Towards reducing the total environmental impacts of agriculture

The increasing demand of agricultural products due to population growth, increased consumption of meat and production of biofuels causes a need for intensification of agriculture and expansion of agricultural land. The current agricultural practices contribute to many negative environmental impacts, such as climate change, losses of biodiversity, water and air pollution, erosion and depletion of soils. In order to reduce the environmental impacts, policies that address both the demand and production side are needed.

The main goal of this project is to provide new holistic insight for developing EU agricultural policies in order to design incentives for reducing the total environmental impacts of agriculture. The project has tree main research themes:

1.    Demand related issues
The potential reductions in the negative environmental impacts as a result of changes in demand of agricultural products are estimated. The impacts of different diets, production of bioenergy crops and reduction of food waste are assessed.  

2.    The environmental impacts of contrasting farming systems
The environmental impacts of organic and conventional farming systems are compared. Modelling tools are used to design integrated farming systems that can reduce the environmental impacts most efficiently.

3.    Design of policy measures
In order to provide insight for designing policy measures for promoting the farming systems that can reduce the environmental impacts most efficiently, the current profitability of the different farming models are assessed and the impacts of changes in agricultural policies and economic circumstances are simulated.