Could global norms enable definition of sustainable farming systems in a transformative international trade system?

This paper aims to support differentiation between sustainable and unsustainable agricultural production, with a view to enabling a transformative agricultural trade system by incentivizing sustainable agricultural production. We argue that transformative governance of corresponding global trade flows will need to provide support to the weaker participants in production systems, above all small-scale farmers in the global South, in order to support their food security and a path out of poverty as well as global environmental goals. The present article seeks to provide an overview of internationally agreed norms that can serve as basis for differentiation between sustainable and unsustainable agricultural systems.

The parable of arable land: Characterizing large scale land acquisitions through network analysis.

Land is a scarce resource and its depletion is related to a combination of demographic and economic factors. Hence, the changes in dietary habits and increase in world population that upturn the food demand, are intertwined with a context of increasing oil prices and rise of green capitalism that in turn impacts the demand in biofuel. A visible indicator of these phenomena is the increase, in recent years, of Large Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLAs) by private companies or states.

Growth Rates and Spontaneous Navigation of Condensate Droplets Through Randomly Structured Textures.

Dropwise condensation is a phenomenon of common occurrence in everyday life, the understanding and controlling of which is of great interest to applications ranging from technology to nature. Scalable superhydrophobic textures on metals are of direct relevance in improving phase change heat transport in realistic industrial applications. Here we reveal important facets of individual droplet growth rate and droplet departure during dropwise condensation on randomly structured hierarchical superhydrophobic aluminum textures, that is, surfaces with a microstructure consisting of irregular re-entrant microcavities and an overlaying nanostructure.