Research

Future Agriculture aims to develop and establish multidisciplinary research with a focus on future food production and land use.

The aim is that the platform will consist of several larger and smaller projects that are associated, more or less strongly. The thematic working groups constitute one part of the platform.

To build a platform by combining different forms of funding and projects of various sizes provide a greater scientific environment and funding base, and a more rapid build-up of the platform. To associate a project to a platform provides a good opportunity to continue to co-finance research, networking and coordinating field studies, experiments and other research.

The projects are grouped under six areas:

Climate change adaptation
Adapting agriculture to climate change requires the development of new skills, strategies and systems, inter alia: more efficient water use and recycling techniques; alternative crops and cropping systems; genetically adapted or modified strains and varieties; measures to improve protection against animal and plant diseases and pests; and robust facilities, e.g. farm buildings, that can withstand extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods and drought.

Responses to societal values
To understand community values and provide a basis for policy decisions, studies on different stakeholders’ ethical concerns related to food production and its environmental impact are needed. Important questions are related to the import of cheap food and export of pollution, impacts of increased food prices and effects of policy instruments.

Reducing environmental impact
In order to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture and its contribution to climate change, research is needed on a range of topics, such as the design of efficient highly productive systems with minimized use of resources, better ways to utilize ecosystem services in agricultural production and land use, the impact of consumption patterns, and the implications of structural changes in the food production chain.

Risk management
Management of actual and potential risks requires more knowledge of hazards, acceptance of new and advanced technology, and advanced studies on the resilience of production systems. Greater knowledge is needed to cope with the diverse changes that are occurring (and will occur in the future), to prepare for extreme situations and pandemics, and to provide opportunities for human populations to produce food self-sufficiently.

Agriculture and rural development
Meeting this challenge requires increased knowledge of the interrelations between rural development and agricultural land use. It calls for increased understanding of the socio-economic organisation of agricultural production and land use, together with greater knowledge of the factors promoting, and barriers hindering, communities and sustainable, productive activities in diverse rural areas. Core issues include ownership, labour requirements, governance of natural resources, synergistic effects of production and other aspects of the rural economy, and the quality of life in rural areas, not least in relation to urban areas.

Resolution of conflicting goals
Solving conflicts of interest related to agriculture requires rigorous research to identify effective approaches for resolving situations where there are conflicting goals, or conclusions differ due to profound differences in stakeholders’ values. Such conflicts may arise from differences in interests or perceptions related to production intensity, impacts of activities on climate and the environment, or animal and human health, land use and land ownership conditions, all of which are also related to values and power relations in society.