Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: Food Security and Land Use: The Telecoupling Challenge

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 14-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum and the European Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Global Change (FACCE-JPI). The Belmont Forum is a high level group of the world's major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international environmental research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. FACCE-JPI brings together 21 countries committed to building an integrated European Research Area addressing the interconnected challenges of sustainable agriculture, food security and impacts of enviornmental change. Belmont Forum and FACCE-JPI countries participated in this initiative under a funding framework developed by the G8 Heads of Research Councils. This framework supports multilateral research projects that address global challenges in ways that are beyond the capacity of national or bilateral activities. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions. The Belmont Forum and FACCE-JPI have provided support for research projects that seek to deliver knowledge needed for action to mitigate and adapt to detrimental environmental change and extreme hazardous events that relate to Food Security and Land Use Change. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry). This project brings together researchers and stakeholders from four different countries. The team will use the framework of telecoupling - socioeconomic and environmental interactions among coupled human and natural systems at different scales over great distances - to examine feedbacks between food security and land use. Results of this project include an enhanced capacity to predict effects from shifts in food flows and land use; and tools to facilitate policy changes that will improve food production and distribution while ensuring a more sustainable environment.