Agriculture sciences

How can agriculture secure food for a growing world population without putting further strain on the planet? With the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, the European Union 2020 has drawn up a plan for how the region can become climate-neutral by 2050. This strategy is part of the European Green Deal and includes measures and targets for the production and consumption of food within planetary boundaries, such as reducing the use of pesticides by 50% by 2030.

As the successor to the EU's well-known ERA-NET research funding, the current Horizon Europe research framework includes so-called public-public partnerships. A partnership of this type relevant to bioeconomy research was launched in January 2024: "Agroecology living labs and research infrastructures - AGROECOLOGY".

Ensuring food security is the most important task of agriculture. However, the sector is already suffering from the consequences of climate change and is under pressure to secure food for a growing world population. At the same time, it is partly responsible for a large proportion of climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions and for the loss of biodiversity. A change in agricultural and food systems towards greater sustainability is the only way to master the challenges of the future.

The cultivation of pure crops such as maize, when grown as a monoculture, is not always environmentally friendly. The nutrients are used very one-sidedly, so that the plants are more susceptible to pests and fertilizers and pesticides have to be applied. Combined cultivation with legumes such as peas and beans has long been considered a promising approach to making agriculture more sustainable.

Around a third of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the way in which land is farmed and food is produced. Above all, meat consumption and the associated animal husbandry contribute to climate-damaging emissions and require a rethink in agriculture. A global report on the economics of agricultural and food systems shows how the global economy would benefit from a food transition.

Whether heat, drought or flooding: Weather extremes put food crops such as wheat under stress and increasingly lead to crop failures. In addition to research into new resistant varieties that can withstand the effects of climate change and secure food supplies, diagnostic tools are needed to detect climate-related stress symptoms or diseases in plants at an early stage. Two imaging methods that have proven their worth in human medicine should also provide a remedy in agriculture in the future.

The agricultural and food industry is in a state of transition. Not only climate change, but also the increasing demand for healthy and sustainably produced products as well as new regulations and laws are forcing the industry to act. Specialists in the agricultural and food industry must therefore increasingly take international and interdisciplinary contexts into account. The Technical University of Munich (TUM) wants to address this development with a new Master's degree course in agriculture.

According to estimates, more than 900 million tons of residual biomass are produced throughout the European Union every year. Only a small proportion of this is recycled and fermented in biogas plants, for example. The majority, around 98%, ends up in, incineration plants or landfill sites. But this is now set to change.

Whether waste paper, cereal straw, food waste or sewage sludge: the use of residual and waste materials to manufacture new bio-based products is a cornerstone of the bioeconomy strategy and a precursor to a sustainable and resource-conserving economy. But which biomasses are available, which can be used for material or energy purposes and in what quantities are they available? Answers can be found in the resource database of the German Biomass Research Center (DBFZ). Researchers at the DBFZ have now revised the online platform.