CENTER FOR FOOD SYSTEMS SECURITY

Nothing is more important to human society than a supply of fresh, safe food and water. We depend on increasingly complex technology for our food, and yet we still suffer disruptions in food production and supply. Recently, new and often concerning vulnerabilities have appeared within our food system, whether from contamination, purposeful attack, diseases or natural disasters. The Center for Food Systems Security will use digital and computational methods to find vulnerabilities before they cause a problem, and help develop technological and policy solutions to secure worldwide food and water supplies.

This center will be the first in the U.S. to build out a capability to collect, model and interpret historical and real-time data on agriculture in the context of the performance and resilience of food systems.

This includes not only the conventionally understood supply chain system but also the farms, producers, processors, retailers, consumers and other people and groups involved or affected by the performance of these complex, dynamic networks. The research requires extensive data storage, analysis and computing, new types of analysis, and innovative institutional partnerships.