Resilient agricultural production systems at multiple spatial and temporal levels

Scientific questions explored under this theme include:

• How can conceptual frameworks be developed for defining agricultural sustainability at multiple levels?
• How can temporal variability in production be reduced, and how can this be managed as one of the causative agents of price volatility?
• What are the implications of change in multiple socio-economic and environmental drivers for delivering sustainable intensification?
• How can policies and strategies be optimised to promote agricultural systems that are resilient and that can adapt to climate change, economic and environmental shocks?
• What are the limits to and trade-offs within sustainable production systems, and how are they best governed?

Optimal land management for food production and other ecosystem services

Scientific questions explored under this theme include:

• How can tensions between competing land uses be resolved? (includes existing and changing land use and natural resources; across temporal levels)
• How can land use systems be designed to optimise synergies which satisfy social, economic and environmental goals, and the provision of ecosystem services?
• How can scale, location, diversity and complementarity of rural enterprises be optimized to enhance the provision of complementary activities within a landscape?
• What are the limits to and trade-offs within sustainable production systems, and how are they best governed?

Sustainable improvement of food productivity in the farm and enterprise level

Scientific questions explored under this theme include:

• What practices (including uptake of existing and novel technologies) can be developed and adopted to maximise resource-use efficiency in different contexts (space and time)
• What knowledge and information can be delivered to sustainably improve the quality of crops at the farm/enterprise level (what/where/how)?
• What knowledge and information can be developed to sustainably deliver improved quality of livestock products (what where how) and welfare considerations and feed issues?
• How can interactions between genetic resources, environment and management (GxExM) in different locations be optimised?
• What strategic and tactical tools and practices can be developed and adopted to adapt to and mitigate consequences of extreme events/increasing volatility including those related to climate variability and other changes?

Food losses and waste

Food losses and waste (FLW) due to inefficiencies of resource use along the entire food supply chain and corresponding negative environmental, economic and social impact has been recognised as an emerging international challenge. 

Both developed and developing countries contribute to FLW although underlying reasons differ. Research activities have increased in recent years but there are still knowledge gaps which hinder comprehensive, interdisciplinary action in practice.

This future activity will identify food losses and waste research priorities and provide corresponding recommendations for action both for science and research funding.

Synthesis and foresight analysis

This future work will assess the range of futures scenarios conducted to date, in order to synthesise recommendations and subsequently perform a gap analysis.

This approach is typically about evaluating how the world might be, and predicting how 'business as usual' and 'business unusual' scenarios will impact on current decision-making. Such scenarios can stress test institutional ability to cope with the unexpected, and can be used to define trajectories of decision-making to avoid undesirable futures and improve confidence in final decisions.