Tackling the world’s food security crisis together.

Food Security and Land Research Alliance: Rationale

The need for research to help secure global food security and ensure resilient land management lies at the heart of the Alliance between the University of Bath, University of Bristol, University of Exeter, Rothamsted Research and Cardiff University

The Alliance is characterised by cross institutional working and cross-disciplinarity with each institution having a strong record of relevant research with well-established funding relationships with research councils, government departments and the private sector. 

The Alliance unites our individual research strengths, making us one of the leading international players in agro-food and land-based research. This is an exciting development and we believe we can achieve great things and make a real difference.

Our four institutions hold a huge range of expertise, encompassing: 

  • Plant breeding and tackling crop diseases.
  • Leading work on farm animal welfare.
  • Climate change science.
  • Soil and nutrients science.
  • Sustainability and governance
  • Plus the full breadth of economic, social science and humanities expertise.

At North Wyke in Devon, Rothamsted Research, which receives strategic funding from the BBSRC, has developed a state of the art research facility, the Farm Platform, for farm scale research on biophysical processes that influence agriculture and the environment. The Farm Platform provides a particularly important focus for the activity of the Alliance.

On this website we showcase how we are helping to address problems across the globe, from sequencing the pathogen that threatens to devastate banana crops in East Africa to understanding why lameness affects a third of the UK’s dairy cattle.

We bring a wide range of disciplines to the issue of food security, from economists analysing the determinants of food prices to biochemists protecting maize crops against a common pest.

Professor Michael Winter OBE
University of Exeter
Co-Director of the Food Security Land Research Alliance

Professor Mark Eisler
University of Bristol
Co-Director of the Food Security Land Research Alliance

Professor Achim Doberman
Director Rothamsted Research

Professor Rich Pancost
Director Cabot Institute, University of Bristol

Dr Richard Hooley
Head of Department, Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath

Professor Nick Talbot
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Exeter

Professor Terry Marsden
Director of Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University