Developing Strategies for Profitable, Sustainable Agricultural Frameworks and Food Security

Programme 1 forms part of the Scottish Government's Rural and Environment Research and Analysis Directorate [1] (RERAD) research commissioned from the Main Research Providers [2] (MRPs). The current research strategy [3] runs from 2005 – 2010.

Programme 1 research aims to develop and implement strategies to deal with sustainable agriculture and food security, taking on board the need to mitigate/adapt to climate change and to protect biodiversity.

The research addresses three primary objectives:

• genetics for sustainablility
• plant pathology for sustainable crop production
• designing crops for sustainable production.

This large, multi-disciplinary and output-orientated programme is being delivered by plant, microbe and environmental scientists working together with mathematicians, statisticians, economists and social scientists from:

• SCRI (Scottish Crop Research Institute) [4]
• The Macaulay Institute [5]
• SAC (Scottish Agricultural College) [6]
• BioSS (Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland) [7].

Programme 1 co-ordinator

• Professor Howard Davies [8], SCRI