Agriculture, Climate and Ecosystems

Agriculture is the main source of nutrients and biomass for an increasingly diverse range of uses in our globally connected economies. But, agriculture also contributes to climate change and the degradation of ecosystems through land use change, soil erosion, excessive water use, and pollution. These undesirable environmental impacts of agriculture are increasingly turning into risks for agricultural production itself. For example, farmers struggle to maintain crop yields on degraded soils and uncertain climate conditions, and the elevated use of agrochemicals threatens human health and the environment.

Research under this research topic focuses on reducing these and other sustainability tradeoffs resulting from agricultural production as a basis for providing sustainable healthy diets and other bio-based products. We bridge across relevant scales from processes at cell-level in the crop and animal sciences to the plant, field, and farm-levels as well as the ecosystem scale, fostering close collaboration between natural sciences, engineering, economics, and social sciences. This includes, for example, research on (1) new drought-resistant crop varieties, (2) carbon-farming practices, (3) alternative field arrangement to increase agrobiodiversity, (4) animal welfare, and (5) monitoring and modeling systems to measure and predict the eco-efficiency of agricultural production systems.  

Our research aims at providing improved knowledge for the design of resilient and productive agricultural systems that minimize negative impacts on the climate, ecosystems, and human health. Through regular engagement with stakeholders, such as farmers, industry representatives, and policy makers, we seek to develop and upscale improved management and technology-based solutions for more sustainable agricultural production systems.