Valuing environmental agriculture

Global food and water security are possible if more environmentally sustainable practices are adopted. Lifestyle choices that globally impact greenhouse gas emissions are dependent on agricultural literacy that can determine individual food choice, food production systems, and environmental impact connectivity. Dr Andrea Crampton and Dr Angela Ragusa collected primary data in rural-regional Australia to explore the salience of food and water concerns compared with their related environmental knowledge of sustainability issues and how that prompted human behaviour. The findings from an online survey demonstrated generally low environmental sustainability literacy and related behaviours, and highly educated individuals also failed to identify environmentally sustainable food and water consumption options. This research advocated the need for improving public science and health literacy about the relationships between water and food scarcity and agricultural production so that individuals can gain the necessary knowledge to facilitate a societal transition towards environmentally sustainable behaviours and positively influence future food security and agricultural food production systems and product consumption.