To provide more crop yield on less land with fewer inputs undoubtedly requires alteration to the fundamental physiological attributes of plants. Included in these is the increase in efficiency of photosynthesis, recently identified by BBRSC as a focus of special interest and subject of a previous post on this blog.

The relationship between photosynthesis and crop yield is controversial. On the one hand, the interception and conversion efficiency of solar radiation by plants is directly proportional to biomass accumulation. On the other, linking photosynthetic activity at the leaf level (the pre-occupation of the plant scientist) to crop yield per unit land area (the concern of the farmer) has proven very difficult.

The reasons for this difficulty are numerous and at least in part result from the complexity of the system.

25 years ago researchers, including myself, first tried to set out some elements of this complexity, describing the various sub-stages of photosynthesis, from light capture by the chlorophyll-protein complexes in plant thylakoid membranes, to the electron transport processes, carbon assimilation, carbohydrate synthesis and partitioning, and product accumulation in the grain – the part that we most often eat.

The key idea was that each of these was connected not only by the fluxes between them, but by the presence of various feed-back and feed-forward regulatory processes, which tuned photosynthesis to external environmental factors, developmental processes and metabolic constraints. This network of interactions buffered the effects of internal and external change, providing balance and homeostasis, a universal feature of all biological systems. Such a model provides a means to analyse processes including stress tolerance and exemplifies the challenges presented to the plant breeder when wishing to ‘improve photosynthesis’ – where to intervene, what to change, what will be the consequences to name a few considerations.

Light the way

This formulation was redefined to provide a context for the work done by my group at the University of Sheffield on rice photosynthesis in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute. This work revealed some striking insights, mainly how poor photosynthesis was in the field, even under conditions widely regarded as optimum.

In general, in many leaves, for significant periods of the day, photosynthetic activity was far below capacity. Causative factors included: closure of the stomata shutting off the supply of carbon dioxide to the leaves; reduction in the efficiency of light collection by the chloroplasts; and feedback from the accumulation of carbohydrate products of photosynthesis.

The conclusion from this study is important but so far widely ignored: There is enough photosynthetic activity in the existing cellular machinery to sustain a much larger yield if only plants could be induced to perform at their full potential.

So why don’t plants perform at their full potential?

Optimal operation

One reason why photosynthetic activity is not maximally expressed is inappropriate optimisation. Put simply, stability and survival (a low risk strategy) in the natural environment are driving forces of evolution, not necessarily high growth rate and photosynthetic rate (a high risk strategy) or high grain yield. Photosynthesis is held back below its potential because growth is optimised in the face of the particular properties of the plant’s habitat. Therefore, we have to consider the evolution and basic biology of each crop species.

Particularly important is that the environment is never constant- there are fluctuations in levels of sunlight, temperature and rainfall. Plants record, memorise and (try to) predict their environments to ensure that they always have enough energy storage from photosynthesis to power their growth and development. For example, plants have to determine the size of their reproductive sinks (i.e. grain capacity) in advance, predicting what the photosynthetic rate will be to give maximum grain filling. Over-estimation of future photosynthesis results in poor grain filling and/or poor quality grain; under-estimation of future photosynthesis results in a decrease in the efficiency of solar energy use and losses of potential productivity. Trade-offs inevitably result from optimisation of the internal regulatory mechanisms involved (dynamic range, kinetics, precision), and this readily explains the apparent under-performance of photosynthesis.

A particularly clear example of how optimisation points may differ in different plant genotypes is our observation that stress tolerant varieties of bean have a low growth rate under favourable conditions, whereas others have high yield under favourable conditions but suffer badly when grown under stress. Consequently, there may be opportunities for the breeding of higher yielding crops by tailoring regulatory responses to specific agricultural scenarios, where man’s intervention has moderated some of the environmental constraints on productivity, by irrigation, provision of fertilisers and elimination of weeds.

A key point is that optimisation will vary according to plant species or variety, the climate and season, the agronomic practice, the locality and so on. Thus, significant benefits will come from understanding at the molecular and genetic levels how to alter the optimisation of the biochemistry and physiology of individual leaves, their performance in the whole plant, and the way individual plants interact in the crop canopy.

Indeed, such knowledge may also be necessary to offset the inherent conservatism of plants that could thwart current attempts to increase photosynthetic efficiency, and hence yield, by manipulation of with the basic biochemical processes of carbon assimilation.

