EESS Seminar talk on "Transforming Food Systems through Diversification and Environmental Monitoring for Sustainability"
Event details
| Date | 15.12.2026 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Thomas Wanger, Agroscope |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Abstract
The “Green Revolution” was one of the 20th century's great successes, boosting global cereal production to feed billions of people. Yet these gains came at an increasing environmental cost, while the efficiency of the inputs behind them steadily declined. Today, food systems are a major driver of global change, accounting for roughly 30% of greenhouse-gas emissions and an estimated USD 15 trillion in hidden annual costs, while remaining essential to human health and livelihoods. This raises the question that guides my research: how can we transform food systems to be both profitable and sustainable at scale?
In this talk, I argue that the solution lies at the intersection of complex agricultural systems, environmental monitoring technology, and people, with agricultural diversification at its core. Recent global syntheses spanning up to 120 years of data show that diversification benefits increase by up to 200% compared with conventional agricultural systems across decades. I then show how environmental monitoring technology — embedded AI cameras, passive acoustic monitoring, and plant phenotyping deployed through large research networks — can optimise these benefits and close critical data gaps, from cocoa pollination in China to wheat performance in Switzerland. A third theme examines the little-studied threat of plastic pollution in agricultural landscapes, its interaction with climate and pollinators in endangering food security, and how diversification can buffer these effects. Finally, I show how farmer surveys, industry knowledge, and policy engagement turn this science into practice.
Bio
Prof. Thomas Cherico WANGER is a Group Leader at Agroscope, Switzerland, and Adjunct Professor at the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy at China Agricultural University. His research advances global food-systems transformation through diversified agriculture and AI-based environmental monitoring. He extends this work through major research platforms he and his teams founded, including the China Rice Network and the Swiss Plant Phenotyping Network.
Prof. Wanger led the first assessments of diversification benefits for global rice and rubber production, developed embedded AI devices for ecosystem monitoring, and helped integrate diversified agriculture into policy discussions globally. He has translated research into tangible outcomes for farmers across several continents and regularly represents academia and the Swiss government at high-level UN meetings.
Prof. Wanger earned his PhD from the University of Adelaide and was a postdoc at Stanford University, SLU in Sweden, and the University of Göttingen in Germany. His work is published in over 100 papers in leading outlets, including Nature and Science, and has been cited over 16K times. He has won multiple awards for research excellence and student mentoring. He is a member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management and the Agroecology Coalition, and he founded ecoNect Ltd. and TCW Consulting.
The “Green Revolution” was one of the 20th century's great successes, boosting global cereal production to feed billions of people. Yet these gains came at an increasing environmental cost, while the efficiency of the inputs behind them steadily declined. Today, food systems are a major driver of global change, accounting for roughly 30% of greenhouse-gas emissions and an estimated USD 15 trillion in hidden annual costs, while remaining essential to human health and livelihoods. This raises the question that guides my research: how can we transform food systems to be both profitable and sustainable at scale?
In this talk, I argue that the solution lies at the intersection of complex agricultural systems, environmental monitoring technology, and people, with agricultural diversification at its core. Recent global syntheses spanning up to 120 years of data show that diversification benefits increase by up to 200% compared with conventional agricultural systems across decades. I then show how environmental monitoring technology — embedded AI cameras, passive acoustic monitoring, and plant phenotyping deployed through large research networks — can optimise these benefits and close critical data gaps, from cocoa pollination in China to wheat performance in Switzerland. A third theme examines the little-studied threat of plastic pollution in agricultural landscapes, its interaction with climate and pollinators in endangering food security, and how diversification can buffer these effects. Finally, I show how farmer surveys, industry knowledge, and policy engagement turn this science into practice.
Bio
Prof. Thomas Cherico WANGER is a Group Leader at Agroscope, Switzerland, and Adjunct Professor at the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy at China Agricultural University. His research advances global food-systems transformation through diversified agriculture and AI-based environmental monitoring. He extends this work through major research platforms he and his teams founded, including the China Rice Network and the Swiss Plant Phenotyping Network.
Prof. Wanger led the first assessments of diversification benefits for global rice and rubber production, developed embedded AI devices for ecosystem monitoring, and helped integrate diversified agriculture into policy discussions globally. He has translated research into tangible outcomes for farmers across several continents and regularly represents academia and the Swiss government at high-level UN meetings.
Prof. Wanger earned his PhD from the University of Adelaide and was a postdoc at Stanford University, SLU in Sweden, and the University of Göttingen in Germany. His work is published in over 100 papers in leading outlets, including Nature and Science, and has been cited over 16K times. He has won multiple awards for research excellence and student mentoring. He is a member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management and the Agroecology Coalition, and he founded ecoNect Ltd. and TCW Consulting.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Organizer
- EESS - IIE
Contact
- Prof. Andrew Barry, ENAC