DIAL has been involved in a joint Research Hub proposal with Research Councils UK (RCUK) and Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) titled: ‘Technology integrated Resilient Agrarian System’. The proposed UK/India research partnership aims to help boost agrarian productivity and supply chain management, closing the gap between food production and food availability in India. Ultimately, this will lead to alleviating hunger by achieving sustainable food security, while at the same time improving farmer welfare in India through the development of a Technology Integrated Resilient Agrarian System.

The interdisciplinary team will take a whole system approach to develop both innovative and adapted technological solutions for optimal management of the agrarian supply chain from farm to fork. Thus, this project will create an agrarian system that is more resilient to external risks. This project sits at a crossroads on the global research landscape, integrating seven key areas of current science and technology: agri-food, distributed energy, supply chain, adaptive management, waste reduction, IoT and socio-economic sciences.

Research will focus on the resilient and robust food supply chain architecture, and design and validation of the data and IT system for tracking and monitoring of the food through its lifecycle from farm to fork. We aim to investigate food vulnerabilities and wastage associated with the investigated product categories. Transparency, traceability, testability, time, trust and training will be involved within end-to-end food supply chains in order to address specific challenges, including:

• linking local supply chain to national/global supply chains;
• cost-effective trace and track system architecture for real time monitoring involving data management and digital technologies;
• optimisation modelling for short food supply chain and distribution network; and
• vertically integrated supply chain design to link farmers with customers.