About Peter Horton

Peter Horton FRS is Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Sheffield. He holds a D.Phil. and D.Sc. from the University of York, received postdoctoral training at Purdue University and has worked at Sheffield since1978. In 2010 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. His principal research interest is in photosynthesis and related aspects of plant biology. He has made wide ranging contributions to photosynthesis research across the boundaries between biophysics, biochemistry and structural biology into physiology, ecophysiology and agriculture. This multidisciplinary approach increased our understanding not only the molecular mechanisms of photosynthesis but also how these are integrated into the growth and development of the whole plant. Currently he serves as adviser to several projects, including Sheffield’s overarching research programme in food and energy sustainability Project Sunshine.

On 1 April 2011 Scotland became home to a brand new scientific research centre. The James Hutton Institute aims to be one of the world’s leading research institutes on land, crops, water and the environment and is the biggest, multi-disciplinary centre of its type in the UK.

Fittingly, its name has been taken from one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, James Hutton (1726-97). Hutton ranks as one of Scotland’s greatest scientists: a polymath, observer and interpreter of nature. He is regarded as the founder of modern geology and was also an enthusiastic experimental farmer. 

I am sure that the creation of The James Hutton Institute will have helped complete his return to prominence as a pioneering scientist and thinker – he recently featured in BBC’s Men of Rock documentary series.

But there is another reason why James Hutton as a figurehead is singularly appropriate. He was one of the first scientists to understand the concept of a living planet: ecosystems of incredible diversity which are deeply interconnected through sharing common resources. It probably would not surprise Hutton that the huge scientific and industrial advances of his life would have consequences for the well-being of all that makes up the living planet.

This was the subject of a UK Government report that outlined some worrying trends that are likely to impact on all of us. The Foresight report on Global Food and Farming Futures took two years to produce and involved leading scientists from 35 countries including Scotland. The alarming conclusion was that we have about 20 years to deliver something of the order of 40% more food, 30% more fresh water and 50% more energy to sustain a human population of something like 8.3 billion people without destroying the environment in the process.

We two are one

To tackle these problems, The James Hutton Institute has been created by two established scientific organisations active for many decades in the areas of food supply, land use, water and ecosystems: the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen and the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) in Invergowrie, Dundee. 

Researchers at the Macaulay have a long track record in land management particularly with respect to the Scottish hills and uplands. They are responsible for the soil and peat surveys of Scotland and the Land Capability for Agriculture classification is the official agricultural classification system widely used in Scotland. They have also been active in advising the Scottish Government on major land use issues including reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, and have provided major contributions to the recent Pack Inquiry into future support for agriculture in Scotland and the development of the draft Land Use Strategy for Scotland.

Products developed at SCRI are familiar names on supermarket shelves. They include popular raspberry varieties such as Glen Ample and Glen Lyon; potato varieties including Lady Balfour, Anya, Vales Sovereign, Vales Emerald and Mayan Gold. SCRI’s brassicas (swedes, turnips, kale etc.) dominate the UK market, and 50% of the world’s blackcurrant crop was developed at the Invergowrie site. Food security research is underway to help crops survive a changing climate both here and abroad; scientists from both institutes have been active in projects aimed at helping communities and farmers around the world.

Greater than the sum of the parts

So why bring the two together? I could answer by saying why keep them apart. The two institutes can combine various scientific and management interests in arable and livestock agriculture, lowlands and uplands, farming and forestry, wildlife and environment, people and policy.

A large part of the work of the two centres is funded by the Scottish Government as part of its rural and environmental research strategy, and scientists from both organisations were already collaborating on some of the government-supported work programmes. The new James Hutton Institute will enable us to work together and serve our research customers in Scotland, the UK and Europe more effectively. 

For example, perhaps one of the most exciting challenges for the new institute is likely to be working with partner organisations to find ways of empowering rural communities, not just in Scotland, but around the world. The James Hutton Institute has active links and partnerships with more than 60 countries and has already been leading projects in Africa to help rural communities improve crop yields and ensure healthy seed stocks. We have also been active with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to produce a series of briefing papers: for example to raise the profile of the ecosystems approach in tackling not just climate change mitigation and adaptation, but also poverty alleviation, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity loss and many other environmental issues.

It certainly is not just about farming, forestry and livestock: we are equally keen to use our science to help provide a vibrant countryside that everyone can enjoy for living and recreational space. Science at The James Hutton Institute will also be used to study energy use and renewables, landscape planning and human health. We have plenty of evidence that our science will have a measurable and very positive economic impact in Scotland and further afield.

