We are urgently developing research requirements with other European laboratories to make sure we understand and the disease (Schmallenberg) better.Scientists hatch plan to produce more food
BRITAIN’S leading scientists will hatch a plan to increase food production without impacting on the environment when they meet later today (Monday, January 18).
Fifty of the country’s leading agri-food scientists will take part in the two-day food strategy workshop aimed at finding methods to translate lab-based research into farm-scale projects to address the future global food security challenges.
The summit, organised by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) in Gloucestershire, is in response to the Government’s call for Britain to take the lead on a sustainable food strategy.
The scientists from across the country will discuss ways to combine research on areas such as crop productivity, livestock management, soil fertility and nitrogen usage, and move them onto a larger scale.
Prof Janet Allen, BBSRC Director of Research, said: “We need to grow more food, more sustainably.
“To do this, we need a clear vision for the best way to use systems biology approaches to scale-up exciting lab-based and small-scale field trials into workable farm-scale studies, the findings of which can then be translated into developing sustainable, high-yielding agricultural practice.
“We also need to recognise that farming exists within a wider environmental ecosystem. Developing sustainable increases in food production requires us to understand how farming and the natural environment interact at a systems level.”
The Government-funded BBSRC has an annual budget of over £450 million and supports around 1,600 scientists across Britain.
It recently committed funding to the development of a farm-based research platform at North Wyke in Devon, to enable scientists to understand how different approaches affect the productivity and sustainability of farming, the effects of environmental change on agriculture and to provide crucial farm-scale data to UK scientists.
Readers' comments (3)
Anonymous | 20 January 2010 10:40 pm
The last time scientists were involved in finding ways of increasing food production after the war they made vegetarian cows eat meat as a cheap source of protein and we ended up with BSE. We have to be very cautious where scientists are concerned.
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anne upton | 21 January 2010 8:06 pm
This is, as I wrote to Farming Today, just an excuse to foist GM crops upon us, though we have stated clearly that as consumers we do not want them.
Stop penalising farmers and let them get on with growing our crops and stop building on the farming land, that will increase our food production.
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Tom Varden | 22 January 2010 4:08 pm
This could be very welcome news for British Farmers. Too often, scientists obtain funding for, and carry out research into, projects that do not translate into the real world - their "pet projects".
Alternatively, the research could have genuine practical applications but is not presented in a format or through a medium which is farmer-friendly. To find out about the latter, farmers often have to rely on feed reps / agronomists / etc whose use of the science is limited to what can improve their own bottom line! (The extension of this is where the science is carried out, or sponsored by, commercial companies who again have a commercial axe to grind.)
Ideally, the conference would cross reference scientific best-practice with what is being sold to farmers, and from this would produce an easy to read check-list of what works and what doesn't.
Here's hoping....
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