Palaeobenchmarking Resilient Agricultural Systems
How can we maximise the productivity and sustainability of global agriculture, now and in the future?
Overcoming the complexity of growing crops
Lead researcher: Professor Matt Jones
Understanding what factors undermine or impact the resilience of crops is essential to sustain the dietary needs of a growing global population. Which is why we are using an interdisciplinary, holistic approach to draw on the past, present and predicted agricultural management systems to better understand crop resilience.
Agricultural resilience has been a challenge for societies for over 11,000 years. To deepen our understanding of agricultural resilience scenarios – and improve productivity and sustainability of future agriculture – the Palaeobenchmarking Resilient Agricultural Systems (PalaeoRAS) will investigate past, present and projected agricultural systems in Latin America, the Fertile Crescent, and East Asia, and explore how plants have responded to climatic stress against the backdrop of environmental, biological, economic and social variables.