IIASA’s Food, Land and Water Research

Investigating national and international policies that could effectively eradicate widespread hunger was at the core of establishing food system research at IIASA in the late 1970s. These efforts resulted in an international network of collaborating research institutions and close connections with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). A major achievement of long-term collaboration with FAO has been the development and implementation of the Agro-ecological Zones Methodology and databases in numerous country studies and at the global level. IIASA was also involved in the first international studies of climate change impacts on agriculture and hunger highlighting the fundamental injustice done to the poor in this world who have contributed little to climate change but are most seriously affected by the negative impacts. In the quest for measures to mitigate GHG emissions and in particular recognizing the need to reduce fast growing emissions from the transport sector, many countries embraced programs to substitute fossil transport fuels with biofuels produced from food crops and using scarce arable land. IIASA research was among the first to point out the consequences of excessive biofuel feedstock production on agricultural markets and the risks to maintaining national food security in particular of poor import-dependent developing countries.