Overarching research themes in the Lab
Our research addresses land use and food systems at large spatial and temporal scales.

We strive to work on synthetic issues that are policy relevant, or that might inform future research directions and management strategies, in order to tackle sustainability challenges related broadly to agriculture and global environmental change.

Examples of some ongoing and recent research questions are listed below. 

Food systems geography
Several projects in the Land & Food Lab are focussed around the theme of 'food systems geography.' In particular, we look at key environmental and food security dimensions of globalization in the agricultural sector by studying agricultural commodities trade within and across regions. 
  • What does the growing disconnect between locations of agricultural production and consumption mean for the efficiency of food production and the provision of other vital ecosystem services? 
  • From where do large cities or entire countries source their diets, and what are the implications in terms of tradeoffs between agriculture and the environment?​

Sustainable nutrient cycles

We are broadly interested in questions surrounding nitrogen and phosphorus management at large scales. 
  • How is human activity, such as global trade and agricultural intensification, impacting the phosphorus and nitrogen cycles? 
  • How can we achieve more sustainable nutrient use and management to enhance environmental quality and human well-being?​

Relationship between 
agriculture & cities

Future work in the lab will address the possible interplay between urbanization and agricultural landscape change. 
  • How might changes occurring in cities, such as urbanization and urban sprawl, influence agricultural land use and management over time? 
  • Could future changes in urban systems impact how and where we produce food worldwide, including changes to specific types of cropping systems?
We are enthusiastic to hear from students, postdocs, and researchers interested in projects at the interface of urban and agricultural systems.

Resilient food & agriculture systems

Ongoing and future research from the group considers questions of resilience, particularly focussed on land use and food systems at large scales. Our work in this area examines the resilience of agriculture to contemporary global change pressures as well as how agriculture itself is a component of environmental change. Broadly speaking, our group addresses these questions from a coupled human and natural systems perspective.
  • Does global food trade help foster adaptive capacity for national food supplies in the face of increasing global change pressures, such as climate change? 
  • How much will climate change impact agricultural productivity in different regions and what does this mean for food supply stability?
  • What strategies could be used to target key environmental and social vulnerabilities in food systems at local to global scales? ​
For an example of our work, see Graham's 2015 paper on
​global agricultural trade in the journal BioScience.
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Land & food publications
Contact us: 
[email protected]
Department of Geography | McGill University 
805 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 0B9

UA-76350424-1