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Intensification of arable farming in Northwest Europe has led to high yields. However, inadequate use of external inputs such as nutrients, irrigation water and crop protection products has contributed to several environmental problems, such as nitrate leaching and losses of crop protection products. There is a need to reduce environmental losses and contribute to a more circular and sustainable agriculture in Northwest Europe. Here, we take ware potato production in the Netherlands as an example cropping system to assess if there is scope to reduce input levels and environmental impact of nutrient, water and crop protection product use without compromising yield. We determined variability in use and use efficiency of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and pesticides as well as water productivity (WP) and yields of 96 on-farm ware potato fields in the Netherlands, on both clay and sandy soils. In addition, we assessed if relatively high performance could be achieved on multiple environmental indicators simultaneously. Average N surplus was 265 kg N ha−1 on clay soils and 139 kg N ha−1 on sandy soils and varied among fields by a factor three. Phosphorus and K input exceeded P and K output on clay soils by 33 and 105 kg ha−1, respectively, while on sandy soils P and K balances were close to zero. Mean WP was 43 kg dry matter (DM) mm−1 ha−1 and ranged from 30 to 60 kg DM mm−1 ha−1 for both soil types. In terms of crop protection product use, lowest and highest use differed by a factor four. Unexpectedly, yields did not increase with higher input rates, suggesting that lower input rates are sufficient to obtain current yields. Consequently, input rates were the most important drivers to explain variability in resource use efficiency and environmental impacts. At the same time, a comparison across multiple indicators simultaneously showed that it was possible to achieve relatively high yields with relatively low N surplus, high WP, and low crop protection product use. Hence, environmental impact could decrease substantially if all fields performed similar to the best performing fields. This study showed that it seems feasible to maintain high yield levels while reducing resource use in a substantial share of the potato production fields in the Netherlands. If put in practice, this will reduce losses to the environment and therefore contribute to a more sustainable but still productive agriculture. [Display omitted] • Variability in nutrient, water, and crop protection products use varied up to a factor four. • Yields did not differ between low and high input rates. • Resource use efficiency was at least 50% higher in best than in worst performing fields. • Environmental targets for N surplus were met in only 8–12% of fields. • There is scope to reduce input use and environmental impact, without compromising crop yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With many of the poor people in Brazil living in rural areas, local governments have intensified their efforts to design and implement effective policies that boost rural development. In 2004, a national program for production and use of biodiesel was launched aiming at increasing income among less endowed family farmers across the country. With expectations building on further expansion of the mandatory blending of biodiesel with fossil diesel, national and local government bodies are challenged by the search for policies able to foster biodiesel crop production through the wider cultivation of crops that produce more oil than soybean (e.g. sunflower and castor bean) and by improving the participation of less endowed farmers, especially in semi-arid regions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to perform an ex-ante integrated assessment of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of four biodiesel policy scenarios towards different farm types in a semi-arid and more humid region of southeast Brazil. The applied modelling framework was a combination of a technical coefficient generator (TechnoGIN) and a bio-economic farm model (FSSIM). We explored the impact of market-driven (bonus price policy), input provision (fertiliser and land preparation policy) and oil production (oil mill policy) policy scenarios on soybean farmers in Chapada Gaúcha and maize/beans farmers in Montes Claros. The impacts of the different policies on farm gross margins, oil crop production, labour requirements, nitrogen losses and biocide residues were assessed against the baseline scenario. Our results indicated that the scope for biodiesel crops on smallholder, non-soybean producers in Montes Claros is less evident than in Chapada Gaúcha, particularly among the less endowed farmers for whom the increase in farm gross margin in all scenarios is limited to only 6% while oil production was 140 kg per farm, which is very low compared to the 41% increase and more than 48,000 kg of oil of soybean producers. The most effective policy scenario was the provision of inputs such as fertiliser and land preparation. Because in Montes Claros farmers have limited access to fertiliser, machinery and biocides, strategies that enable farmers to increase their cropped area (i.e. land preparation policy more than doubled the crop area) and crop yield levels (i.e. fertiliser policy almost quadrupled crop yields) have highest potential to benefit these farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]