Home | Contact Us

UK research community unites to help ensure future food security

New Global Food Security programme launched 11 March 2010

The UK's main public funders of food-related research and training joined together to launch a new programme aimed at meeting the challenge of providing the world's growing population with a sustainable, secure supply of good quality food using less land and fewer resources.

UKCDS members form the majority of organisations who will work together through the Global Food Security programme to coordinate and align their research interests. By working together to develop strategy and identify shared goals the partners aim to harness the country's world-leading research base to help to deliver healthy, sustainable food for all.

Speaking at the launch of the programme on March 11, Professor John Beddington, the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor,  said: "Food security will present a growing challenge in the decades ahead. Recent food price volatility highlights the impacts we will face if we do not respond effectively now to prepare our response. There is the potential for a full food security crisis in the future. The growing global population combined with changing consumption patterns and increased urbanisation, set against the backdrop of a changing climate, means we cannot continue with 'business as usual'.

"Research is crucial to find ways to sustainably meet the increase in demand for food, and to support healthier diets. This means we need multidisciplinary approaches, fostered through the Global Food Security programme, to increase production sustainably, to ensure a secure supply of healthy, affordable food from less land, less water, fewer inputs and producing less waste and emissions."

Global Food Security sponsors and partners include five Research Councils, working together as Research Councils UK, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for International Development, the Government Office for Science, the Scottish Government, the Technology Strategy Board and the Food Standards Agency.

UKCDS Members: BBSRC, BIS, DEFRA, DFID, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Scottish Government