The Future of Food and Farming.

In 2011 the UK Government’s Office of Science published the Foresight Report on the Future of Food and Farming (the speaker chaired its “Lead Expert Group”).  The project took a holistic view of the food system and the interaction of food security with climate change, the environment and sustainable development.  It concluded that action was needed simultaneously to produce more food, moderate demand, reduce waste and to improve food system governance.  It argued that little or no new land should be brought into agriculture, and that sustainable intensification – increasing productivity while reducing environmental impacts – should be a research and implementation priority.  It also said that investment in agriculture should have a more central role in development.  The talk will summarise the thinking behind these conclusions and work that has occurred in the follow up to the Project.