Let’s go back to that great son of Scotland, James Hutton. He was a man ahead of his time, as evidenced by his pre-Darwinian thoughts on natural selection processes. He looked at his surroundings, and the interactions of man and the earth, in a new way. He kept asking questions and when nobody had any answers, he used his powers of observation and analysis to suggest his own answers. 

Our new, Scottish-based but global-thinking institute will be proud to bear his name. We will also aspire to emulate his inquiring mind, his enthusiasm and his willingness to share knowledge and seek evidence: looking out and looking forward.

About Iain Gordon

Iain, who holds both British and Australian nationality, returned to Scotland to take up the post of Chief Executive of The James Hutton Institute after eight years working with CSIRO – the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation – in Canberra. Professor Gordon is native to Aberdeenshire and graduated with a Zoology honours degree from the University of Aberdeen; he was awarded his PhD by the University of Cambridge. He worked at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen, leading the Ecology Group, before moving to Australia in 2003.

We are too reliant on too few crop species. Using more underutilised plants will improve global food security, says Sean Mayes.

The world depends for its basic diet of carbohydrates, fats and proteins on a very limited number of crop species.

For carbohydrates, three related species, wheat, rice and maize, dominate human consumption. Any short term improvement in food security will need to include modification (either transgenic or through conventional breeding) of these and other staple crops.

However, a focus purely on current major crops often developed under high intensity agriculture cannot form the whole solution to the production aspect of food insecurity – a square peg in a round hole is still a square peg in a round hole, even if we can sand down the edges a little for a better fit.

Diversification of crops and (eventually) displacement of some major crops will be necessary under current predicted changes to climate because of the need to make agriculture more sustainable and less energy intensive. Water availability for agriculture will also become one of the defining concerns over the next fifty years. Changing crops is likely to be particularly necessary where climate change will have most impact – in the developing world. Novel approaches to food production in urban communities will also need to be developed.

Developing other options

Underutilised, orphan or neglected crops are labels often applied to plant species that are indigenous, rather than non-native or adapted introductions, and often commonly form a complex part of the culture and practice of the people who grow them. One of the legacies of colonial times is that many well adapted native crops were displaced by introduced species. In many cases, the displaced crops, if still cultivated at all, are seen as of ‘low status’ and often it is women who cultivate them, while men cultivate the major crops.

From the 7000 estimated underutilised plants which currently exist as minor or niche crops, we also need to develop a limited number which will become the (additional) major crops of tomorrow. Identifying the crops which have the genetic potential to be used beyond their current geographical and community boundaries is critical.

One way to identify underutilised crops with the potential to make more of a contribution would be to look for crops with trait values that currently exceed the equivalent trait in major crops. For example, bambara groundnut is more drought tolerant than the equivalent major crop, peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.), which was introduced from South America into Africa and has partly displaced bambara groundnut. Bambara groundnut is still grown widely in sub-Saharan Africa although often at a small holder level and it currently commands a premium price at the markets compared with other legumes.

There is clearly also an issue of fair access to germplasm (genetic resources) for underutilised crops. Recent international agreements, such as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture which came into force in 2004, are designed to ensure that the originator community benefits directly from any wider exploitation of their crop resources and such agreements will, hopefully, ease some concerns. This is also clearly the ‘just’ approach to accessing germplasm developed over millennia by indigenous populations.

Making it happen

Crops for the Future (CFF) is a global organisation that works with its partners to advocate research, policies and build capacity to use underutilised crops for the diversification of agricultural systems and diets. It was formed following a merger between the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) and the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilised Species (GFU) in 2008.

An independent institution, CFF is hosted in Malaysia jointly by Bioversity International of the  Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus (UNMC). Bioversity brings extensive research and advocacy expertise and outreach, while UNMC brings specific crop research expertise.

The Malaysian government has recently approved funding and initial running costs to build a Crops for the Future Research Centre, adjacent to UNMC, which will allow the systematic evaluation of a series of crops with potential for wider use and which could make a useful contribution to food security (and develop crops for non-food uses, such as fibres for textiles or construction.)

