Food security group wins major funding for world-leading food and land research

Published On Wed 10 Dec 2014 by Grant Hill

The Scottish Food Security Alliance-Crops (SFSA-C), a collaboration between the Universities of Aberdeen and Dundee and The James Hutton Institute has been awarded €2million funding to research the global links between food security and land use change.

The funding will allow the group to work towards tackling one of society’s biggest challenges of the 21st century - feeding a global population of 9-10 billion people by 2050. The project, entitled Delivering Food Security on Limited Land (DEVIL), fought off stiff competition from proposals from around the world to be selected for funding under the Belmont Forum-FACCE JPI Food Security and Land Use Change Programme.  DEVIL also involves other world-leading research teams from the US, Australia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Switzerland and France.

It will be coordinated by the University of Aberdeen’s Professor Pete Smith. Researchers from Dundee’s Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience (CECHR) led by Professor John Rowan will play a central role in the project by building on the FEEDME model developed in Dundee to integrate climate change, land management and food production, considering among other things the calorie and nutritional value of crops.

Professor Rowan said, “This is an incredible opportunity to collaborate with some of the world’s foremost authorities on global food supply, distribution and consumption.  The project is the first major outcome of the SFSA-C and goes to the heart of the University of Dundee’s Transformation Agenda, which is about using excellent science to make a difference to people’s lives in terms of fairness and sustainability.”

The project also has the support of the World Bank and CCAFS (the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security). It will begin early in 2015 and will run for 48 months, and is expected to deliver outputs relevant for policy making at regional and global scales.

Professor Smith said the partners were pleased to be awarded the funding, which cements the collaboration between Aberdeen, JHI and Dundee within the Scottish Food Security Alliance-Crops.

He said, “The amount of land on the planet is finite so we need to find ways to allow food security to be delivered, whilst protecting the other ecosystem services provided by the land. All of this has to be achieved against a backdrop of population change and rapid dietary transition.

“Furthermore, the challenge of delivering food security on limited land is so great that no single discipline has the tools to address it. That is why we have assembled this multi-disciplinary team, involving natural scientists, social scientists, nutritionists, economists and knowledge exchange experts from around the world. All partners are leaders in their fields, and we are delighted to have to opportunity to bring this expertise to bear one of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

More information about The Scottish Food Security Alliance-Crops can be found at www.sfsa-crops.org.   

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