Agriculture sciences

How can our food system become more sustainable? This question is currently occupying many researchers. Eating less meat and more vegetables is just one way of protecting the environment and climate, as well as making agriculture more sustainable. Like other sectors of the economy, however, agriculture is geared to constant growth. For a long time, there have been voices arguing for an economy without growth, because this development is harmful to the environment. Researchers have now taken a closer look at these so-called "degrowth" approaches.

Energy crops such as rapeseed and corn are grown on more than one-fifth of the arable land in Germany. This means that they compete with food production for valuable agricultural land. Agri-photovoltaics (Agri-PV) promises a resource-efficient dual use of arable land. The simultaneous use of fields for the cultivation of food crops and for the generation of electricity also opens up new sources of income for farmers.

With the trend toward plant-based nutrition, a food crop that seemed forgotten for decades is gaining in importance: the field bean. Nationwide, the area under cultivation has increased almost tenfold since 2010 and reached a new record level of around 56,500 hectares in 2020, according to the Federal Statistical Office. As part of the group's 2026 PLUS strategy, Südzucker subsidiary Beneo now wants to significantly expand its acreage under field beans.

The market for meat substitutes may still be small, but it is growing rapidly. Microbial protein could play a particularly important role as an alternative to beef, researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) report in the scientific journal Nature.

Sugar is an integral part of many foods and it is hard to imagine a household without it. The white crystalline sweetener is obtained from sugar cane, but also from the domestic sugar beet. However, the cultivation of the sugar beet is laborious, because weeds have to be removed regularly and is therefore declining in some regions. In conventional farming, pesticides are used that are harmful to the environment. In organic farming, the pests are removed with a hoe. Both methods are not only time-consuming, but ultimately expensive.

Even though more and more people are adopting a vegetarian or even vegan diet, for many, meat products are still an integral part of their daily diet. In the EU alone, per capita consumption is around 80 kilograms of meat per year. For a long time now, it has not only been environmental organizations that have been campaigning for a reduction in meat consumption and pointing out the consequences of animal husbandry. Numerous studies have also established that eating less meat is not only healthy, but also sustainable.

Bioethanol is a bio-based alternative to petroleum-based fuels or fuel blends. A European research network with the participation of the University of Hohenheim has developed an experimental project whose process is even supposed to be more climate-friendly than merely climate-neutral. The focus is on the giant grass Miscanthus × gigantheus and the storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂).