The inception workshop for the ELOBIO project, funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Program, took place in Brussels on 23 November 2007. This 3-year project seeks to identify integrated policy measures which are suitable for both the promotion of bio-fuels while at the same time avoiding or minimizing negative effects on other policy goals and markets. LUC's role in ELOBIO is to model impacts of increased demand for bio-fuel feedstocks on food and feed commodity markets, and to assess the effects of different policies and measures aiming to reduce this disturbance. ELOBIO research and recommendations are serving the Intelligent Energy Executive Agency of the European Commission. Brochure (pdf)

On 8 October Günther Fischer was invited to a conference in Rüschlikon organized by SwissRe, Centre for Global Dialogue to give a presentation on "Outlook of next 20 years - Risky for agro". Presentation (pdf)

The agri benchmark network invited Land Use Change program leader Günther Fischer to their annual conference 11-13 July 2007 at the Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL) in Braunschweig, Germany, where he presented an overview and detailed lecture on Agro-ecological Impacts of Global Climate Change (pdf). Agri benchmark is a global network of farm economists generating sustainable, comparable, quantified information about farming systems, their economics and perspectives world-wide.

At the Mankind, Agriculture and Ecosystem Symposium (June 22-24, 2007) at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome, LUC's Mahendra Shah presented on Food Security, Human Health and Climate Change: The 21st Century Challenges (pdf). Abstract.

As part of a cooperative agreement between the Land Use Change Program and Ukraine's Institute of Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences, program leader Günther Fischer visited Kiev in May, where he presented methodology and results of a detailed resource potential and climate change impact analysis for Ukraine. Presentation 1 (pdf). His talk on ongoing LUC research toward a European “Biofuel Roadmap” (project REFUEL) highlighted recent findings for Ukraine. Presentation 2 (pdf).

The Water and Global Change (WATCH) start-up meeting took place 19-21 March 2007 in Oxford, England. This four-year integrated project, which is being funded under the European Commission's 6th Framework Program me, brings together more than 25 institutions to analyze, quantify and predict the components of the current and future global water cycles. LUC’s task is to provide global spatial data on key components of the water cycle from 1900-2100 concerning agricultural, industrial and domestic uses, and modeling techniques and methodologies for scaling and analyzing the data.

The CATSEI project (Chinese Agricultural Transition: Trade, Social and Environmental Impacts), which receives funding from the European Commission's 6th Framework Program me, studies the changes in agricultural trade and the social and environmental impacts associated with the process of agricultural transition.
Quick Overview (pdf). CATSEI builds upon earlier work of the participants in this field using analysis tools and databases developed in the CHINAGRO project.