2011-12-14
Future Agriculture scientist co-author of consensus statement that is the basis for an article in Nature
In connection with the Polish EU Presidency, a group of researchers led by Professor Tim Benton, Great Britain met at the Polish Academy of Sciences to make a consensus statement on Europe's role as a key player in global food security. The research team covers the areas of agriculture, economics, sociology, environment, ecology, conservation issues, water and food. The statement was submitted recently to the Polish Minister of Agriculture.
Prof. Jan Bengtsson, Department of Ecology, SLU and a member of Future Agriculture´s steering committee, was one of the researchers who participated in the statement that food and agriculture should play a central role in European politics. In order to ensure global food security requires cross-border approach that combines agricultural production, environment, health and socio-economic issues. There was also consensus that the EU must maintain the productive agricultural land to meet future food needs, both in Europe and globally.
SLU's research program Future Agriculture and scenarios developed within the programme constituted were part of the background documents for the statement.
The consensus statement forms the basis of the letter which is now published in Nature (Correspondance to Nature).