Globally, food systems are the most significant cause of environmental change; therefore, efforts to create more environmentally sustainable food systems are presented. One of the directions is strengthening the local actors and short food supply chains. Simultaneously, changes in farming systems are needed, and organic agriculture is one of the ways to make food systems more environmentally sustainable. Despite the abundance of research on the environmental consciousness of consumers in short food supply chains, the question is raised whether local food chain farmers are also committed to environmental sustainability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the importance of environmental sustainability to organic short food supply chain actors. More specifically, the research depicts the views of organic farmers and consumers and their relation to the actual environmental sustainability of short food supply chains. During the research, a specific short food supply chain – a direct purchasing network – was explored. A qualitative approach was applied to reach the aim. Thus, in-depth interviews and observations were used as a research method. The research results demonstrated the views of farmers and consumers of the specific network regarding environmental sustainability aspects in the network. In the research, such environmental aspects as the circularity of resources, biodiversity, chemicals in the environment, seasonality and locality of diets, and the distance (food miles) were admitted as crucial ones by the specific short food supply chain actors. The differences in opinions of consumers and farmers emerged when thinking about the scale of their views.

Poverty alleviation, employment creation, environmental conservation and income augmentation can be transformed based on agricultural diversification. Lotus farming is considered as a solution to improve income and livelihood for smallholder farmers. Many different products and values can be explored from lotus farming including lotus flower, lotus root, lotus seed, lotus fibre, as well as combining ecotourism. But many barriers are preventing the lotus products diversification of lotus growers. This study will provide a better understanding of lotus farming and explore the barriers to lotus products diversification and causes of these barriers. Phong Dien district, central Vietnam was selected as a case study. The qualitative research was applied through 54 semi-structured interviews including lotus growers, lotus buyers and officers of local government, as well as one focus-group discussion, observation method and secondary data from statistical data and reports were also conducted. The research findings indicated that there is a big gap between lotus products diversification of lotus growers and available lotus products on the market. Lotus growers only grow and sell raw products, of which, fresh unshelled lotus seed is the main product. Lack of knowledge, worries on loss, lack of market and market information, lack of labour and machines and traditional production habits are main determinants of the barriers. Characteristics of lotus seed, high production and monopoly of collectors are different features in barriers to lotus product diversification compared to other crop diversification.

Three treatments were tested with four replications at RCBD, namely cassava monoculture, corn twice under cassava intercropping, and corn with corn monoculture where the second corn was planted 5 days after harvested. Planting distance of cassava in monoculture was 100x100 cm, and in intercropping was 200x50 cm, by which corn was planted in 50x30 cm, 1 seed per hole. All plots received dairy cattle manure 5 t haE-1. Fertilizer applied for cassava was Urea 100 kg haE-1, Ponska 200 kg haE-1 and KCl 100 kg haE-1 split into two applications two weeks after cassava planting, then when first of corn was harvested. Corn fertilization was Ponska 150 kg haE-1 + Urea 100 kg haE-1 every 3 months and split into two applications: 1 week and 4 weeks after corn was planted. Cassava and twice corn fertilization was Urea 300 kg haE-1 + Phonska 400 kg haE-1 + KCl 100 kg haE-1. Results showed that cassava monoculture can be improved by inserting of twice corn in between rows. Under sole cropping cassava, the B/C ratio was the highest 1.61, however with incorporating twice of corn the B/C ratio was 1.58. Intercropping cassava and twice of corn resulted in the Land Equivalent Ratio 2.146. By intercropping cassava with corn twice at the end of dry season, there was an opportunity to find corn biomass for dairy cattle. Under intercropping, cassava was able to produce 21.5 t haE-1 of fresh roots, while first and second of corn produced fresh biomass of 34 t haE-1 and 28 t haE-1 respectively.

