Global changes will affect rice ecosystems at local levels. Although issues of climate change have received most attention, other global changes will have more immediate impacts on crop productivity and health. These changes include the phenomenal advances in modern industrial output, especially in China and India, in mechanization, in communications technology and advertizing, in transportation networks and connectivity, as well as demographic shifts toward urban centers. Driven by policies around food security, market impacts on crop production, and trade regulations, these changes will define crop production systems into the future, impacting rice biodiversity and ecosystem function and giving rise to new pest and disease scenarios. This paper presents a framework for a holistic approach to ‘rice ecosystem health’ aimed at securing food production while protecting farmer, consumer and ecosystem health. Recent advances in environmentally friendly agriculture, including ecological engineering, are central to the sustainability and resilience of rice ecosystems; but require support from policy to ensure their best effects. This paper introduces some recent advances in the methods of ecological engineering based on research conducted in the Philippines.

Global changes will affect rice ecosystems at local levels. Although issues of climate change have received most attention, other global changes will have more immediate impacts on crop productivity and health. These changes include the phenomenal advances in modern industrial output, especially in China and India, in mechanization, in communications technology and advertizing, in transportation networks and connectivity, as well as demographic shifts toward urban centers. Driven by policies around food security, market impacts on crop production, and trade regulations, these changes will define crop production systems into the future, impacting rice biodiversity and ecosystem function and giving rise to new pest and disease scenarios. This paper presents a framework for a holistic approach to ‘rice ecosystem health’ aimed at securing food production while protecting farmer, consumer and ecosystem health. Recent advances in environmentally friendly agriculture, including ecological engineering, are central to the sustainability and resilience of rice ecosystems; but require support from policy to ensure their best effects. This paper introduces some recent advances in the methods of ecological engineering based on research conducted in the Philippines

Doutoramento em Engenharia Agronómica - Instituto Superior de Agronomia - UL | Consumer awareness of health and environmental safety has led to the design and application of policy tools for the dissemination of sustainable agricultural practices, such as integrated pest management, and of rules for the proper use of pesticides. In the last two decades, the adoption of integrated pest management has increased in Europe and, since 2014, farmers should use it as a basis for their crop protection strategy, according to the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive. Within this framework, this thesis involves an assessment of the technical and environmental benefits that are a result of integrated pest management adoption, an analysis of the demand for food products obtained in this farming system, which is differentiated though the presence of attributes related to health safety and environmental quality, and a discussion of the policy tools that might be used to promote the reduction or nonuse of pesticides. Integrated pest management evolution in Portugal is described based on country statistics. At the same time, farming practices and farmers’ attitudes, perceptions and motivations, as well as pesticide monitoring and biodiversity assessment, were collected in vineyards and apple and pear orchards. A set of sustainable farming practices and attitudes associated with integrated pest management adoption was identified as possible environmental indicators that can be useful to measure the associated benefits. Pesticide use, biodiversity, farmers’ attitudes and perceptions (or motivations) and technical itineraries were included in a global indicator - the Pesticide print – that can be used to assess the environmental impact caused by the crop protection strategy and pesticide use. Integrated pest management farms presented a lower impact on the environment, when compared with conventional farms (about 5% less). The Pesticide print proved to be a good global indicator that can be used to assess the impact of different farming systems, per country, region, farmers’ association, over time, as well as to define a framework of technical commitments that should be adopted to obtain effective benefits from the sustainable use of pesticides. We have also tried to understand the Portuguese consumers’ attitudes and knowledge about the sustainable use of pesticide and its effects on the purchasing frequency of certified food products produced in environmentally friendly and healthy farming systems, such as integrated pest management. Our sample of Portuguese consumers can be clustered in three groups - ‘habitual buyers’, ‘occasional buyers’ and ‘non-buyers’ - based on their experience in buying certified food and knowledge about the use of pesticides in agriculture and its risks for human health and the environment. The lack of consumer knowledge and awareness concerning pesticide use stands as a key issue for policy design and marketing strategies. Finally, we developed an innovative method that uses data from stated preference methods (discrete-choice contingent valuation data) in a much more straightforward way to estimate the probability of purchasing differentiated products as a function of the price premium level, household income, level of consumption of the food item, and knowledge about environmentally friendly and healthy farming systems. This approach allowed us to define a demand curve for food from farming systems that use less, or don’t use, pesticides (sustainable use of pesticides), when conventional food is also available, and to compare the option for “market differentiation” with alternative policy tools to promote the sustainable use of pesticides.

