Aberdeen experts will help carry out vital research into sustainable crops.
Researchers from Aberdeen University will lead a £1.4million project which is looking into how plants manipulate soils to extract more water and nutrients.
Soil is fundamental to the life support system, providing food, storing and filtering water, cycling nutrients and providing a habitat for many species.
The world will need to produce 50% more food by 2030 to feed a growing population and this research is a key step in meeting this challenge.
Researchers have been funded to investigate the interactions between soil and plant roots to find more sustainable crops.
The Aberdeen team will work with colleagues at Southampton and Dundee universities and the James Hutton Institute on the project.
It is one of the first schemes involving all of the partners in the Scottish Food Security Alliance – Crops group, which was launched to try to tackle the problems with crop production caused by climate change.