The national ecolabel of tourist accommodation establishments and rural tourism enterprises of Latvia – the ‘Green Certificate’ (hereinafter the ‘Green Certificate’) celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019. Its creation in 1999 was initiated by the Latvian Rural Tourism Association ‘Baltic Country Holidays’, and it is currently one of the oldest European ecolabels still in operation. One of the most significant tourism and rural tourism resources in Latvia is the natural and cultural heritage, which is the basis for the development of rural tourism products. In this process, ecosystem services used in tourism products play a major role. One of the goals of the ‘Green Certificate’ is environment, nature and local society friendly and sustainable farming, which means both a careful use of natural resources and their inclusion in the tourism product development process. The aim of this study was to find out which ecosystem services were used and the ways they were used by rural tourism companies to create the nature protection, social and economic added value. According to the respondents, 1/3 of the revenue of the ‘Green Certificate’ companies is generated by the use of the ecosystem services. It is an argument for further research on the possibilities of the ecosystem services to be used more effectively in future in developing new rural tourism products.

Climate change is an inevitable global challenge of the 21st century. For developing countries like Ethiopia, it intensifies existing challenges towards ensuring sustainable development. Adopting the protection motivation theory, this study examined factors affecting the practice of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies among farmers. The study employed a mixed research approach to assess the subjective understanding of farmers about climate change threats and identify factors determining their responses to climate change effects. Qualitative data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews. Quantitative information was gathered using semi-structured survey from 296 randomly selected farmers. Qualitative data was dominantly analysed using content analysis, while descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyse quantitative data. Almost all respondents (97%) perceived that climate change was occurring and threatening their wellbeing. Dwindling precipitation, increasing temperature and occurrence of human and animal disease were perceived to represent climate change effects. From nationally initiated strategies, farmers were found to largely practice soil and water conservation, which they perceived as less costly and compatible to local knowledge. The result of binary logistic regression revealed that perceived severity of climate change, perceived susceptibility to climate change threat, perceived own ability to respond, response efficacy, and cost of practices predicted farmers’ motivation to practice climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Thus, building a resilient system should go beyond sensitizing climate response mechanisms. Policies should focus on human capital development and economic empowerment which would enable farmers to pursue context-specific adaptation and mitigation strategies, thereby maintaining a sustainable livelihood.

Feeding young animals is a very important stage during their growing-up period, but in order to provide them with essential nutrients, they are fed with liquid feeds, whole milk substitute in particular (WMS). The technique for reconstituting WMS consists of dissolving it in water followed by mixing, but it is significant to follow the cooking recipe strictly, so it is necessary to develop a system with a feeding (dosing) device that will make it possible to solve this problem. Theoretical and experimental studies of the feeding device have been conducted in order to optimize the technological process of mixing liquid feed. Theoretically, the quality of determining the mixture during dosing was established for the purpose of further research. The influence of the design and technological parameters of the feeding device was experimentally studied, and its efficiency was evaluated. It was found that as the inclination angle α increases from 67,50 to 700, the rotation speed n being from 850 to 1500 minE−1, the maximum probability of staying in the tolerance field ΔP=96% is reached, and feed discharge Q ranges from 540 to 660 kg hE−1. The research makes it possible to develop a feeding device at the design stage, meeting the requirements of the recipe, having high discharge rates and the lowest energy consumption.

In the market of the Latvia different wood surface coating materials suitable for use in outdoor conditions are offered, but available information on the efficiency of these against direct water exposure is insufficient. For structural timber building elements, such as glued laminated timber (GLT), the surface coating should be applied taking into account technological, visual or colour changes (ISO 7724:1984) and – last, but not least – economic aspects are considered. Wood surfaces coated with coating materials, such as varnishes, paints, etc. can stabilize some properties such as movement of moisture content, dimensional changes and attack by microorganisms and fungi. The changes in the moisture content of timber may influence such important parameters as mechanical properties and the total life time of the structural timber elements. A study has been conducted with the aim of assessing the efficiency of coating materials used for wood protection against water absorption. In this study, six different commercial coating products used for the treatment of spruce (Picea Abies L. Karst.) and pine (Pinus Sylvestris L.) samples were tested. The efficiency of different coating substances was assessed using two modified test methods according to the standards EN 382-2 (1994) and EN 927-5 (2006), determining the surface water absorption after immersion in water for 24 h and the dynamics of water absorption of the glued laminated timber for 696 h kept in water. As a result of the study, it has been ascertained that organic solvent-based commercial coating products are more efficient against short-term and long-term wood water absorption compared to oil-based coating materials.

