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Sugarcane, the world’s most harvested crop by tonnage, has shaped global history, trade and geopolitics, and is currently responsible for 80% of sugar production worldwide 1 . While traditional sugarcane breeding methods have effectively generated cultivars adapted to new environments and pathogens, sugar yield improvements have recently plateaued 2 . The cessation of yield gains may be due to limited genetic diversity within breeding populations, long breeding cycles and the complexity of its genome, the latter preventing breeders from taking advantage of the recent explosion of whole-genome sequencing that has benefited many other crops. Thus, modern sugarcane hybrids are the last remaining major crop without a reference-quality genome. Here we take a major step towards advancing sugarcane biotechnology by generating a polyploid reference genome for R570, a typical modern cultivar derived from interspecific hybridization between the domesticated species ( Saccharum officinarum ) and the wild species ( Saccharum spontaneum ). In contrast to the existing single haplotype (‘monoploid’) representation of R570, our 8.7 billion base assembly contains a complete representation of unique DNA sequences across the approximately 12 chromosome copies in this polyploid genome. Using this highly contiguous genome assembly, we filled a previously unsized gap within an R570 physical genetic map to describe the likely causal genes underlying the single-copy Bru1 brown rust resistance locus. This polyploid genome assembly with fine-grain descriptions of genome architecture and molecular targets for biotechnology will help accelerate molecular and transgenic breeding and adaptation of sugarcane to future environmental conditions. We build a polyploid reference genome for hybrid sugarcane cultivar R570, improving on its current ‘mosaic monoploid’ representation, enabling fine-grain description of genome architecture and the exploration of candidate genes underlying the Bru1 brown rust resistance locus.

International negotiations on climate change, along with recent upsurges in migration across the Mediterranean Sea, have highlighted the need to better understand the possible effects of climate change on human migration—in particular, across national borders. Here we examine how, in the recent past (2000–2014), weather variations in 103 source countries translated into asylum applications to the European Union, which averaged 351,000 per year in our sample. We find that temperatures that deviated from the moderate optimum (~20°C) increased asylum applications in a nonlinear fashion, which implies an accelerated increase under continued future warming. Holding everything else constant, asylum applications by the end of the century are predicted to increase, on average, by 28% (98,000 additional asylum applications per year) under representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenario 4.5 and by 188% (660,000 additional applications per year) under RCP 8.5 for the 21 climate models in the NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP).

Biological invasions are responsible for tremendous impacts globally, including huge economic losses and management expenditures. Efficiently mitigating this major driver of global change requires the improvement of public awareness and policy regarding its substantial impacts on our socio-ecosystems. One option to contribute to this overall objective is to inform people on the economic costs linked to these impacts; however, until now, a reliable synthesis of invasion costs has never been produced at a global scale. Here, we introduce InvaCost as the most up-to-date, comprehensive, harmonised and robust compilation and description of economic cost estimates associated with biological invasions worldwide. We have developed a systematic, standardised methodology to collect information from peer-reviewed articles and grey literature, while ensuring data validity and method repeatability for further transparent inputs. Our manuscript presents the methodology and tools used to build and populate this living and publicly available database. InvaCost provides an essential basis (2419 cost estimates currently compiled) for worldwide research, management efforts and, ultimately, for data-driven and evidence-based policymaking.Measurement(s)economic cost of biological invasionsTechnology Type(s)digital curationSample Characteristic - Environmentaquatic environment • terrestrial biome • semi-aquatic environmentSample Characteristic - LocationEarth (planet)Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: 10.6084/m9.figshare.11627406