The establishment of CFF will also help focus efforts for diversification of the plant species that humans exploit. Shifting away from our over-dependence on a limited number of crop species is crucial. If climate change and other pressures on food production, such as pests and diseases, lead to the catastrophic and long term failure of a major crop in some parts of the world, it is important to have a Plan B available – and preferably Plans C, D and E, as well…

About Dr Sean Mayes

Dr Sean Mayes is an Associate Professor in Crop Genetics at the University of Nottingham, UK and is involved in research on both temperate and tropical crops.

Crops for the Future and partners will be co-hosting the Second International Symposium on Underutilised Crops in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 27th June to 1 July 2011.

Governments, including the UK’s, have signed up to the Kyoto Protocol and brought in domestic legislation with ambitious carbon reduction targets. But before we sit back and congratulate ourselves, shouldn’t we be thinking about exactly how we are to achieve real carbon reduction?

At the moment we are not only in danger of simply exporting our responsibilities by trading our emissions with less industrialised countries, but also failing to address the overall contribution that agriculture makes to climate change – at present the industry is responsible for 38 per cent of UK methane emissions – the vast majority from livestock management.

Climate change is a truly wicked problem on which we have to act not only globally, but on all fronts, if any real progress is to be made. And that means making real changes to our consuming and purchasing behaviour at the local level too.

Otherwise we risk falling for the rhetoric and missing the real point: are the ambitious targets we have set ourselves achievable, and are they compatible with our current approach to that other wicked problem of food security? Neither of these challenges can be approached as simply a technical problem for natural science to solve and they cannot be tackled in isolation.

Think global act local

If we are to have any real prospect of matching aspirations to actions – that is growing more food but with less energy and fewer emissions – social science has to be brought into the armoury and critical choices have to be made.

Until now, agriculture has seldom been challenged as a net producer of greenhouse gases. The industry, involving so many small producers, has seemed beyond government control, but in a changing climate it will have to play a more positive role.

The importance of peat bogs as a carbon sink, for example, is now clear and it is vital that these soils are maintained in good condition. Land use will also play a part in mitigation. As flooding events become more frequent, a more flexible approach to agricultural land management and payments to farmers for upstream flood storage might provide one means of helping to protect towns and cities.

New technologies might help us to carry on without major adjustments to our lifestyles, but will consumers accept them?  We have already seen negative public reactions to issues such as GM crops where technology has moved faster than public awareness or understanding, and now intensification of production systems is provoking new debates about animal welfare.

Much more likely to be effective is socio-technological change, where lifestyles and technology change together in a complementary fashion, and this could be driven by consumers themselves.

Social science can help us to understand the decisions people make and how to influence them, and this includes decisions about food. For example, an interdisciplinary project investigating the implications of a nutrition-driven policy for the countryside as part of the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme, showed how taxing foods with high fat content and subsidising fruit and vegetables could improve diet in line with healthy eating guidelines.

Researchers also looked at the most effective ways of using advertising (PDF) to target the eating habits of specific social groups. If people who buy the food decide to eat more healthily, which could include less meat and move to more plant-based meals, that would itself cause the market to supply their needs, and achieve real change in the way land is managed, rather than driving production and emissions abroad.

Social science is the tool that can help us to understand how people make these kinds of small, everyday choices that have the potential to drive major change, and it could be the key to helping us achieve our ambitious targets.

About Philip Lowe

Philip Lowe is Director of the Rural Economy and Land Use (Relu) Programme of the UK Research Councils.

He has been a leading figure in the development of interdisciplinary rural studies in the UK. In 1992, he founded the Centre for Rural Economy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where he holds the Duke of Northumberland Chair of Rural Economy.

He is a former Scientific Chair of the European Society for Rural Sociology and a former member of the Science Advisory Council of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

He has played an active role in rural policy development at the national and European levels and in the North of England. For his contribution to the rural economy he was appointed OBE in 2003.

An interesting and potentially very useful contribution to the thinking and discussion around food security has appeared in the form of an open access paper The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture.

It is too easy to be sceptical and say what we need are 100 answers, but if you start with good questions you are more likely to generate good answers. The questions in this paper were produced by a wide consultation process involving 45 institutions and finally 55 authors based in 21 countries.

The paper, published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, seeks to stimulate dialogue and improve understanding between agricultural researchers and policy makers. The paper proposes the 100 most important questions that need addressing if global agriculture is to deliver nutritious, affordable food more sustainably for upwards of nine billion people by the middle of this century.

