Combining Low Price, Low Climate Impact and High Nutritional Value in One Shopping Basket through Diet Optimization by Linear Programming

Dooren, Corné van; Tyszler, Marcelo; Kramer, G.F.H.; Aiking, H.

doi:10.3390/su70912837

Cited by 69 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Furthermore, just following dietary guidelines would reduce GHG emissions significantly, in addition to being much healthier than current dietary habits (Macdiarmid et al, 2011). Even cutting the climate change impact in half is feasible by adopting a culturally acceptable and cheap diet (van Dooren, Tyszler, Kramer, & Aiking, 2015). Nevertheless, the UN fail to provide direction and initiate a concerted action, so it is up to stakeholders at the national level, i.e.…”

Section: Diet Transition Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The next protein transition

Aiking

Boer

2020

Trends in Food Science & Technology

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A B S T R A C TBackground: Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals requires a relatively rapid transition towards a circular economy. Therefore, a multidisciplinary perspective is required to sketch why a transition from diets based primarily on animal proteins towards diets based primarily on plant proteins products is extremely urgent for both food security and sustainability. Scope and approach: This review starts out by identifying ecological, economic and social aspects of sustainable food consumption. Subsequently, it is argued how protein supply is underlying and linking the top-3 of anthropogenic impacts based on the planetary boundaries concept, i.e. 1) biodiversity loss, 2) nitrogen cycle acceleration, and 3) carbon cycle acceleration (resulting in climate change). These environmental impacts associated with current Western food consumption need to be reduced urgently. In order to address the inefficiencies inherent to current dietary patterns, therefore, a ranked list of more sustainable options is proposed, based on their order of magnitude. Addressing consumers, industry, and governmental stakeholders plus cultural aspects, challenges and options are sketched. Key findings and conclusions: Clearly, a dietary transition from primarily animal towards plant protein products is required. Fortunately, new dietary guidelines are increasingly taking sustainability into account and the contours of a diet transition are slowly emerging.

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Section: Diet Transition Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The next protein transition

Aiking

Boer

2020

Trends in Food Science & Technology

Self Cite

230

136

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“…In this paper, we used a whole-farm multiperiod linear programming (LP) model. Previous studies have used linear programming models to examine the impacts of new technological and institutional interventions [62][63][64][65][66][67]. In Ethiopia, the authors of [62] used LP to assess the ex-ante impact of introducing forage legumes and improved dairy cows into the existing farming system.…”

Section: Empirical Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Ethiopia, the authors of [62] used LP to assess the ex-ante impact of introducing forage legumes and improved dairy cows into the existing farming system. The LP model was also used to evaluate trypanosomiasis control activities in south-western Ethiopia [64] and for diet optimization [65,66]. We opted to use a mathematical programming model in a whole-farm context because it allowed us to capture not only the complexity of smallholder farming systems in terms of resource, socio-economic, and market-related constraints, but also to simultaneously capture the feedback and interaction between and among various activities and resources.…”

Section: Empirical Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated Health Interventions for Improved Livelihoods: A Case Study in Ethiopia

Kassie

Abro²,

Wossen

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) face multifaceted and co-existing risks, such as human and animal diseases and pests. Even though smallholder farmers often experience these challenges simultaneously, interventions to address these challenges are often implemented in a piecemeal fashion. However, managing agricultural production constraints without alleviating human and livestock health burdens might not generate significant and sustained benefits to achieve the desired development outcome (e.g., reducing hunger, malnutrition, and poverty). As such, building farmers' resilience and adaptive capacity to co-existing production constraints and health burdens may require an integrated and holistic approach. Understanding the potential benefits of an integrated approach would provide critical information, for example, for revisiting the extension systems and for designing pro-poor holistically integrated interventions to tackle interrelated challenges facing smallholder farmers. In this paper, we examined the economic benefits of integrated human-plant-animal health interventions aimed at controlling malaria, stemborer infestations of crops, and trypanosomiasis, along with beekeeping as a livelihood diversification option in rural Ethiopia. We developed a whole-farm multiperiod mathematical linear programming model to examine the economic consequences of the interventions. Our results suggest that relaxing livelihoods and the human-plant-animal health constraints that farmers face has the potential to at least double income. The results further show that exploiting the potential synergies among interventions can generate higher economic benefits. The annual income from the combined interventions is 35% higher than the sum of the income gains from each intervention alone. Our results support an integrated approach to achieve holistic outcomes in areas where these development constraints co-exist.Sustainability 2020, 12, 2284 2 of 21 production constraints without alleviating human and animal health burdens might not generate significant and sustained benefits for achieving the desired development outcome (e.g., reducing hunger, malnutrition, and poverty). As such, building farmers' resilience and adaptive capacity to co-existing production constraints and health burdens may require a holistic approach. This, in turn, calls for new and integrated approaches to address multiple constraints [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].In this paper, we examine the impact of introducing integrated health interventions that address the co-existing constraints of farmers in Ethiopia. These interventions include an integrated vector management (IVM) package to control malaria, biconical (Ngu) tsetse fly traps to control trypanosomiasis, and push-pull technology to address stemborer and fodder shortages. All three interventions are eco-friendly, since no pesticides are used. This, in turn, mitigates biodiversity losses and public health problems associated with excessive use and misuse of pesticides. In addition to t...

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“…A systematic literature review of the application of linear programming to optimize diets with nutritional, economic, and environmental constraints is proposed in (van Dooren, 2018). The interested reader may refer to the papers therein cited and in particular to (Donati et al, 2016;Macdiarmid et al, 2012;Masset et al, 2009;van Dooren et al, 2015;Wilson et al, 2013) for further information and to gain more insight into the general problem. Basically, these works provide 1 The food system is the collection of all those activities involving the production, processing, transport and consumption of food.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%