Precision agriculture (PA) technologies offer a potential solution to food security and environmental challenges but, will only be successful if adopted by farmers. Adoption in China lags behind that in some developed agricultural economies despite scientifically proven benefits of PA technologies for Chinese agriculture. Adoption is dependent on farmer attitudes and perceptions towards PA technologies. An exploratory qualitative study using in-depth interviews was conducted with Chinese arable farmers (n = 27) to explore their perceptions towards and adoption intentions of PA technologies in two Chinese provinces (Hebei and Shandong). A thematic analysis revealed five central themes to have emerged from the data, these were: “socio-political landscape”, “farming culture”, “agricultural challenges”, “adoption intentions (barriers/facilitators” and “practical support mechanisms”. All were likely to influence the level and rate of adoption of PA technologies amongst family farmers in China. The research revealed an openness to the potential of PA technologies amongst family farmers, although there was heterogeneity in the perceptions of PA technology and willingness to adopt. Improved rates of adoption will be achieved by reducing the barriers to adoption, including the need for low-cost PA applications that can be applied at small scale, improved information provision, financial support mechanisms including more accessible subsidies and credit, and reliable, regulated and affordable service provision.

A new 5-year Common Agricultural Policy has been in place since January 2023. Like its predecessors, this new policy will fail to deliver significant climatic and environmental benefits. We show how the Green Architecture of the policy relying on the three instruments of conditionality, eco-schemes, and agri-environment and climate measures could have been used more consistently and effectively. Our proposals are based on core principles of public economics and fiscal federalism as well as on research results in agronomy and ecology. Conditionality criteria are the minimal requirements that every agricultural producer must meet. Farmers should be rewarded for efforts that go beyond these basic requirements through eco-schemes for global public goods complemented by agri-environment and climate measures centred on local public goods. Eco-schemes should cover the whole agricultural area by targeting permanent grasslands, crop diversification, and green cover and non-productive agro-ecological infrastructures. We discuss trade-offs that our proposals could generate.

This study proposes an effective method to map rice crops using the Sentinel-1 SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) time series over the Camargue region, Southern France. First, the temporal behavior of the SAR backscattering coefficient over 832 plots containing different crop types was analyzed. Through this analysis, the rice cultivation was identified using metrics derived from the Gaussian profile of the VV/VH time series (3 metrics), the variance of the VV/VH time series (one metric), and the slope of the linear regression of the VH time series (one metric). Using the derived metrics, rice plots were mapped through two different approaches: decision tree and Random Forest (RF). To validate the accuracy of each approach, the classified rice map was compared to the available national data. Similar high overall accuracy was obtained using both approaches. The overall accuracy obtained using a simple decision tree reached 96.3%, whereas an overall accuracy of 96.6% was obtained using the RF classifier. The approach, therefore, provides a simple yet precise and powerful tool to map paddy rice areas.

Monitoring pesticide use is essential for assessing farming practices and the risks associated with the use of pesticides. Currently, there are neither consolidated, public data available on glyphosate use in Europe, nor a standardized categorization of its major uses. In this study, data on glyphosate sales and use in Europe were collected from multiple sources and compiled into a dataset of the agricultural use of glyphosate from 2013 to 2017. The survey shows that glyphosate represented 33% of the herbicide volume sold in Europe in 2017. One third of the acreage of annual cropping systems and half of the acreage of perennial tree crops received glyphosate annually. Glyphosate is widely used for at least eight agronomic purposes, including weed control, crop desiccation, terminating cover crops, terminating temporary grassland and renewing permanent grassland. Glyphosate use can be classified into occasional uses—i.e., exceptional applications, triggered by meteorological conditions or specific farm constraints—and recurrent uses, which are widespread practices that are embedded in farming systems and for which other agronomic solutions may exist but are not frequently used. This article proposes a framework for the precise monitoring of glyphosate use, based on the identification of the cropping systems in which glyphosate is used, the agronomic purposes for which it is employed, the dose used and the rationale behind the different uses.

