The objective of this study was to document the effect of social ranking on the internal exposure of pigs to an antibiotic (fosfomycin) administered either in food or in drinking water. Signs of aggression were recorded at the feeder and drinker. The interindividual variability explained by the social rank was even greater when the test antibiotic was given in food despite the fact that the water consumption was less variable than the food intake. The range of plasma concentrations after administration of fosfomycin either in food or drinking water leads to a number of pigs in the treated group being exposed to rather low and highly variable concentrations of fosfomycin and not able to maintain adequate plasma concentrations above the typical minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Social rank clearly influences the level of exposure of pigs to fosfomycin both in food and drinking. However, its administration in drinking water is likely to be the best option to optimize antibiotic efficacy.

In what is proclaimed as the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, digital innovation is thought to have the potential to provide solutions to key challenges facing food production and consumption together with the support of sustainability of the underpinning support of land, and water systems. Nowhere is this more the case in less-industrialised countries, which largely have agrarian based economies. Applications of digital innovations include faster and more reliable communication, better collection, analysis, and storage of data, enhancing democratic processes and transparency in governance, affordable financial services and can provide the basis for decision support. However, there is a risk that people with less formal education and skills and little resource endowments as well as particular groups of people such as women will be excluded from participating or benefiting from digital innovation, the so-called digital divide. In addition, there is a risk that people, communities, and societies may be disadvantaged or harmed by digital innovation processes. Digital inclusivity within food, land and water systems are approaches in digital innovation need to include the differing needs and resources of men, women, youth, indigenous communities who produce most the world’s food in smallholder land holdings. Here we provide the state-of-the-art evidence from peer reviewed literature and other literature in support of these statements. On the basis of this and our wider anecdotal experience we present, a holistic multi-dimensional framework for digital inclusivity. The aim of the digital inclusivity index (and supporting tools) is to provide a resource to guide to transform and change development and application of digital innovations. Specifically, it provides governments, funders, researchers, and development agencies a framework on how to assess, minimise and lessen exclusion from digital innovation. This is achieved through increasing awareness of the characteristics of digital exclusion, recognising the needs of the actors that they target with digital interventions which are more inclusive, making interventions more participatory and mitigating any potential harm that can be caused by digital innovation. We also argue that the approach to digital innovation needs to be set within the context of a wide ranging ‘digital ecosystem’ where different actors contribute knowledge and resources, and digital innovation goes beyond the adoption and use of technologies to include changes in preexisting social arrangement and institutions.

The paper aims to understand the impacts of the spatial and temporal diffusion of Anaerobic Digestion (AD) on the Water Energy Food (WEF) nexus and to quantify the associated environmental, social and economic benefits. Contemporary tight carbon reduction targets urge the need to deploy renewable energy technologies however due to interdependencies across the WEF nexus, various technologies are beneficial for some but not all sectors. This paper quantifies the impacts of future possible AD technology diffusion choices on the environment, society and economy. This can aid decision makers to identify the potential consequences of various AD alternatives within the next three decades. The study considers an integrated WEF nexus approach and accounts for the interdependencies within the nexus. This was done by developing an Agent-Based Model (ABM) and simulating the relations between the main players within the nexus, thus examining the upscaling of AD diffusion and its consequences for water consumption, energy production, transportation, landfill use, food waste processing and digestate generation. Three future WEF nexus scenarios, that reflect potential alternatives of society and technology in Great Britain up to 2050, were utilised by the ABM implementation to test the sensitivity of AD diffusion choices. These scenarios describe possible changes to lifestyle, governance, technologies, climate, and social structures. Accounting for the uncertainty associated with such future simulations, the Monte Carlo method was employed to estimate the potential variations in scenario outputs. Results suggest that decentralisation results in the largest carbon reduction, but can incur more costs. Centralisation consumes 35% more water but produces 37% more energy (biogas). The paper has visualised the scenario outputs graphically to highlight the consequences of neglecting the inter-relationships between environmental, social and economic aspects of AD.