Food Security

Our students arrived and the first session to welcome them to the Food Security programme was held on 23 September. It is always great to meet a new group of students who we will get to know during their year in Glasgow.

This year we have 27 students, with the usual diverse backgrounds. We have 20 students from China, 4 from UK, and 1 from each of Greece, India and Pakistan.

Some students have degrees in biological sciences, including agriculture and biotechnology, while others have degrees in various aspects of food science, and one has a degree in social science. This reflects the multi-faceted nature of food security as a topic and the ethos of our degree programme, which is to give students a broad perspective on the subject.

In the first semester all students take 3 courses, the first of which is Introduction to Food Security. Their first lectures gave a background to the global problem of food insecurity and potential ways of tackling it.

Subsequent lectures discussed various aspects of food security, including sessions on economic issues, food waste, biodiversity and climate change.

One of the highlights was a guest lecture from Professor Sarah Cleaveland who is a leading international expert on infectious diseases in animal populations and she gave the students an insight into her research in Tanzania.

 

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First published: 23 September 2019