2022 was a year of disruption arising from COVID’s aftershocks, the invasion of Ukraine and extreme weather.  Given the projections of disruptive events from climate change and biodiversity loss – from extreme weather to pests and diseases – are expected to grow in frequency and severity, and given that we are increasingly moving into a fragmented, multipolar world, what are the future drivers on agriculture and food and how might they play out? 

Professor Tim G. Benton leads the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House. He joined Chatham House in 2016 as a distinguished visiting fellow, at which time he was also dean of strategic research initiatives at the University of Leeds, where he remains a research professor. From 2011-2016 he was the ‘champion’ of the UK’s Global Food Security programme which was a multi-agency partnership of the UK’s public bodies (government departments, devolved governments and research councils) with an interest in the challenges around food.  He has worked with UK governments, the EU and G20. He has been a global agenda steward of the World Economic Forum, and is an author of the IPCC’s Special Report on Food, Land and Climate (2019), and the UK’s Climate Change Risk Assessment (2017, 2022). He has published more than 200 academic papers, many tackling how systems respond to environmental change. His work on sustainability leadership has been recognized with an honorary fellowship of the UK’s Society for the Environment, and a doctorate honoris causa from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.