Beg the question

The paper raises many issues. Agriculture’s agenda has widened in a few decades from one of simply maximising productivity to one that is significantly more complex.  Indeed the scope of the paper is broader than simply agricultural production and covers topics ranging from natural resources and biodiversity to social questions, the economics of global food markets, and consumer choices.

In the twenty-first century, agriculture needs to optimize output in the face of varied and sometimes conflicting demands on the available land. On a local scale some people choose to eat organic food and want to conserve biodiversity; on a global scale rural livelihoods and traditional ways of life need to be respected. People around the world are becoming more concerned about environmental problems and social justice, more aware of food tariffs and trade imbalances. As our world has effectively shrunk its population has exploded and consumption even more so. That consumption includes energy, and, although estimates vary, agriculture and the food supply system are a major consumer of energy and emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Food is no longer just about eating.

Hence, the questions in the paper are set out in four major topics that embrace elements of the whole food production system: 1) natural resource inputs; 2) agronomic practice; 3) agricultural development; and 4) markets and consumption.

In the first section, natural resource inputs, questions range from the specific, such as ‘what would be the global cost of capping agricultural water withdrawals if environmental reserves were to be maintained?’ to the very practical in ‘how can salinization be prevented and remedied?’ to the implied warning: ‘what are the world’s mobilizable stocks and reserves of phosphate?’

The second section, agronomic practice, asks questions such as ‘what part can reclamation, restoration and rehabilitation of land play?’ and ‘what are the best integrated cropping and mixed system options?’ for a number of habitats, before pondering ‘how can increasing both crop and non-crop biodiversity help in pest and disease management?’

Agricultural development, the third section, brings in many of the wider issues ranging from the impact of agricultural subsidies to the best options for the sustainable intensification of agriculture, the demographics of farmers in 2050 and their status with the land (as well their landlords).

The final section, on markets and consumption, poses questions such as the efficiency and resilience of supply chains, food waste in developed countries, and the effects of consumer choice and the effectiveness of different types of learning programmes in promoting public health.

Answer the call

The 100 questions paper is one of the outputs of the UK government’s Global Food and Farming Futures project, which falls under its Foresight programme that aims to help the state think systematically about key issues 10-80 years into the future so that science and technology can be best employed within society.

The Global Food Security programme, the blog of which you are reading, aims to bring greater coherence to the wide range of research supported by the programme’s partners (the major UK public funders of food-related research). The questions posed in this paper will be invaluable in helping to inform the development of the programme and ensuring that future research is focused on topics than can really make a difference in meeting the challenges the world is facing.

I’m sure this paper will generate much discussion in many scientific and policy circles, as well as being of wide general interest. There is a comments field below, and we welcome constructive dialogue and debate with all interested parties.

About Professor Janet Allen

Professor Janet Allen is Director of Research at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) since October 2008 and is Chair of the Programme Development Board for the Global Food Security programme.

Professor Allen trained initially in biochemistry and medicine. In addition to her highly successful career in senior appointments in medicine and academic research, she has held research directorships in the global pharmaceutical sector (with Parke Davis/Pfizer) and with an innovative biotech SME (Inpharmatica). She has also established a spin-out company (Ligand Xpress Ltd).

Professor Allen’s own research was primarily in cell and molecular biology. In 2000 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 2002 was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow and at Imperial College School of Medicine, London.

It’s said that you can’t force people to have fun, but can you help a group of people to be creative?

The answer is yes. But it depends largely on the people present and the environment they are in.

The Ideas Lab on enhancing photosynthesis, jointly organised by BBSRC and the National Science Foundation in the US, and held at the Asilomar Conference Center, California, Sept 13-17 aimed to create an environment conducive to creative,  ‘out of the box’ thinking. The idea was to bring together a diverse group of people from different disciplinary backgrounds and to use their unique perspectives and expertise to generate novel and potentially ground-breaking ideas in a similar format to a ‘sandpit’.

But this was no ordinary workshop: up to $8M was available ($4M each from the UK and US) for transformative high-risk high-reward research proposals.

Transatlantic and multidisciplinary research teams were strongly encouraged, as the challenge of enhancing the natural process of photosynthesis, which converts the energy of incident sunlight into leaf biomass with an efficiency of up to 6% in most crops, requires the brightest minds to tackle the problem from all angles.

