Sustainable Agriculture and Food Production MSc

Feed the world whilst protecting our planet.

Society is dependent on our ability to produce sufficient, nutritious food through agriculture. However farming practices have detrimental impacts on our environments, global biodiversity and climate. The increasing importance of sustainable agriculture and food production is driven by the triple threat of growing global population, rising pressure on our environment and a changing climate.

This is a multidisciplinary programme, which builds on key strengths in sustainable agricultural research within our faculty and taps into the diverse expertise available across the wider University and beyond, including the Global Food and Environment Institute. Teaching will be both interdisciplinary and research-led to ensure that you are aware of the issues throughout the field of both agriculture and food production.

You’ll be taught the fundamentals of sustainable agriculture and food production from a wide range of perspectives, before moving on to cutting edge research topics. This will include an array of agricultural innovations, including environmental management and monitoring, sustainable livestock production, genome engineering and crop biotechnology.

As well as being exposed to the latest research in sustainable agriculture, with a significant component of practical work, field skills and training in relevant techniques, you’ll build a wealth of transferable research skills. This will prepare you for your advanced research project, working under the supervision of a world-leading academic or industrial expert. We also encourage work-embedded research projects with food production-related organisations globally.

The programme will prepare you for both PhD study and employment in a large range of industries that support agriculture and food production, propelling you into roles such as consultancy, policy, scientific monitoring and biotech, to name just a few. More generally, your skills would align strongly with a wealth of opportunities in business and government around sustainability, climate mitigation, decarbonisation and circular economies.

Course highlights

* Be empowered to research and change agricultural practices through innovative and environmental solutions

* A significant proportion of the teaching on this course is provided by academics from the Centre for Plant Sciences, a cross-faculty research centre of excellence in plant sciences

* Learn and undertake research within the University of Leeds and the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) specialist facilities including the research farm, which houses the £11million National Pig Centre

* Gain an in-depth understanding of the social and political aspects of sustainable agriculture and food production