Agrobiotechnology Talk Series (9) Co-Benefits of Sustainable Food Production, Consumption and Trade to Mitigate Air Pollution, Climate Change and Food Insecurity
Description:
Modernized farming has led to a cascade of severe environmental threats. Excessive application of chemical fertilizer has led to large releases of reactive nitrogen compounds into the atmosphere, where they contribute to climate change and become major components of air pollutants.
In this talk, we will demonstrate how more sustainable farming methods (e.g., intercropping, drip irrigation) may bring environmental benefits beyond the farm scale to help mitigate regional air pollution and climate change, while sustaining food security, in China and beyond. We will also examine how rising food demands in different countries as well as a worldwide shift toward a meat-intensive diet have worsened air quality globally, and how international food trade could be responsible for “exporting” air pollution from one country to another. We will finally explore the multifaceted benefits of reducing meat consumption from an environmental health perspective.
The target audience includes international scholars, researchers, agricultural industry as well as the general public.