To help us meet the food and energy demands of the future it’s clear that a step change in knowledge is required that will, in turn, lead to a step change in productivity. Transformative research such as this does occur periodically through normal funding mechanisms, but the challenge of sustainably producing 40% more food by 2030 to feed a growing population requires concerted action now to catalyse the process.

The Ideas Lab was guided by a team of five mentors – experts in fields relevant to photosynthesis who were not eligible for funding; their role was to challenge participants’ thinking and stimulate the development of new ideas.

The week began with participants getting to know each other and building relationships. A provocateur was brought in to provide a different perspective on the problem and challenge conventional thinking. The participants then started to explore the problem space, dealing with any potential barriers by turning them into questions: “how might we?” or ”what if we could?”. These questions were then clustered into distinct challenges across the photosynthetic pathway.

These challenges were continually presented back to all participants at the Ideas Lab for further exploration and development, and it was here that participants shaped each other’s thinking with their own unique perspectives.

Participants were then given free rein to work on any challenge they wished and could change group at any time up until the final presentation on the last day, or be part of more than one group. Evolving project teams regularly gave presentations to all Ideas Lab participants on their developing projects and they received anonymous feedback. This presentation-feedback process highlighted expertise missing from a team that could be provided by another participant, but importantly allowed for continual peer review of projects as they developed. In this way, every participant had a hand influencing the direction of the emerging projects. Team feedback was also provided by the mentors throughout.

On the last day project teams gave a final presentation and submitted their outline proposals. The mentors took on the role of an expert panel and assessed the proposals, making recommendations on which projects to invite back to the full proposal stage.

There was a very high standard of proposals and four multidisciplinary, innovative and potentially transformative research projects were invited back.

Most of these projects exploit the fact that plants, algae and cyanobacteria all have slightly different photosynthetic machinery. This allows these organisms to absorb light at different wavelengths and, in the case of cyanobacteria and algae, to pump in carbon dioxide to improve the efficiency of carbon fixation. The focus of some of the projects is to optimise these beneficial features and incorporate them into plants.

Interestingly, plants can only absorb light in a fraction of the solar spectrum (absorbing around half of the incident sunlight), and when they reach saturation, any further light absorbed is dissipated as heat as the plant is unable to use it. Maximising the use of these untapped sources of light energy is also a strong feature of some projects.

The result, if just one of these projects is successful, could be a transformational change in our capacity to produce significantly more with less.

About Riaz Bhunnoo

Riaz Bhunnoo is Senior Programme Manager for Food Security at BBSRC. His main task is taking forward the development of the Global Food Security programme. However, he also manages BBSRC activities on enhancing photosynthesis. Riaz has worked at BBSRC since 2005, and has worked within the RCUK Strategy Unit on cross-Council research coordination and policy.

Better data on how and where aid is spent is needed to make real progress on tackling hunger, argue Gordon Conway and Laura Kelly.

Holding global leaders to account has never been easy. But when they come together in the Muskoka region of Canada 25-26 June, G8 leaders claim they will report on their own progress on tackling global hunger.

During the Italian G8 Presidency in 2009 the G8 announced the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative, pledging more than $20B of aid over three years to agriculture and food security. Leaders agreed core principles to tackle global hunger and said they were “determined to translate these principles into action and take all the necessary measures to achieve global food security”.

Now, and as then, we welcome these commitments and like many others we are keen to see what progress has been made. Nevertheless, while we look forward to G8 leaders’ own assessments on progress, we think it important that we, and other independent researchers, are given access to timely and detailed information to allow us to do our own analysis.

We believe that access to better aid data is vital on this issue. After 30 years of underinvestment in agricultural development, we now have the political and financial momentum to make real progress on tackling hunger. But if governments do not deliver these new investments in a strategic and coordinated way, we risk dissipating efforts and missing a unique opportunity to deliver impacts on the ground for the one billion undernourished people that governments are seeking to help.

When engaging in the complex, interdisciplinary world of agricultural development, we need a better detailed understanding of what works. By investing time and money in better aid data now, governments will be able to work with their advisers, researchers and recipient country partners to understand how their investments correlate with real progress for those that need it most. This will enable more effective and coherent partnerships in the future.

Our own work with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) DAC database (OECD-DAC), which provides comprehensive data on the volume, origin and types of aid and other resource flows, has shown that at present the measurement and analysis of agricultural development assistance is fraught with challenges. Different governments classify and measure their agricultural assistance in different ways. For instance, some bilateral assistance is given through budget support, making it difficult to measure what if any support goes to agriculture.

