carbon changes, biodiversity and ecotoxicity have often been missing from life cycle assessment based studies of organic dairy products, despite evidence that the impacts of organic and conventional management may differ greatly within these areas. The aim of the present work was therefore to investigate the agnitude of including...

Sustainable intensification is a process by which agricultural productivity is enhanced whilst also creating environmental and social benefits. We aimed to identify practices likely to deliver sustainable intensification, currently available for UK farms but not yet widely adopted. We compiled a list of 18 farm management practices with the greates...

We assess the production impacts of a 100% conversion to organic agriculture in England and Wales using a large-scale linear programming model. The model includes a range of typical farm structures, scaled up across the available land area, with the objective of maximising food production. The effects of soil and rainfall, nitrogen (N) supply/offta...

Assessing the sustainability of small ruminant systems is crucial to ensure their long-term viability, to identify potential areas of improvement, to uncover trade-offs between different aspects of performance and to, potentially, demonstrate benefits of particular management strategies. However, there is scarce literature and guidance regarding op...

The Public Goods Tool (PGT) assesses the agriculture related public goods” provided by a farm. The assessment was trialled on an initial pilot of seven agroforestry farms from five countries (UK, Italy, Poland, Romania, Denmark).

Agroecological approaches to food production, including organic farming, rely on improved understanding of ecological principles and their application to the management of agroecosystems in order to reduce agrochemical use and improve the environmental impact of the production systems. Agroecological approaches place increased reliance on biologica...

When trying to optimize the sustainability performance of farms and farming systems, a consideration of trade-offs and synergies between different themes and dimensions is required. The aim of this paper is to perform a systematic analysis of trade-offs and synergies across all dimensions and themes. To achieve this aim we used the Sustainability M...

The dynamic model Nitrogen Dynamics in Crop rotations in Ecological Agriculture (NDICEA) was used to assess the nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) balance of long-term organic cropping trials and typical organic crop rotations on a range of soil types and rainfall zones in the UK. The measurements of soil N taken at each of the organic...

Dairy farming is the largest agricultural contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. In this study, the carbon footprint of organic dairying was evaluated by means of a life cycle assessment, based on real farm data from six European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy and United Kingdom. A total of 34 farms were analysed....

LUPG Disclaimer This report was produced by the authors on behalf of the Land Use Policy Group (LUPG). The views expressed within the report are those of the contractors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the agencies within LUPG.

Of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 18 % is estimated to originate in agriculture and the largest agricultural contributor to these emissions is the cattle farming (FAO 2006). According to Gerber et al. (2013) global cattle farming contributes an annual total of 4.6 Gt of CO 2 equivalents, dairy farmings' contribution to this being...

Growing populations and a constrained fossil-manufactured energy supply present a major challenge for society and there is a real need to develop forms of agriculture that are less dependent on finite energy sources. It has been suggested that organic agriculture can provide a more energy efficient approach due to its focus on sustainable productio...

Resource use and environmental impacts of a small-scale low-input organic vegetable supply system in the United Kingdom were assessed by emergy accounting and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The system consisted of a farm with high crop diversity and a related box-scheme distribution system. We compared empirical data from this case system with two mo...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider whether UK consumers recognise and trust organic certification logos and whether the presence of these logos on a product increases consumer willingness to pay for that product. Design/methodology/approach – To ascertain the reaction of UK consumers to organic certification logos commonly used in...

There has recently been an increase in interest in the “public goods” that could be provided by a farm alongside its primary function of agricultural production. This paper reviews recent reports on the topic of public goods and, in particular, the public goods provided by agriculture and then goes on to discuss the development of a tool which can...

Climate change mitigation is urgent, and adaptation to climate change is crucial, particularly in agriculture, where food security is at stake. Agriculture, currently responsible for 20-30% of global greenhouse gas emissions (counting direct and indirect agricultural emissions), can however contribute to both climate change mitigation and adaptatio...

The introduction on the 1st July of the new mandatory EU logo for organic food and farming presents a new challenge for the various existing organic certification schemes in Europe. Details of the logo and its use can be found on http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/logo_en. A very helpful guidance note has been produced by OF&G and ca...