Agricultural Production Systems

Our research

We are harnessing natural sciences, data analytics and socio-economic sciences for agriculture, food security and rural development.

Food security and sustainability concerns

There is increasing concern about food security and the sustainability of current agricultural production globally. The statistics make for alarming reading.

To meet global food demands by 2050, agricultural production needs to increase by 60%.
Feeding 9 billion people requires more food in the next 40 years than produced in the past 10,000 years.
We are losing species at unprecedented rates. This reflects the pressures current farming practices place on the natural environment.

We desperately need a sustainable system of producing food. We have to address the food needs of the growing human population while:

limiting pressure on resources (energy, minerals and water)
minimising negative impacts on the environment
not bringing more land under cultivation

Our group aims to find solutions to these challenges. We do this through strategic and translational research into sustainable agriculture and food systems linked to healthy rural communities.

Our facilities

We perform research at a range of scales from the molecule to the farm, accessing first-class facilities including:

two commercial farms equipped to conduct cutting-edge science under real-world conditions in Northumberland
world class facilities on the university campus, for:
- molecular biology
- diagnostics
- soil science
- proteomics
- analytical chemistry

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Themes

We conduct our research into Agricultural Production Systems under three main themes.

Diagnostics and Crop Health

During the past 20 years diagnostics have become faster, more reliable and significantly decreased in cost. This is primarily due to the adoption of molecular biology technologies. In the field, current technologies (e.g. LAMP amplification) enable us to perform rapid tests at the point of decision-making. This is with the same precision achieved in centralised testing laboratories. But it's at a fraction of the cost and in near to real time.

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Farm management

Farmers need to manage land to produce profitable arable and livestock crops. But they should also look to environmental benefits, such as biodiversity, clear water, carbon sinks and attractive landscapes. This has led to adjustments in farming systems, which have traded-off food production for enhanced environmental goods.

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Assessing the sustainability of low-input animal production

One aspect of sustainability often overlooked is impact of the farming system on quality of food we produce. This is especially true with respect to consumers’ health. We could ‘feed the world’ but this is not sustainable if it induces chronic health conditions among the population.

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Our partnerships

The research challenges in this area are significant. To address them, we developed partnerships to widen our research capacity and better realise impacts from research we undertake.

Institute for Agri-Food Research Innovations (IAFRI)

The Institute for Agri-Food Research Innovations (IAFRI) is a partnership with Fera Science Limited.

Fera is a translational science company working in the agri-food space, itself part of a joint ownership with UK Defra.

This partnership provides an interface which allows Fera to access pure and strategic research undertaken within the University.

It gives the University access to translate innovations to front line uses, for commercial and government customers.

Agritech centres

We are a founding partner in two of the four UK agritech centres. They resulted from a £90m investment by the UK government to meet challenges of sustainable agriculture in the UK.

As a result, Newcastle University leads on the several capital assets owned by the Centre for Crop Health and Production (CHAP) and the Centre for Innovation in Livestock (CIEL).