€10.5M Call for Food Security and Land-use Research Launched

A €10.5M call to fund research into food security and land-use change has been launched by the Belmont Forum and the Agriculture, Food Security & Climate Change Joint Programming Initiative (FACCE-JPI), with UK input to this programme coordinated through the Global Food Security programme.

With its overall focus on food security, this call emphasises three fundamental topics:
1.    Land use change impacts on food systems
2.    Food systems dynamics as driver of land use changes
3.    Feedback loop interactions between land use change and food security dynamics

Both short term projects of up to 18 months and medium term projects between three to five years will be eligible for consideration.

Funding will support researchers to cooperate in consortia consisting of partners from at least three of the participating countries, which must bring together trans-disciplinary teams with multi-stakeholder participation.

Three GFS partners, BBSRC, ESRC and NERC, are providing funding of up to €1.75m for this call, and expect to support UK participation in approximately five to eight projects across both project types.

Prof Tim Benton, Global Food Security Champion said: "With the growth of demand for food rising so sharply, the real challenge is how to manage the land in a way that is sustainable for the long term.

"This call will fund some much needed research to understand the interplay between the food system and how it affects and is affected by land use."