Food Security MSc

This MSc programme consists of 6 taught courses, followed by a period of dissertation project work. The study tour, which takes place in the Spring, is also an integral part of the programme.

Two courses are compulsory:

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the global context for food security including; population demographics and food demand, supply, trade and distribution issues, climate and environmental factors, economics and technology and production trends. Integrative methods for system analysis will be introduced.

The course will focus on conflicts and trade-off among the objectives that are required of food systems. Using health and welfare as central concepts, the course will examine what is required for a healthy environment (including specific resources such as soil), human health and welfare, healthy crops and livestock and the extent to which attempting to maximise any one of these may (or not) lead to conflicts with others.

A further three courses are chosen from a range of option including:

• Atmospheric Quality and Global Change
• Land Use / Environmental Interactions
• Waste Reduction and Recycling
• Water Resource Management
• Soil Protection and Management
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Management of Sustainable Development
• Applications in Ecological Economics
• Environmental Ethics
• Foundations in Ecological Economics
• Geographical Information Systems
• Project Appraisal
• Interrelationships in Food Security (a new course see below for a description)
• Interrelationships in food security

The course will introduce sustainability and resilience as formal system properties together with methods for their analysis. Empirical components of sustainable food production will be studied by examining relationships between non-renewable resource use and food production, energy balances and carbon footprints. The above courses are delivered by a range of departments across the University of Edinburgh and SAC including The Centre for Environmental Change and Sustainability, the College of Humanities & Social Science, and the College of Science and Engineering.

A compulsory part of the Programme is the MSc study tour which normally takes place in April or May. The objectives of this study tour are to refresh the skills, tools and techniques that are likely to be useful during the dissertation process.

In 2013 students visited Italy for a very successful study tour.

The taught component, leading to the Postgraduate Diploma, comprises 6 courses studied over a period of 9 months, starting in September. The MSc Programme is made up of core courses, together with recommended and elective courses chosen with the approval of the Director of the programme.

Students progressing to the MSc will undertake a further 3 month period of directed study leading to the production of a dissertation in late August. Each course will be assessed by a combination of course work and examination. The examination paper will take place at the end of each course. An oral examination may also be given. Each student will also be assessed on the written dissertation.