Top-tier scientists at MSU are joining some of the best minds in agricultural and sustainability research in Brazil, the United Kingdom and China to launch into an ambitious global initiative on food security and land use.
They have been granted about $1.6 million over five years by The Belmont Forum, a group of the world’s major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils.
The team will scrutinize the production, consumption and international trade of major commodities central to food security.
Telecoupling is a scientific tool with deep roots in MSU that enables natural and social scientists to generate information for managing how humans and nature coexist.
MSU’s principal investigator is Emilio Moran, the Hannah Distinguished Professor of Global Change Science and renowned social scientist and member of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The Belmont Forum is the future’s mechanism for funding global change,” Moran said.
The Telecoupling Consortium, as the research group is called, brings extensive experience to the table, said Mateus Batistella, director of Embrapa Satellite Monitoring in Campinas, Brazil. He was a key player in establishing the formal relationship between the Brazilian Corporation for Agriculture Research and MSU.
“The beauty of our proposal is that it is done on a multiscale basis,” Batistella said. “We all have deep local, regional and international connections.”
MSU AgBioResearch Director Doug Buhler said MSU is a perfect partner to help address the question of how humans and nature will sustainably coexist.