The global food system is more productive than ever, but it's pushing natural systems out of balance in the extreme. Can science help farmers produce the food we need in a more sustainable way?
The world's population continues to grow, and everybody needs to eat. Producing enough healthy, affordable food is a triumph of modern agriculture, but manipulating plants and animals to our own ends has not been without consequences.
A network of researchers across Cambridge is investigating all aspects of the global food system and asking: is it possible to have a highly productive system that doesn’t cause collateral damage?
“We’ve globalised the whole agricultural system and made it incredibly complex. It’s completely unsustainable because we're taking more out of the environment than the environment can sustain," says Lynn Dicks, Professor of Ecology in the Department of Zoology, adding:
"If you consider nature as capital, it’s like liquidating your assets."
