Feeding the World - Top 100 Questions of Importance to the Future of Global Agriculture
17.11.2010
An important paper just published in The International Journal of Agricultural Sustainabilit y identifies the top 100 questions for the future of global agriculture. Written by a multidisciplinary team of 55 agricultural and food experts from 23 countries, Dr Colin Sage of UCC's Department of Geography was the sole contributor from Ireland and was charged with responsibility for one of the 13 themes in the paper.

The paper embarked from a shared understanding that the challenge to producing more food in the decades ahead can no longer focus solely on maximising productivity without significantly adapting to climate change, the stresses on freshwater resources, uncertainty in global energy markets and dietary changes. Such challenges will require us to rethink many of the conventional methods that have emphasised output at the expense of other considerations, says Dr Sage. “We need to build greater resilience and adaptability into the global food system and that is likely to involve giving more serious attention to encouraging shifts in patterns of consumption as well as to finding ways of producing more food more sustainably”.

The highly innovative approach adopted by the paper involved sifting, refining and revising an initial list of 618 questions over the course of a year into the top 100. The purpose of these wide-ranging questions is that they are capable of realistic research design and cover 13 themes identified as priority to global agriculture and food production. They now form the potential for driving research agendas, private sector investments, NGO priorities and UN projects and programmes.

The full paper is available open access so that it can be freely downloaded around the world. It can be accessed at: http://bit.ly/a6aycB
Picture: Dr Colin Sage

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