Food Security in the Changing Environment (Distance Learning)

Course Structure

1. Critically evaluate opinions and perspectives from a variety of sources.
2. Debate and discuss economic, social and environmental issues facing agriculture from a global perspective.
3. Demonstrate the ability to create an effective presentation as a member of an online team illustrating a diversity of opinions.
4. Introduction to food security and food systems: Definitions and evolution of the concept of food security; conventional and alternative food systems and their interconnections
5. Cropping systems: Intensive, subsistence and alternative systems
6. Drivers affecting the food system: Population and increased demand; Governance; Energy and other costs; Competition for resources
7. Impact of future climate change; Impacts of rising prices
8. Sustainably balancing future supply and demand; improving productivity using existing knowledge and emerging technologies; sustainable intensification
9. Reducing waste; improving governance; reducing / managing demand
10. Linking food systems with environmental policy; improving biodiversity and ecosystem services while increasing food production
11. Introduction to climate change - the science
12. Historical and predicted future changes: IPCC 5
13. Impacts of food systems on climate change \x96 emissions from cultivation, fertilizer production and use, deforestation and animal husbandry
14. Assessing the impacts of climate change on agriculture and land use
15. Adaptation of global food systems to climate change
16. Evaluating measures to reduce greenhouse emissions from agricultural production
17. Evaluating opportunities for carbon sequestration in agricultural systems?
18. Climate change in public perception
19. Current and future drivers of climate change mitigation in agriculture
20. Upland environments and land use;
21. Socio-economics of upland farming;
22. Production and marketing of food from upland farming;
23. Impact on ecosystem service provision (e.g. regulating flooding; water quality; greenhouse gas emissions; biodiversity);
24. Drivers of future change in the management of upland environments;
25. Methods in ecological and economic appraisal appropriate for upland farming.
26. Practically assess soil type and quality;
27. Utilise data to design sustainable soil management regimes;
28. Understand the ecosystem services associated with soils, including water quality, climate and hazard regulation;
29. Assess nutrient budgets, such as the recycling of different wastes to land and soil pollutants (heavy metals).
30. Describe quantitatively the environmental impacts arising from farm systems in the context of food supply chains;
31. Recognise priority hotspots for environmental improvement within pasture-based farm systems;
32. Determine the most appropriate tools and methodologies to assess farm and food supply chain; sustainability;
33. Recommend relevant indicators to determine the eco-efficiency of hotspot processes on farms;
34. Critically evaluate alternative management options and certification schemes for particular farm contexts in order to drive environmental improvement.
35. Recognise the dominant effects of agricultural production systems on ecosystem services;
36. Explain the importance GIS for ecosystem service assessment, with reference to spatial scale;
37. Recommend relevant indicators to assess ecosystem service effects of particular agricultural management actions;
38. Critically evaluate agricultural management options with respect to their global effect on ecosystem services.
39. Reproductive technology
40. Genetic improvement
41. Dairy cattle production systems
42. Meat production systems
43. Meat and milk quality
44. Management and prevention of disease
45. Grass genetics and grass breeding
46. Clover breeding and genetics
47. Novel forage crops
48. Grain legumes
49. Forage maize.
50. Oat and barley breeding
51. Adapting to climate change
52. Reducing greenhouse gases from animal livestock
53. Reducing environmental footprint of livestock production
54. Range and distribution of grasslands and the characteristics of herbage species
55. Developments in new forage varieties
56. Managerial and environmental factors, including grassland nutritional requirements, that effect pasture composition and quality.
57. Range and use of forage crops and evaluation of forage cropping programmes.
58. Forage crop breeding
59. Grazing and forage conservation systems.
60. Novel grassland and non-arable crops research and its potential to affect future livestock feeding practice
61. Design of animal nutrition experiments
62. Animal ration formulation and evaluation
63. Nutrient digestion and metabolism
64. Modulating alimentary microbial populations and their ecology, and plant-microbe interactions.
65. Metabolism of carbohydrates, protein and lipids in order to modify the characteristics of meat and milk.
66. Silage production and ensilage systems
67. Silage evaluation
68. Silage fermentation and microbiology
69. Inoculant development
70. Ensilage and preservation of a non-arable crops and its potential to affect future livestock feeding practice
71. Pathogen transfer and food safety in silage fed animals
72. Examine the environmental, economic and social responsibility of farming in the context of food security and the changing environments.
73. Demonstrate how selected management practices can improve the resource-efficiency and overall sustainability of food production for food security in a global context.
74. Able to express a global perspective reflecting on whether and how growing demand for food from limited land resources can be met through sustainable intensification.
75. Gain academic research skills, critical evaluation competence and proposal writing abilities for completion of a dissertation.
76. Overview of mixed farming systems and soil health
77. Crop rotation: regulatory and environmental context
78. Building soil fertility
79. Cultivation and harvest options
80. Plant health and weed control
81. Economic evaluation
82. Maize, protein, cereal and brassica crops, and short term grass leys
83. Domestication of agricultural species
84. Basic concepts of genetics
85. Modern breeding methodologies
86. Trait evaluation and reporting
87. Marker assisted selection and next generation sequencing
88. Genetic technology
89. Agricultural genetics and society
90. Future prospects
91. Overview of production systems
92. Low input markets
93. Nutrition in low input systems
94. Home grown feeds
95. Nutrient flow
96. Rotation management
97. Breeding
98. Disease control
99. The future for low input farming
100. Controlling diseases in the UK
101. Basic principles of nutrition
102. Animal welfare in the UK
103. Methods of control
104. Measuring and improving welfare
105. Economically significant diseases (diagnosis and methods of control)
106. Future challenges