Agriculture in the boreal and Arctic regions is perceived as marginal, low intensity and inadequate to satisfy the needs of local communities, but another perspective is that northern agriculture has untapped potential to increase the local supply of food and even contribute to the global food system. Policies across northern jurisdictions target the expansion and intensification of agriculture, contextualized for the diverse social settings and market foci in the north. However, the rapid pace of climate change means that traditional methods of adapting cropping systems and developing infrastructure and regulations for this region cannot keep up with climate change impacts. Moreover, the anticipated conversion of northern cold-climate natural lands to agriculture risks a loss of up to 76% of the carbon stored in vegetation and soils, leading to further environmental impacts. The sustainable development of northern agriculture requires local solutions supported by locally relevant policies. There is an obvious need for the rapid development of a transdisciplinary, cross-jurisdictional, long-term knowledge development, and dissemination program to best serve food needs and an agricultural economy in the boreal and Arctic regions while minimizing the risks to global climate, northern ecosystems and communities.
The budget for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, and thus EU agricultural support payments, may be reduced from 2021. In this study we analyse the effects this may have in Finland using an economic model of Finnish agriculture accounting for structural changes in the dairy and beef sectors. Reducing the CAP budget by 20% would affect farm incomes by 20–25% in southern Finland while central and northern parts of the country, which are dependent on national payments coupled to dairy and beef production, would be less affected. Our results show that the milk and beef sectors throughout the country are still dependent on support payments coupled to production due to reduced real prices for agricultural products. Current policy schemes for southern Finland include coupled CAP payments but do not allow national payments. Any cuts in the CAP budget have significantly more negative effects in southern Finland compared to other regions.
This study examined what kind of policy instruments and actions are needed for sustainable dietary change and how a large-scale dietary change would impact the climate, thus analysing the economic impacts of transitioning from animal-based diets to alternative plant-based diets. The transition would require the support of horizontal measures that can be implemented throughout the food system. Shifting the emphasis toward the drivers of food demand and consumption will increase the role of new policy instruments and the actors involved in the food system. Collaborative research between environmental and nutritional sciences with economics and policy analysis is necessary to link nutritional health and environmental objectives with economic and social impacts. Less resource-demanding diets would reduce the impact from the food system and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Drastic changes in diets and food consumption in Finland would have an impact on primary agricultural production, but the output from the food processing industry would only be slightly affected. However, a successful transition would involve considerable investments in the agricultural and food industry.
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