Feeding the future: developing the skills landscape in the agri-food sector

The agri-food sector and supply chain is a foundational component of society and is required for healthy populations across the globe. Feeding the world, not only with enough calories, but with nutritious food that has been sustainably sourced and processed, is a continuous and developing challenge. Despite this, careers in research and development opportunities in the agri-food sector have less visibility in comparison to other sectors, and we argue that agri-food remains under-represented in education and training, from school through to higher education. In this perspective, we explore how diversity in people, skills and education contributes to the agri-food sector, and how fostering this diversity could help to solve some of the big challenges faced in 2021 and beyond. Specific focus is given to education and training schemes, and the lack of agri-food topics in relevant science degrees. (c) 2021 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).