Diversifying the Farming Landscape: What will drive change?

The links between agriculture and society through food, diet and health are key components of this debate.

Food production systems are under increasing pressure to deliver increased productivity, product quality and farmer profitability through improved use of resources, especially nutrients, water and agrobiodiversity, as well as decreasing environmental impact in the face of climate change. The opportunities that diversification of the farming landscape provides in helping Sweden to work towards key Sustainable Development Goals will be discussed during the seminar. A discussion on what is needed in policy and practice to bring about change will also be initiated.

Wallenberg Professor Christine Watson is a guest researcher at SLU based in the Department of Crop Production Ecology at Uppsala working with Göran Bergkvist and Ingrid Öborn. She is Professor of Agricultural Systems at SRUC in Scotland UK.

Her research focuses on improving nutrient use efficiency in a wide range of agricultural systems including outdoor pig production, dairying, organic farming and agroforestry. She is particularly interested in the management of legumes in agricultural systems and was the Scientific Coordinator of the EU Legume Futures project.

Christine Watson currently serves on the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Agronomy and is also involved in teaching the SRUC MSc Organic Farming course by distance Learning. She is former President of the European Society of Agronomy (2014–2016) and Vice President of the Association of Applied Biologists (2015–2017).