Over the past few decades, a large variety of urban farms and projects have developed in the Global North. Urban agriculture addresses numerous challenges such as producing sustainable fresh food, educating people, and creating new jobs and skills. Urban agriculture is diverse in terms of location (rooftop, basement, underground, parking), activities (food production and/or services), and techniques (from low-tech to high-tech). These projects are created by entrepreneurs because they live in the city, want to change their environment, and promote sustainable practices. Faced with economic and environmental crises, public authorities at different levels and with various orientations reorganize the food system towards local production and consumption; they encourage the development of urban agriculture through a diverse range of policies. These public projects must be economically viable but can be created as socially oriented services based on food production and not only as sites of food production. Our empirical research based on the case studies of two original public urban farms, the Potager du Roi de Versailles and the Cité Maraichère de Romainville, uses the concept of the triple layered business model and highlights their sustainable strategy. Our evaluation of their economic, social, and environmental impacts tends to demonstrate not only their dependence on multiple interlinked public policies but also the justification of significant and recurring public funds for the general interest.

Livestock is a major driver in most rural landscapes and economics, but it also polarises debate over its environmental impacts, animal welfare and human health. Conversely, the various services that livestock farming systems provide to society are often overlooked and have rarely been quantified. The aim of analysing bundles of services is to chart the coexistence and interactions between the various services and impacts provided by livestock farming, and to identify sets of ecosystem services (ES) that appear together repeatedly across sites and through time. We review three types of approaches that analyse associations among impacts and services from local to global scales: (i) detecting ES associations at system or landscape scale, (ii) identifying and mapping bundles of ES and impacts and (iii) exploring potential drivers using prospective scenarios. At a local scale, farming practices interact with landscape heterogeneity in a multi-scale process to shape grassland biodiversity and ES. Production and various ES provided by grasslands to farmers, such as soil fertility, biological regulations and erosion control, benefit to some extent from the functional diversity of grassland species, and length of pasture phase in the crop rotation. Mapping ES from the landscape up to the EU-wide scale reveals a frequent trade-off between livestock production on one side and regulating and cultural services on the other. Maps allow the identification of target areas with higher ecological value or greater sensitivity to risks. Using two key factors (livestock density and the proportion of permanent grassland within utilised agricultural area), we identified six types of European livestock production areas characterised by contrasted bundles of services and impacts. Livestock management also appeared to be a key driver of bundles of services in prospective scenarios. These scenarios simulate a breakaway from current production, legislation (e.g. the use of food waste to fatten pigs) and consumption trends (e.g. halving animal protein consumption across Europe). Overall, strategies that combine a reduction of inputs, of the use of crops from arable land to feed livestock, of food waste and of meat consumption deliver a more sustainable food future. Livestock as part of this sustainable future requires further enhancement, quantification and communication of the services provided by livestock farming to society, which calls for the following: (i) a better targeting of public support, (ii) more precise quantification of bundles of services and (iii) better information to consumers and assessment of their willingness to pay for these services.

The links between plantation expansion and deforestation in Borneo are debated. We used satellite imagery to map annual loss of old‐growth forests, expansion of industrial plantations (oil palm and pulpwood), and their overlap in Borneo from 2001 to 2017. In 17 years, forest area declined by 14% (6.04 Mha), including 3.06 Mha of forest ultimately converted into industrial plantations. Plantations expanded by 170% (6.20 Mha: 88% oil palm; 12% pulpwood). Most forests converted to plantations were cleared and planted in the same year (92%; 2.83 Mha). Annual forest loss generally increased before peaking in 2016 (0.61 Mha) and declining sharply in 2017 (0.25 Mha). After peaks in 2009 and 2012, plantation expansion and associated forest conversion have been declining in Indonesia and Malaysia. Annual plantation expansion is positively correlated with annual forest loss in both countries. The correlation vanishes when we consider plantation expansion versus forests that are cleared but not converted to plantations. The price of crude palm oil is positively correlated with plantation expansion in the following year in Indonesian (not Malaysian) Borneo. Low palm oil prices, wet conditions, and improved fire prevention all likely contributed to reduced 2017 deforestation. Oversight of company conduct requires transparent concession ownership.