Access to adequate, nutritious food is vital for health, prosperity and sustainable societies. SIB’s data expertise underpins innovations in agriculture, food safety and environmental protection – all essential pillars of global food security.
A One Health approach
SIB’s contribution to food security takes a One Health perspective that recognizes the interconnections between human, animal, and environmental systems.
Enabling innovations for resilient, sustainable agriculture
By harmonizing, integrating, and mobilizing diverse data types, SIB scientists support research and solutions for feeding a growing human population amid climate change and other environmental pressures. We contribute to cutting-edge Swiss and European initiatives for:
A One Health approach
SIB’s contribution to food security takes a One Health perspective that recognizes the interconnections between human, animal, and environmental systems.
- developing desirable crop traits (partnership with BASF, a leading crop protection company);
- improving the climate resiliency of crops (EU-funded MICROBES-4-CLIMATE project);
- combatting pathogens that affect livestock and crops (as co-lead of the Biodiversity, Food Security and Pathogens (BFSP) Priority Area of the European life sciences infrastructure ELIXIR);
- ensuring access to sustainable food sources (as co-lead of the ELIXIR BFSP Priority Area).
SIB’s openly available databases and software tools also enable agricultural innovations and discoveries by scientists around the world. Examples include:
- monitoring crop pathogens (see study on a surveillance system for Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus developed using Nextstrain)
- advancing agricultural biotechnology (see paper on identifying genes important for seed germination in barley using OMA (part of SwissOrthology);
- understanding livestock fertility (see paper on a rare gene mutation affecting cattle sperm quality that used Bgee).
Safeguarding the biodiversity that supports agriculture
Our data science solutions help guide and assess efforts to restore and protect biodiversity and ecosystems – which sustain agriculture through services such as pollination, soil fertility, and climate regulation.
Examples include:
- unlocking insights for conservation through the provision of species reference genomes (as coordinating partner of the international Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), joint coordinator of the European Reference Genome Atlas, joint coordinator of the EU-funded Biodiversity Genomics Europe project, and genome publications for species relevant to agriculture such as pollinators (e.g., bumblebees) and pests (e.g., wheat stem sawfly);
- enabling innovative biodiversity monitoring tools (EU-funded Biodiversity Meets Data project).
Supporting food security through pathogen surveillance
Food security depends not only on producing enough food, but also on ensuring that what reaches our plates is safe, traceable and fit for consumption. The Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform (SPSP, an SIB Resource) supports such efforts through:
- a federal mandate to identify and monitor Listeria and Salmonella outbreaks – two bacterial species that can cause food poisoning – in collaboration with the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) and Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH; read more);
- supporting new EU food safety requirements as the Swiss national depository for genomic sequences of microorganisms used in the food chain (European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Whole Genome Sequencing System; read more).
See more on SIB’s work for pathogen surveillance and epidemic preparedness
