Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems (ASSIST)

以可持续的方式养活迅速增长的全球人口是人类面临的最大挑战之一。解决这一问题将需要灵活的战略组合，包括最大限度地减少食物的浪费损失，减少饲料中动物产品的数量，同时提高现有养殖区的生产力和效率，同时保持其和其他生态系统服务所依赖的自然资本。后一种农业“可持续集约化”概念被认为是确保粮食安全和为子孙后代创造健康环境的核心。然而，如何最好地实现这一点是激烈辩论的主题。完全测试SI的概念将需要对农业生态系统进行世界领先的研究，该研究整合了环境、农业和社会科学，并在一系列范围内得到应用。为了支持研究界实现这一目标，我们将在BBSRC和NERC研究所、Rothamsted研究所(RRES)、生态和水文学中心(CEH)和英国地质调查局(BGS)之间建立长期(10年以上)的国家能力。这将需要来自多个学科的关键和稳定的大量专业知识，以及通过培训和发展早期职业研究人员进行能力建设。只有将自然资源管理的专门知识(CEH、BGS)和作物生产的专门知识结合在一起，我们才能充分研究集约化对更广泛环境的影响，并开发有助于环境可持续的协同耕作系统。援助计划--实现可持续农业系统--将开发创新的耕作系统，以保持或提高生产力和对未来扰动的适应能力，同时减少农业的环境和生态足迹。它将促进五个核心领域的知识：1)确定当前和未来对作物生产力的生物物理限制；2)预测农业管理变化对更广泛环境的影响；3)了解和加强支撑粮食生产的生态过程；4)开发创新的耕作系统，在最大限度地减少投入的同时最大限度地提高产量，并增强对未来环境变化的适应能力；以及5)为规划未来多功能土地利用提供工具和数据，以优化粮食生产的效益，同时最大限度地减少与其他生态系统服务的权衡和冲突。然而，目前的举措有理由是短期的，而且仅限于现有政策和实践(Defra)，或农业生态系统的单一组成部分，如土壤过程(RCUK)。虽然它们构成了一个宝贵的起点，并提供了对关键过程的详细了解，但我们将通过考虑新的中长期和远景农业系统和技术的长期(10年以上)、大规模有效性、影响和稳健性来补充和超越这些倡议。这种国家能力将为社区提供实地和国家层面经过验证的生物物理模型和数据，使用商业农场的英国范围的研究基础设施，以及探索和综合产生的数据的工具。它将为更广泛的学术界和工业界之间建立新的伙伴关系提供机会，以解决关键的知识差距，包括吸收和实施这些新耕作系统的社会经济障碍，以及整合作物育种方面的进展。这些活动将共同支持农业评估实现环境可持续性宏伟目标的潜力，同时保持在全球市场上的竞争力。

Feeding the rapidly growing global population in a sustainable way is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Addressing this will require a flexible mix of strategies, including minimising wasteful losses of food, reducing the amount of animal products in diets, together with increasing the productivity and efficiency of the existing farmed area whilst maintaining natural capital on which it and other ecosystem services depend. The latter concept of 'sustainable intensification' (SI) of agriculture is considered central to ensuring food security and a healthy environment for future generations. However, how best to achieve this is the subject of vigorous debate. Testing fully the concept of SI will require world-leading research into agro-ecosystems, which integrates environmental, agricultural and social sciences, and is applied across a range of scales. To support the research community in achieving this goal we will build a long-term (10 year+) national capability between BBSRC and NERC institutes, Rothamsted Research (RRes), Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and British Geological Survey (BGS). This will require a critical and stable mass of expertise from a number of disciplines, together with capacity building by training and developing early career researchers. Only by bringing together expertise in management of natural resources (CEH, BGS) with that of crop production (RRes) will we be able to examine fully the impacts of intensification on the wider environment, and develop synergistic farming systems that contribute towards environmental sustainability.The ASSIST programme - Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems - will develop innovative farming systems that maintain or increase productivity and resilience to future perturbations, while reducing the environmental and ecological footprint of agriculture. It will advance knowledge in five core areas: 1) identifying current and future biophysical limitations on crop productivity; 2) predicting the impacts of changes in agricultural management the wider environment, 3) understanding and enhancing the ecological processes underpinning food production; 4) developing innovative farming systems which minimise inputs while maximising yield, and build resilience to future environmental change; and 5) providing tools and data for planning future multi-functional land use that optimises benefits to food production whilst minimising trade-offs and conflicts with other ecosystem services.SI is currently an area of considerable research investment. However, current initiatives are justifiably short-term and have a narrow focus on existing policies and practice (Defra), or on single components of the agro-ecosystem, such as soil processes (RCUK). While they form an invaluable starting point and provide detailed understanding of critical processes, we will complement and go beyond these initiatives through consideration of the longer-term (10 year+), large-scale effectiveness, impacts and robustness of novel mid- and far-horizon agricultural systems and technologies.This national capability will provide the community with validated biophysical models and data at the field and national scale, a UK-wide research infrastructure using commercial farms, and tools to explore and synthesise the data generated. It will provide opportunities for new partnerships between the wider academic community and industry to address critical knowledge gaps, including the socio-economic barriers to uptake and implementation of these new farming systems, and the integration of advances in crop breeding. Together these activities will support the agricultural industry in assessing the potential to meet ambitious goals for environmental sustainability whilst remaining competitive in the global market.