Food security

We strive to address the challenge of feeding the growing human population sustainably without devastating our environment.

• Cyber security for food security
  Rapid adoption of sensor-driven technology in the food sector requires careful consideration of the cyber security implications for such critical infrastructure.
• Strategies of resistance and resilience to food insecurity and environmental change: the informal trading of food in the Caribbean
  In the Turks and Caicos Islands access to food through formal channels is too expensive for large segments on society; relying instead on covert, informal trade for nutritious food.
• Characterising the nature, origins and impact of dissolved organic matter in freshwater ecosystems
  From toxic algal blooms to the mobilisation of pollutants, could understanding the complexities of dissolved organic matter help society tackle environmental decline?
• Guiding policy on oceans’ food production potential
  As an ever-expanding human population creates spiralling demand for food, policymakers are looking to the oceans to help prevent a crisis.
• Food as a commons: Setting an innovative research and impact agenda for the future of food in the UK
  Thinking of food as a 'commons' in the transition to more bottom-up food systems.
• Making cities more pollinator-friendly
  As we face an increasingly urban future, we need to protect and cultivate greater biodiversity in our cities for the sake of people and pollinators alike.
• Improving the sustainability of livestock farming
  The global warming effects of livestock are supposedly well established. But actually, it may be a more complex picture than previously assumed.
• Combating crop-destroying viruses in Africa
  Whether it affects cassava, yam, cocoa, maize or almost anything else, the decimation of Africa’s key crops by vector-borne viruses is deepening poverty and breeding malnutrition.

• Connected
  Our experts span all of the University’s Faculties, from human, animal and plant health to social scientists and are strongly connected to practitioners, from Somerset farmers to UK poverty experts to global development agents.
• Successful
  Among our flagship successes is the ongoing characterisation of the wheat genome; we have identified and shared an open database of genetic markers of direct practical use to breeders across the world.
• Fundamental
  We continue to make fundamental advances in understanding plant-soil interactions, plant pathogens and the effect of climate change on plant physiology.