Thinkpiece 2014: Whitmore & Hartley
Thinkpiece summary: How a self-organised science community can help deliver sustainable intensification for agriculture in the UK.
Andy Whitmore, Rothamsted Research, Hertfordshire and Sue Hartley, University of York.
A community approach can bring added value to research on the sustainable intensification of agriculture.
One of the greatest global challenges is to be able to feed ourselves in the face of climate change and population growth whilst at the same time preserving our natural capital. Sustainable intensification of agriculture is suggested as an approach where agricultural production and environmental management are intensified at the same time.
Current research on sustainable intensification is usually at the level of a project or programme. We will consider ways in which the community working on sustainable intensification could better work together: we envisage much larger affiliations of scientists and practitioners leading to a community with a common goal and an endeavor more akin in scope and scale to a moon landing.
To achieve its goals, this community must persuade policy makers to make use its results and for this to happen the community must explain its idea and its vision. It must, too, be prepared to listen to policymakers and engage in dialogue about how to carry out and explain outcome-focussed research of this kind.
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This is just a taster: the full thinkpiece will be published in Autumn 2014.
