Global food production will need to increase by 70% to meet the demand by the year 2050

Modern agriculture is intensive, controlled and demands high investments, inputs and know how. Regardless of the improvement of agricultural practices and productivity, there is no doubt that within the next 20 – 30 years, the world's food production will be lower than the demand. The anticipation is that the global food production will need to increase by 70% to meet the demand by the year 2050. Therefore, the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment has set their central goal on increasing the effectiveness of the agricultural practices, in order to increase production, improve nutritional quality of products and their shelf life.

Agricultural production is an important component in the reciprocal relations between human activity and the environment. Therefore, agricultural development must be performed while protecting and even enhancing environmental quality. As a result, the main challenge which stands before a scientist from the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, includes understanding of the processes which affect and improve the quality of the environment while achieving the goal of sustaining the agricultural environment and preserving it for future generations. Because of the complexity of the task, it will be essential to use economic tools as a mean of dealing with these challenges.

The goal of the Faculty's research is to promote basic, fundamental and applied research in agricultural sciences which include plant and animal sciences, food and nutrition sciences, ecology, entomology, microbiology and plant pathology, soil and water sciences and environmental economics. Our challenge is to increase high quality food production under changing climate conditions with minimal adverse environmental cost.