Our course provides specialist skills and knowledge about the most important issues related to the sustainability of agricultural production and food security.
This master's in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security is suitable if you have an interest in sustainable agriculture and food security and want to develop a broad knowledge of the subject.
Sustainable agriculture and food security focuses on the availability of food now and in the future. This is a major concern of scientific and commercial communities world-wide.
The prominence of this subject is driven by:
- an increasing global population
- pressure on non-renewable or scarce resources
- a need to increase food production whilst minimising the impact on the environment
The Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security master's covers all aspects of food security as outlined by Global Food Security. The Global Food Security is a multi-agency programme involving the main UK public sector funders of research and training related to food.
Industry experienced and research-active lecturers teach on this course.
What you'll learn
This master's in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security is comprised of compulsory and optional modules. The compulsory modules provide a detailed overview of the most important issues related to the sustainability of agricultural production and food security.
Optional modules allow specialisation in one or more of the following five topic areas:
- socio-economics, marketing and policy development
- environmental and water management
- soil and crop management
- animal production, health and welfare management
- food quality, safety and nutrition
Approximately half of your credits will be gained through taught modules, which offer an opportunity to learn about a wide range of problems in food security. This is ideal if you have an interest in the subject and do not want to specialise in one topic, or if you want to gain a wide range of knowledge in this area for your career. If you know which area you want to specialise in and are confident that you want to pursue a career in research, then you may find our Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security MRes more suitable.
Our staff
Dr Hannah Davis is the Degree Programme Director and an experienced researcher in the area of ruminant nutrition and grazing management. Hannah's research aims to understand how dairy management practices affect milk quality, animal health and environmental impact with a view to optimising sustainable farming systems.
You can also view staff profiles related to research in Agricultural Production.
Our lecturers are industry experienced and research active. Our research in integrated agricultural production focuses on:
- soil science
- plant science
- ecology
- dairy and beef production
Our research spans a range of scales, from pot – plot – farm – landscape.
Strategic research embraces work on:
- soil quality
- rhizosphere function
- plant-soil feedback
- soil-carbon dynamics
- nutrient cycling
- sustainable livestock
Applied research addresses issues of:
- climate change mitigation (including biofuels)
- ecological (organic) farming systems
- low-input crop systems
- agriculture-environment interactions
Delivery and teaching methods
This course is taught in four-week teaching blocks.
You'll be taught through:
- lectures
- seminars
- practical and field classes
- tutorials
- case studies
- small group discussions
We expect you to undertake independent study outside of these structured sessions.
We offer flexible learning for those already working in industry through the Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme. This framework enables us to award postgraduate-level qualifications using credit-bearing stand-alone modules as 'building blocks' towards a qualification. This means that the credits from modules undertaken within a five-year period can be 'banked' towards the award of a qualification.
Facilities
NU Farms
Our multi-purpose farms are viable farming businesses. We use them as demonstration facilities for teaching purposes. They also provide land-based research facilities.
Our facilities provide an open innovation platform enabling researchers to work with farmers, industry, and environmental and government stakeholders. Together, they develop innovative solutions for balancing sustainable global food production with a thriving rural economy and protection of the wider environment.
These research facilities help us to understand:
- the development and functioning of plant and animal hosts, pathogens and their interactions
- the complex biogeochemical functions of the soil
- crop and livestock health, welfare and productivity
- environmental impact
- interactions between the managed farm environment and the land-air-water interface
We use this fundamental knowledge to:
- integrate genomics, physiology and agronomy in molecular breeding approaches
- develop and optimise farming systems
We collect real data from a network of on-farm crop, soil, livestock and environmental sensors. We use this data to calibrate and validate the digital technologies and models that help us in our research and developments.
