Water availability is a major factor constraining humanity's ability to meet the future food and energy needs of a growing and increasingly affluent human population. Water plays an important role ...

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The Global Food-Energy-Water Nexus

Nanobiotechnology has the potential to enable smart plant sensors that communicate with and actuate electronic devices for improving plant productivity, optimize and automate water and agrochemical allocation, and enable high-throughput plant chemical phenotyping. Reducing crop loss due to environmental and pathogen-related stresses, improving resource use efficiency and selecting optimal plant traits are major challenges in plant agriculture industries worldwide. New technologies are required to accurately monitor, in real time and with high spatial and temporal resolution, plant physiological and developmental responses to their microenvironment. Nanomaterials are allowing the translation of plant chemical signals into digital information that can be monitored by standoff electronic devices. Herein, we discuss the design and interfacing of smart nanobiotechnology-based sensors that report plant signalling molecules associated with health status to agricultural and phenotyping devices via optical, wireless or electrical signals. We describe how nanomaterial-mediated delivery of genetically encoded sensors can act as tools for research and development of smart plant sensors. We assess performance parameters of smart nanobiotechnology-based sensors in plants (for example, resolution, sensitivity, accuracy and durability) including in vivo optical nanosensors and wearable nanoelectronic sensors. To conclude, we present an integrated and prospective vision on how nanotechnology could enable smart plant sensors that communicate with and actuate electronic devices for monitoring and optimizing individual plant productivity and resource use.

Nanobiotechnology approaches for engineering smart plant sensors

Future technologies and systemic innovation are critical for the profound transformation the food system needs. These innovations range from food production, land use and emissions, all the way to improved diets and waste management. Here, we identify these technologies, assess their readiness and propose eight action points that could accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable food system. We argue that the speed of innovation could be significantly increased with the appropriate incentives, regulations and social licence. These, in turn, require constructive stakeholder dialogue and clear transition pathways.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-0074-1.pdf?proof=t

Innovation can accelerate the transition towards a sustainable food system

Growing demand for agricultural commodities for food, fuel and other uses is expected to be met through an intensification of production on lands that are currently under cultivation. Intensification typically entails investments in modern technology — such as irrigation or fertilizers — and increases in cropping frequency in regions suitable for multiple growing seasons. Here we combine a process-based crop water model with maps of spatially interpolated yields for 14 major food crops to identify potential differences in food production and water use between current and optimized crop distributions. We find that the current distribution of crops around the world neither attains maximum production nor minimum water use. We identify possible alternative configurations of the agricultural landscape that, by reshaping the global distribution of crops within current rainfed and irrigated croplands based on total water consumption, would feed an additional 825 million people while reducing the consumptive use of rainwater and irrigation water by 14% and 12%, respectively. Such an optimization process does not entail a loss of crop diversity, cropland expansion or impacts on nutrient and feed availability. It also does not necessarily invoke massive investments in modern technology that in many regions would require a switch from smallholder farming to large-scale commercial agriculture with important impacts on rural livelihoods. The current distribution of crops around the world neither attains maximum production nor minimum water use, according to a crop water model and yield data. An optimized crop distribution could feed an additional 825 million people and substantially reduce water use.

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Increased food production and reduced water use through optimized crop distribution

Salinity is a global issue threatening agricultural production systems across the globe. While the major focus of plant salinity stress tolerance research has been on sodium, the transport and physiological roles of K+ in plant salt stress response has received less attention. This review attempts to bridge this knowledge gap. The major emphasis is on newly proposed K+ signalling roles and plant salt tolerance cell- and tissuespecificity. In addition to summarizing the importance of K+ retention for plant salt tolerance, we focus onaspects that were not the subject of previous reviews including (1) the importance of HAK/KUP family of transporters in K+ uptake in salt stressed plants and its possible linkage with Ca2+ and ROS signalling; (2) control of xylem K+ loading in salt stressed plants, control of phloem K+ recirculation in salt stressed plants and the potential importance of plant’s ability to efficiently coordinate K+ signals between root and shoot; (3) the buffering capacity of the vacuolar K+ pool; and (4) mechanisms of restoring the basal cytosolic K+ levels by coordinated activity of tonoplast K+-permeable channels. Overall, this review emphasises the need to fully understand the newly emerging roles of K+ and regulation of its transport for improving salinity stress tolerance in plants.

/pdf/it-is-not-all-about-sodium-revealing-tissue-specificity-and-kf8op38fhy.pdf

It is not all about sodium: revealing tissue specificity and signalling roles of potassium in plant responses to salt stress

Although global food demand is expected to increase 60% by 2050 compared with 2005/2007, the rise will be much greater in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Indeed, SSA is the region at greatest food security risk because by 2050 its population will increase 2.5-fold and demand for cereals approximately triple, whereas current levels of cereal consumption already depend on substantial imports. At issue is whether SSA can meet this vast increase in cereal demand without greater reliance on cereal imports or major expansion of agricultural area and associated biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. Recent studies indicate that the global increase in food demand by 2050 can be met through closing the gap between current farm yield and yield potential on existing cropland. Here, however, we estimate it will not be feasible to meet future SSA cereal demand on existing production area by yield gap closure alone. Our agronomically robust yield gap analysis for 10 countries in SSA using location-specific data and a spatial upscaling approach reveals that, in addition to yield gap closure, other more complex and uncertain components of intensification are also needed, i.e., increasing cropping intensity (the number of crops grown per 12 mo on the same field) and sustainable expansion of irrigated production area. If intensification is not successful and massive cropland land expansion is to be avoided, SSA will depend much more on imports of cereals than it does today.

