A four-year study across 17 conventional farms in southern England trialled various agroecological methods and found that incorporating nature-friendly practices increases biodiversity, pollination by bees, natural pest control and numbers of earthworms - but at a substantial cost.
The costs of creating such habitats and the loss of land mean much higher prices for consumers - in stores or with increased taxes for subsidies.
The co-trials used three different agricultural systems on each of the farms:
1) Business-as-usual – modern agriculture with no land changed to create biodiversity.
2) An…
Food
A statistical association between food and disease or health is created by asking people how much of something they consume and then matching it up to the diseases. If statistical significance can be found, a paper is written on the observational study but there is obviously a high risk of bad data when people are asked to recall how much of anything they have. And if an epidemiologist has a goal in advance, it is easy to create statistical significance and highlight a risk that experts would dismiss.
A new paper says that the recent stalling of salt reduction programmes in the UK will eat…