Challenges for grassland science: managing research priorities

Production-oriented research in the second half of the 20th century made impressive contributions to technical developments which helped to meet the food requirements of an expanding world population. These developments involved increasing specialisation in land use and in food production techniques, with progressive separation between food crop production and animal production. It is now recognised that these developments have contributed to serious long-term effects on the stability of the worldʹs land and water resources, and on environmental hazards. Grasslands are particularly important in this spectrum of issues, in view of their dominant contribution to land use in many parts of the world, and because they occupy the nexus between the production functions and the environmental impacts of land use strategy, with implications for resource stability, biodiversity and global change. Also, they are an essential component of integrated land use systems which incorporate flexible combinations of cropping, pasture and forestry.