New paper on the impacts of management and organic/conventional ag on soils: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Yield improvements reduced global crop water footprint www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6...

New paper finds that adding legume and non-legume green manure improved nitrogen uptake and use efficiency in a cropping system: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... There is one caveat, however... 1/n

I can't read this full paper because my university, quite rightly, is not willing to pay the extortionate fees charged by Nature Publishing Group, but the takeaways are clear from the abstract. 1/n www.nature.com/articles/s43...

I'm generally skeptical of win-wins for agriculture and biodiversity, but this one seems legit: planting perennial crops on marginal land leads to more birds without reduced profit.

It's 2025 and there are still people out there trying to define a maximum sustainable human population - in this case 2 billion people. Cafaro (2025) "A New Definition of Global Overpopulation, Explained and Applied"

"mitigating both plastic pollution and carbon emissions from the plastic sector could lead to a 22% increase in cropland expansion, a 35% increase in the area of cropland undergoing intensification and a 20% increase in deforestation relative to the baseline scenario." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In a contest in California, rice yields were on average ~40% higher than the average for the state. Does that mean that yields could go up by 40%? Probably not. Presumably only the most productive fields were entered into the contest, and growers could invest more than would otherwise be economical.

Is there anything like #conservationsky here to follow topics related to conservation? I can't find such a feed.

Can't wait to read this!

Turns out you can use cap-and-trade not just for pollution but also for forests - and in this case, it worked. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I'm trying to up my game when it comes to slide decks for academic presentations. Does anyone have a slide deck they're particularly pleased with that they would be willing to share? Or point me to someone else's deck if it's publicly available. Any other resources also appreciated.

I don't know what combination of causes led to this species' demise, but it was hunted on Malta back in the day and I once saw one in a hunter's private collection, an experience that sent shivers down my spine.

Better nitrogen management in ag could reduce emissions of various polluting nitrogen compounds by up to one-third. None of this is rocket science and could be implemented with the right policies and incentives. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

In terms of the carbon cost of food production, we're often doing agriculture in the wrong places. faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/u...

Business-as-usual trends will largely miss 2030 global conservation targets link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Community forest management has been proven effective in a number of places - but it's not the case everywhere, as this new paper shows www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

One of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture is in the form of nitrous oxide from soil processes. These emissions occur even with legumes, which receive little to no fertilizer. Soy actually accounts for 40% of emissions from corn-soy rotations in the US. 1/2

New study: we found that small reductions in pasture-based beef production in some areas, especially in temperate, humid regions like the Eastern US & Europe, could lead to large amounts of CO2 removal by regrowing native forests. Here's an explainer 🧵 www.nyu.edu/about/news-p...

Commercialized drought-tolerant corn compensates for 23% of total yield loss due to moderate climate change. Yay for new technology. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

I can't comment on the methodological rigor of the underlying studies, but at face value, this seems... bad. "neonicotinoids consistently harm bird health, behaviour, reproduction, and survival" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Pretty impressive: "world average agricultural emissions intensity fell by more than half since 1990" www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

If I'm reading this right, no-till increased total nitrate losses from agriculture and redirected the losses from runoff to leaching. Winter cover crops reduce runoff but don't affect leaching. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

"Localized nitrogen management strategies can halve fertilizer use in Chinese staple crop production" Well, that sounds promising. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

"When nitrogen limited fields are targeted ... yield gains are predicted to double. When nitrogen and irrigation co-limitations are targeted ... yield ... tripled." Lots of potential to raise yields in Indian rice production with tried and tested technologies. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"using biofuels to achieve 0.7 ± 0.3 Gt CO2-eq yr−1 mitigation would require new nitrogen inputs to croplands of 21–42 Tg N yr−1. " 1 Tg is 1 million tons. So that sounds like... a lot of nitrogen. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Global crop production is getting more water-efficient. This new paper finds that "nearly 80% of crops reduced global average unit [water footprints] as crop yields improved and cultivation centred around more productive areas" iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Electrification reduces deforestation and fuelwood collection in this case study from Côte d’Ivoire: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Landless agriculture is possible but energy-intensive. While not an immediate solution to land-related problems, this could one day - with the right energy system - usher in opportunities for conservation that we can only dream about today. Review: bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Ouch. Systematic review finds that of 561 degrowth studies, large majority are "opinions rather than analysis", very few use modelling, use ad-hoc and subjective policy advice and lack policy evaluation, and few studies adopt a system-wide perspective. Doesn't make them wrong - but need to step up.

More evidence that cheaper fertilizer leads to reduced deforestation through land sparing: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...