Background: There is increasing evidence of the multiple effects of diets on public health nutrition, society and environment. Sustainability and food security are closely inter-related. The traditional Mediterranean Diet (MD) is recognized as a healthier dietary pattern with a lower environmental impact. As a case study, the MD may guide innovative inter-sectorial efforts to counteract the degradation of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity and homogeneity of diets due to globalization, through the improvement of sustainable healthy dietary patterns.This consensus position paper defines a suite of the most appropriate nutrition and health indicators for assessing the sustainability of diets based on the MD.Methods: In 2011, an informal International Working Group from different national and international institutions was convened. Through online and face-to-face brainstorming meetings over four years, a set of nutrition and health indicators for sustainability was identified and refined.Results: Thirteen nutrition indicators of sustainability relating were identified in five areas: •Biochemical characteristics of food (A1. Vegetable/animal protein consumption ratios; (A2. Average dietary energy adequacy; (A3. Dietary energy density score; (A4. Nutrient density of diet): •Food Quality (A5. Fruit and vegetable consumption/intakes; (A6. Dietary diversity score): •Environment (A7. Food biodiversity composition and consumption; (A8. Rate of Local/regional foods and seasonality; (A9. Rate of eco-friendly food production and/or consumption): •Lifestyle (A10. Physical activity/Physical inactivity prevalence; (A11. Adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern)•Clinical Aspects; (A12. Diet-related morbidity/mortality statistics; (A13. Nutritional Anthropometry. A standardized set of information was provided for each indicator: definition, methodology, background, data sources, limitations of the indicator and references.Conclusions: The selection and analysis of these indicators has been performed (where possible) with specific reference to the MD. Sustainability of food systems is an urgent priority for governments and international organisations to address the serious socioeconomic and environmental implications of short-sighted and short-term practices for agricultural land and rural communities. These proposed nutrition indicators will be a useful methodological framework for designing health, education and agricultural policies in order, not only to conserve the traditional diets of the Mediterranean area as a common cultural heritage and lifestyle, but also to enhance the

There is increasing evidence of the multiple effects of diets on public health nutrition, society, and environment. Sustainability and food security are closely interrelated. The traditional Mediterranean Diet (MD) is recognized as a healthier dietary pattern with a lower environmental impact. As a case study, the MD may guide innovative inter-sectorial efforts to counteract the degradation of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and homogeneity of diets due to globalization through the improvement of sustainable healthy dietary patterns. This consensus position paper defines a suite of the most appropriate nutrition and health indicators for assessing the sustainability of diets based on the MD.; METHODS: In 2011, an informal International Working Group from different national and international institutions was convened. Through online and face-to-face brainstorming meetings over 4years, a set of nutrition and health indicators for sustainability was identified and refined.; RESULTS: Thirteen nutrition indicators of sustainability relating were identified in five areas. Biochemical characteristics of food (A1. Vegetable/animal protein consumption ratios; A2. Average dietary energy adequacy; A3. Dietary Energy Density Score; A4. Nutrient density of diet), Food Quality (A5. Fruit and vegetable consumption/intakes; A6. Dietary Diversity Score), Environment (A7. Food biodiversity composition and consumption; A8. Rate of Local/regional foods and seasonality; A9. Rate of eco-friendly food production and/or consumption), Lifestyle (A10. Physical activity/physical inactivity prevalence; A11. Adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern), Clinical Aspects (A12. Diet-related morbidity/mortality statistics; A13. Nutritional Anthropometry). A standardized set of information was provided for each indicator: definition, methodology, background, data sources, limitations of the indicator, and references.; CONCLUSION: The selection and analysis of these indicators has been performed (where possible) with specific reference to the MD. Sustainability of food systems is an urgent priority for governments and international organizations to address the serious socioeconomic and environmental implications of short-sighted and short-term practices for agricultural land and rural communities. These proposed nutrition indicators will be a useful methodological framework for designing health, education, and agricultural policies in order, not only to conserve the traditional diets of the Mediterranean area as a common cultural heritage and lifestyle but also to enhance the sustainability of diets in general.

PURPOSE: This article introduces the special issue “LCA of nutrition and food consumption” and 14 papers selected from the Ninth LCA Food Conference in San Francisco in October 2014. LITERATURE OVERVIEW: The scientific literature in the field of food LCA has increased more than ten times during the last 15 years. Nutrition has a high contribution to the total environmental impacts of consumption. Agricultural production often dominates the impacts, but its importance depends on the type of product, its production mode, transport, and processing. Local or domestic products reduce transports, but this advantage can be lost if the impacts of the raw material production are substantially increased. Diets containing less meat tend to be more environmentally friendly. Several studies concluded that respecting the dietary recommendations for a healthy diet would reduce the overall environmental impacts in the developed countries, although this is not a universal conclusion. CONTRIBUTION OF THIS SPECIAL ISSUE: Eight papers analyze the environmental impacts of catering and in-house food consumption and impacts on sectoral and national levels; four papers presents tools and methods to better assess the impacts of nutrition and to implement the results in practical decision-making. Finally, two contributions analyze the impacts of food waste and reduction options. CHALLENGES FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF NUTRITION: (i) Comprehensive assessment. Most studies only analyze climate impacts, although data, methods, and tools are readily available for a more comprehensive analysis. (ii) Assessment of sustainability. The social dimension remains the weakest pillar. (iii) Data availability is still an obstacle, but significant progress has been made in recent years. (iv) Lack of harmonization of methodologies makes comparisons among studies difficult. (v) Land use. Enhanced consideration of land use impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services is required in LCA. (vi) Defining the functional unit including nutritional aspects, food security, and health needs further work. (vii) Consumer behavior. Its impacts are still little assessed. (viii) Communication of the environmental impact assessment results to stakeholders including policy-makers and consumers needs additional efforts. RESEARCH NEEDS AND OUTLOOK: (i) Development of holistic approaches for the assessment of sustainable food systems, (ii) assessment of land use related impacts and inclusion of ecosystem services, (iii) exploration of LCA results for policy support and decision-making, (iv) investigation of food consumption patterns in developing and emerging countries, and (v) harmonization of databases.