Abstract: Despite the scientific evidence that more plants and less animal-based food is more sustainable, policy interventions to reduce meat consumption are scarce. However, campaigns for meat free days in school and office canteens have spread globally over the last years. In this paper, we look at the Norwegian Armed Forces’ attempt to introduce the Meatless Monday campaign in their camps, and we evaluate the implementation process as well as the effect of the campaign on soldiers. Qualitative interviews with military staff indicate that lack of conviction about benefits of meat reduction, and the fact that kitchen staff did not feel ownership to the project, partly explain why vegetarian measures were not fully implemented in all the camps. A multivariate regression analysis with survey data from soldiers indicate that those who have experienced meat free days in the military kitchen are more prone to claim that joining the military has given them a more positive view on vegetarian food. Furthermore, the survey gives evidence that stated willingness to eat more vegetarian food is higher among soldiers who believe in the environmental and health benefits of meat reduction.

Abstract: To reduce the risks of climate change, governments agreed in the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to less than 2.0 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, with the ambition to keep warming to 1.5 degrees C. Charting appropriate mitigation responses requires information on the costs of mitigating versus associated damages for the two levels of warming. In this assessment, a critical consideration is the impact on crop yields and yield variability in regions currently challenged by food insecurity. The current study assessed impacts of 1.5 degrees C versus 2.0 degrees C on yields of maize, pearl millet and sorghum in the West African Sudan Savanna using two crop models that were calibrated with common varieties from experiments in the region with management reflecting a range of typical sowing windows. As sustainable intensification is promoted in the region for improving food security, simulations were conducted for both current fertilizer use and for an intensification case (fertility not limiting). With current fertilizer use, results indicated 2% units higher losses for maize and sorghum with 2.0 degrees C compared to 1.5 degrees C warming, with no change in millet yields for either scenario. In the intensification case, yield losses due to climate change were larger than with current fertilizer levels. However, despite the larger losses, yields were always two to three times higher with intensification, irrespective of the warming scenario. Though yield variability increased with intensification, there was no interaction with warming scenario. Risk and market analysis are needed to extend these results to understand implications for food security.

Abstract: Global agricultural production is heavily sustained by irrigation, but irrigation system efficiencies are often surprisingly low. However, our knowledge of irrigation efficiencies is mostly confined to rough indicative estimates for countries or regions that do not account for spatiotemporal heterogeneity due to climate and other biophysical dependencies. To allow for refined estimates of global agricultural water use, and of water saving and water productivity potentials constrained by biophysical processes and also nontrivial downstream effects, we incorporated a process-based representation of the three major irrigation systems (surface, sprinkler, and drip) into a bio- and agrosphere model, LPJmL. Based on this enhanced model we provide a gridded world map of irrigation efficiencies that are calculated in direct linkage to differences in system types, crop types, climatic and hydrologic conditions, and overall crop management. We find pronounced regional patterns in beneficial irrigation efficiency (a refined irrigation efficiency indicator accounting for crop-productive water consumption only), due to differences in these features, with the lowest values (< 30 %) in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and the highest values (> 60 %) in Europe and North America. We arrive at an estimate of global irrigation water withdrawal of 2469 km(3) (2004-2009 average); irrigation water consumption is calculated to be 1257 km(3), of which 608 km(3) are non-beneficially consumed, i.e., lost through evaporation, interception, and conveyance. Replacing surface systems by sprinkler or drip systems could, on average across the world’s river basins, reduce the non-beneficial consumption at river basin level by 54 and 76 %, respectively, while maintaining the current level of crop yields. Accordingly, crop water productivity would increase by 9 and 15 %, respectively, and by much more in specific regions such as in the Indus basin. This study significantly advances the global quantification of irrigation systems while providing a framework for assessing potential future transitions in these systems. In this paper, presented opportunities associated with irrigation improvements are significant and suggest that they should be considered an important means on the way to sustainable food security.