Efforts to exclude disease organisms from farms growing irrigated lettuce and leafy vegetables on California's central coast are conflicting with traditionally accepted strategies to protect surface water quality. To begin resolving this dilemma, over 100 officials, researchers, and industry representatives gathered in April 2007 to set research priorities that could lead to effective co-management of both food safety and water quality. Following the meeting, research priorities were refined and ordered by way of a Delphi process completed by 35 meeting participants. Although water quality and food safety experts conceptualized the issues differently, there were no deep disagreements with respect to research needs. Top priority was given to investigating the fate of pathogens potentially present on farms. Intermediate priorities included characterizing the influence of specific farm management practices on food safety and improving our understanding of vector processes. A scientific subdiscipline focusing on competing risks is needed to characterize and resolve conflicts between human and environmental health.

Understanding the interconnections and tradeoffs between food, energy, and water (FEW) in grain production, which are essential for agricultural sustainability, remains an elusive yet important task. We propose a four-step analysis method for exploring potential approaches to coordinating the FEW nexus in grain production based on a conceptual framework that incorporates the impact of rural livelihood transitions and farmland resource constraints. We apply this method to a small-scale watershed in Hunan Province, China using data from land-use maps, farm household surveys, farmland quality surveys, and cropping-pattern surveys. Transitions of rural livelihoods have led farmlands to become increasingly large in scale. The combined impacts of this concentration of large-scale farms and the government subsidy policy, which favors double cropping, undermines the FEW nexus. Our findings suggest two operational approaches for coordinating the FEW nexus in rice production. One is to develop adaptive agricultural policies that support farmers whose aggregate performance on rice production is superior or more balanced. The other is to optimize cropping patterns based on the suitability of farmland for grain planting.