To survive in today's competitive environment, companies must continuously develop and offer customers new products. To increase the probability of a successful business case of investing in the development of a new product, careful attention must be paid to risk analysis in terms of the present value of future potential income. The article considers an example of the research work of the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, in the framework of which a technical and technological project was developed to produce a new product, like Mediterranean anchovy, from cheaper Baltic sprats. The main goal of this work is to explore the application multi-factor sensitivity and fuzzy real option analysis to the valuation of new product development project. The multivariate analysis of the sensitivity of the financial model of the greenfield production project described in this article revealed the main risk groups, as well as their degree of influence on the assessment of the Net Present Value of the project by a potential investor. The use of Fuzzy Real Option Valuation made it possible to evaluate the project with uncertain parameters, as well as to calculate the potential upside from preliminary refinement of parameters to eliminate negative scenarios. The described approach is applicable to risk assessment of new food product development and allows investors to make a more informed decision about participation in such projects.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on national economies are characterized as the worst economic turmoil in recent years, as economic growth slowed to the level of the 2008 global financial crisis. At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, economic growth surveys did not project that the novel virus could have a negative impact on economic growth. As a result of the rapid spread of the virus and the increase in the number of infection cases, national governments took strict measures to limit the spread of the virus, which led to a significant deterioration in the economic situation in all industries of the economy. Agriculture plays an important role in providing food to the country’s population, yet the pandemic made a negative impact on sales volumes and prices in the domestic and international markets. The research aims to assess the impacts of the pandemic on milk supply chains in Latvia and come up with solutions to stabilizing the situation in the dairy sector. The national restrictions to combat the pandemic also hampered the dairy sector concerning the sale of raw milk and finished products in foreign markets, thereby leading to overproduction and stockpiling of the finished products, price dumping and a significant decrease in milk purchase prices to or below the production cost level for many dairy farms. Although there is no indication that the pandemic would lead to a decrease in the numbers of livestock and farms or output in early 2021, it is too early to assess the overall impact of the pandemic on dairy farming, as uncertainty over the duration of pandemic restrictions is a major risk to farm survival. The operation of the dairy sector was stabilized by means of the support provided by the government, as well as the farms’ accumulated financial and feed resources. In order to identify future challenges for milk supply chains, the research performed an analysis of operational risks for milk producers and processors to identify the most important risks and design recommendations for their elimination. The longer there is uncertainty about the return of the dairy sector to pre-pandemic output levels, the more likely it is that the pandemic is going to lead to a decrease in the numbers of dairy livestock and farms.

It is stated that the strategic benchmark for transformational changes in the economy is currently low-carbon production, the achievement of which is possible to provide with the consistent application of an arsenal of strict control measures, in particular, the introduction of state audit of low-carbon production. The effectiveness of the mechanism for ensuring the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has been assessed. The necessity of implementation in the domestic practice of the state audit of low-carbon production by the decoupling approach is proved. The agri-business portfolio has been formed according to the decoupling approach as one of the leaders in greenhouse gas pollution. The author's economic and mathematical models of estimation according to the decoupling approach of the impact of branches of crop and livestock production on environmental pollution are proposed. The dependence of greenhouse gas emissions on the volume of gross output of agricultural production, capital investment and current expenditures on environmental protection has been established. The results of a comparative analysis of the realism of forecasts of changes in greenhouse gas emissions according to the methodology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the author's methodology are highlighted. A roadmap for the introduction of a state low-carbon decoupling audit of the state decoupling audit has been proposed as part of the preparation of the second nationally determined contribution to the Paris Agreement. The expediency of supplementing GRI 300 “Environmental Disclosures” with the group of indicators GRI-305.5 “Reduction of GHG emissions”, formed by the decoupling approach, is substantiated.