The Center on Food Security and the Environment is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Sustainable development
Recent Publications
Records 72 / 440
Unprecedented rates of land-use transformation in modelled climate change mitigation pathways
May 2018
Integrated assessment models generate climate change mitigation scenarios consistent with global temperature targets.
Sell Low and Buy High: Arbitrage and Local Price Effects in Kenyan Markets
April 2018
Large and regular seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets appear to offer African farmers substantial inter-temporal arbitrage opportunities, but these opportunities remain largely...
Differences, or lack thereof, in wheat and maize yields under three low-warming scenarios
March 2018
The availability of climate model experiments under three alternative scenarios stabilizing at warming targets inspired by the COP21 agreements (a 1.5 ºC not exceed, a 1.5 ºC with overshoot and a 2...
Eyes in the sky, boots on the ground : assessing satellite- and ground-based approaches to crop yield measurement and analysis in Uganda
March 2018
Crop yields in smallholder systems are traditionally assessed using farmer-reported information in surveys, occasionally by crop cuts for a sub-section of a farmer's plot, and rarely using full...
Assessing Hazard Vulnerability, Habitat Conservation and Restoration for the Enhancement of China’s Coastal Resilience
February 2018
Worldwide, humans are facing high risks from natural hazards, especially in coastal regions with high population densities.
The Elusive Goal of Global Food Security
February 2018
Ending world hunger is a universal goal, yet progress and social awareness of the issue waxes and wanes in the course of broader political and economic developments.
Feed conversion efficiency in aquaculture: do we measure it correctly?
February 2018
Globally, demand for food animal products is rising.
Improving environmental practices in agricultural supply chains: The role of company-led standards
December 2017
Food retailers and manufacturers are increasingly committing to address agricultural sustainability issues in their supply chains.
Improving the accuracy of satellite-based high-resolution yield estimation: A test of multiple scalable approaches
December 2017
Fast, accurate and inexpensive estimates of crop yields at the field scale are useful for many applications.
The rise in global biodiesel production: Implications for food security
December 2017
Policies that promote biofuels in major agricultural economies raise important questions for food prices and food security at local to global scales.
Historical effects of CO2 and climate trends on global crop water demand
November 2017
A critical question for agricultural production and food security is how water demand for staple crops will respond to climate and carbon dioxide (CO2) changes1, especially in light of the expected...
Oil palm expansion in Cameroon: Insights into sustainability opportunities and challenges in Africa
November 2017
Oil palm production expanded 1.2 million hectares in sub-Saharan Africa since 1990, with expansion accelerating in several heavily forested countries since 2000.
Increasing drought and diminishing benefits of elevated carbon dioxide for soybean yields across the US Midwest
November 2017
Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations ([CO2]) are expected to increase C3 crop yield through the CO2 fertilization effect (CFE) by stimulating photosynthesis and by reducing stomatal conductance...
Using satellite data to identify the causes of and potential solutions for yield gaps in India's Wheat Belt
September 2017
Food security will be increasingly challenged by climate change, natural resource degradation, and population growth.
Impact of a rural solar electrification project on the level and structure of women's empowerment
September 2017
Although development organizations agree that reliable access to energy and energy services—one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals—is likely to have profound and perhaps disproportionate...
Mapping Smallholder Yield Heterogeneity at Multiple Scales in Eastern Africa
September 2017
Accurate measurements of crop production in smallholder farming systems are critical to the understanding of yield constraints and, thus, setting the appropriate agronomic investments and policies...
Monitoring Ethiopian Wheat Fungus with Satellite Imagery and Deep Feature Learning
August 2017
Wheat is the most important Ethiopian crop, and rust one of its greatest antagonists.
The shared and unique values of optical, fluorescence, thermal and microwave satellite data for estimating large-scale crop yields
August 2017
Large-scale crop monitoring and yield estimation are important for both scientific research and practical applications.
Data Science for Food Security
August 2017
Using agricultural and economic characteristics in African nations as test cases, new research by David Lobell and Marshall Burke demonstrates the use of satellite data to address the long-standing...
Landsat-based classification in the cloud: An opportunity for a paradigm shift in land cover monitoring
June 2017
Satellite-derived land cover maps play an important role in many applications, including monitoring of smallholder-dominated agricultural landscapes.
Towards fine resolution global maps of crop yields: Testing multiple methods and satellites in three countries
May 2017
One of the greatest challenges in monitoring food security is to provide reliable crop yield information that is temporally consistent and spatially scalable.
The political economy of biodiesel in an era of low oil prices
May 2017
Global biodiesel production grew by 23% per annum between 2005 and 2015, leading to a seven-fold expansion of the sector in a single decade.
Association Between Women’s Empowerment and Maternal and Child Nutrition in Kalale District of Northern Benin
April 2017
Women empowerment (WE) is increasingly viewed as an important strategy to reduce maternal and child undernutrition,1–3 which continues to be a major health burden in low- and middle-income...