/pdf/can-sub-saharan-africa-feed-itself-2mf0v74v1t.pdf

Can sub-Saharan Africa feed itself?

Seasonal rainfall forecasts from the West African Regional Climate Outlook Forum (RCOF) are essential for adapting to climate variability. However, their temporal aggregated nature is a strong limitation, especially when used with impact models requiring daily resolution, such as hydrological or crop models. To address this issue, this study proposes a temporal disaggregation method for these forecasts using in situ data from two districts (Kandi and Parakou) in northern Benin, spanning from 1971 to 2020. A resampling technique was used to construct a daily historical record that aligns with seasonal rainfall forecasts. Three stochastic disaggregation models for rainfall (SRGs) were developed, including two parametric models (SRG1 and SRG2) and one semiparametric (SRG3). Their parameters were estimated from the resampled record to generate daily synthetic data replicating the forecasts. Evaluation of the SRGs revealed that SRG2, which combined a first-order Markov chain with a mixed exponential distribution, performs well in simulating various characteristics of the rainy season, including dry spells, wet spells and daily precipitations. Furthermore, SRG2 maintained the trends of the initial forecasts and outperformed SRG1 and SRG3, as confirmed by the chi-square test. Indeed, a good agreement was observed between the probabilities of the initial prediction and those calculated from the temporal disaggregation with the SRG2 method. Also, for the forecasts expressed by probabilities 15–35–50 and 20–50–30, the cumulative distribution function curves (CDF) of the SRGs exhibited appropriate shifts compared to climatology. These forecasts were specific to the Kandi area in 2008 and 2003, respectively, during the West African RCOFs. Although this study focused specifically on the Kandi and Parakou districts, the temporal disaggregation methodology used can be applied to other locations within West Africa or other RCOFs worldwide. This study offers valuable guidance for generating sector-specific seasonal forecasts for the West African region. 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/joc.8161

Stochastic disaggregation of seasonal precipitation forecasts of the West African Regional Climate Outlook Forum

In Niger (a fully Sahelian country), the use of climate information is one of the early warning strategies (EWSs) for reducing socio-economic vulnerabilities in farmer communities. It helps farmers to better anticipate risks and choose timely alternative options that can allow them to generate more profit. This study assesses the impacts of the use of climate information and services that benefit end-users. Individual surveys and focus groups were conducted with a sample of 368 people in eight communes in Southwestern Niger. The survey was conducted within the framework of the ANADIA project implemented by the National Meteorological Direction (NMD) of Niger. The survey aims to identify different types of climate services received by communities and evaluates the major benefits gained from their use. Mostly, the communities received climate (73.6%) and weather (99%) information on rainfall, temperature, dust, wind, clouds, and air humidity. Few producers in the area (10%) received information on seasonal forecasts of the agrometeorological characteristics of the rainy season. The information is not widely disseminated in the villages during the roving seminars conducted by the NMD. For most people, this information is highly relevant to their needs because of its practical advice for options to be deployed to mitigate disasters for agriculture, livestock, health, water resources, and food security. In those communities, 82% of farmers have (at least once) changed their routine practices as a result of the advice and awareness received according to the climate information. The information received enables farmers (64.4%) to adjust their investments according to the profile of the upcoming rainfall season. The use of climate information and related advice led to an increase of about 64 bunches (equivalent to 10 bags of 100 kg) in annual millet production, representing an income increase of about 73,000 FCFA from an average farmland of 3 ha per farmer. In addition, the use of climate information helps to reduce the risks of floods and droughts, which often cause massive losses to crop production, animal and human life, infrastructure, materials, and goods. It has also enabled communities to effectively manage seeds and animal foods and to plan social events, departures and returns to rural exodus. These analyses confirm that the use of climate information serves as an EWS that contributes to increasing the resilience of local populations in the Sahel.

https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/11/2/31/pdf?version=1674205529

Evaluation of the Impact of Seasonal Agroclimatic Information Used for Early Warning and Farmer Communities’ Vulnerability Reduction in Southwestern Niger

Alhassane Agali

Papers

Can sub-Saharan Africa feed itself?

Stochastic disaggregation of seasonal precipitation forecasts of the West African Regional Climate Outlook Forum

Evaluation of the Impact of Seasonal Agroclimatic Information Used for Early Warning and Farmer Communities’ Vulnerability Reduction in Southwestern Niger