What is LEFS?: Know about the team that scales research-based solutions toward low-emission food systems

Providing the “best available science” toward low-emission food systems and thus development is among what the research sub-lever headed by Dr. Augusto Castro-Nunez at the Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture aims to do.

The Low-Emissions Food Systems sublever (LEFS) specifically has a mission to develop and scale research-based solutions that contribute to transforming food and land systems into low emitters of greenhouse gases and delivering sustainable development co-benefits.

“If we want to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, it’s imperative we mold food systems into mechanisms that not only nourish people and guarantee their access to food but also be a friend to the natural environment,” said Castro-Nunez.

What started as a team of four researchers in 2017, LEFS has grown to become a multidisciplinary group with more than a dozen of experts on environmental conservation, zero-deforestation value chain approaches, modeling, econometrics, agribusiness and peacebuilding. They include Ph.D. candidates, a great number of whom are women.