Support to multilateral agencies is also hard to attribute to specific sector activity. And OECD-DAC is very slow to release data – detailed data for 2008 was released in March 2010 – so timely independent analysis is very difficult.

The OECD-DAC database is an important resource, and we believe that it should remain the primary channel for governments to report their development assistance spending. But it needs to be further improved: non-OECD government actions should be included, as should several additional multilateral organisations. Furthermore, we are not always able to measure what we want – amounts of assistance to smallholders, or large versus small irrigation investments for example.

We look forward to hearing how global leaders meeting in Muskoka have performed on tackling hunger over the last year. But if they want their agriculture investments to have a lasting impact, they should also commit to urgent action to get the data systems in place to measure and monitor how and where their agricultural development assistance has been spent so we can all see if it is successful.

This blog post is based on an article originally published on the Global Food for Thought blog, the official blog of the Global Agricultural Development Initiative.

About Sir Gordon Conway

Sir Gordon Conway is Professor of International Development at Imperial College London. For more information about his work please go to: www.imperial.ac.uk/africanagriculturaldevelopment

About Laura Kelly

Laura Kelly is Director, Policy of ONE Europe: http://one.org/international

On 10th May 2010, Imperial College and ONE hosted a joint workshop to discuss the challenges of measuring agricultural development assistance. For more information about this work please go to: www.imperial.ac.uk/africanagriculturaldevelopment/resources/monitoring

The needs of food security require that food production be increased on a relatively fixed amount of land but in a sustainable way. How can this objective be achieved?

In particular how can we protect plants against pests and diseases in a sustainable way? Many consumer and environmentalists would like to see less use of chemical pesticides in the production of our food, but until recently the producers of more environmentally friendly alternatives, sometimes called ‘green pesticides’ or ‘biopesticides’, have faced regulatory barriers.

More opportunities need to be made available for biocontrol products, such as wasps that kill pest caterpillars for example, and for microbiological pesticides such as naturally occurring fungi, bacteria and viruses that were studied in a Rural Economy and Land Use project, Biological Alternatives to Chemical Pesticides in the Food Chain. Such products offer several advantages such as low impact on non-target organisms, compatibility with other natural insect enemies, and limited toxic residues.

Up to the recent past, however, not enough products have reached the market. Typically, these products are developed by small firms and the costs and complexity of the registration process can pose a formidable barrier given that the regulatory system was developed to suit chemical pesticides.

Progress was made in the UK with the introduction of a biopesticides scheme in 2006 by what is now the Chemicals Regulation Directorate. However, accessing wider markets which would make products viable proved difficult. The internal market did not really exist in the EU for these products but was split into twenty-seven distinct regulatory jurisdictions. This bureaucracy contrasts with the US where a large internal market, support from government, and a clear mission by the US Environmental Protection Agency is smoothing the path for biopesticides.

However, a new way forward is offered by a package of measures adopted by the European Union in 2009. These include revisions to the regulation (91/414) which had previously controlled the use of pesticides, and to a thematic strategy on pesticides and a new Sustainable Use Directive (SUD). Preparation of the thematic strategy highlighted the need for a SUD as several of the envisaged measures could not be integrated into existing legislation or policies.

This directive was passed in 2009 and will be implemented by 2011. It was centred around the creation of National Action Plans in each member state to identify areas of risk, reduce risk and use, minimise the impacts on human health and the environment, and encourage responsible perstcide use and integrated pest management (IPM) techniques. IPM involves the use of complementary control strategies in such a way as to minimise environmental impact.

It must be emphasised that IPM does not rule out the use of synthetic pesticides.  Many products that form part of the new generation of synthetics are more environmentally friendly than earlier products, many of which are no longer permitted to be used. However, even these new products should be treated as a precious resource to be used sparingly.

The new legislative framework in the EU offers a promising way forward. Eco-zones have been adopted in the EU so that a product registered in one country can also be sold in others with similar climatic conditions.

But as always, the devil is in detail and much work has to be done before these plans are put into practice, such as devising co-ordinated National Action Plans and regulations. Furthermore, the backdrop of under-sourced agencies in many EU member states may hinder progress but the hope of an economically and environmentally sustainable future is there to be grasped.

Finally, I think that supermarkets may yet play a useful role. Supermarket chains in the UK say they are under pressure from consumers to minimise pesticide residues. If retailers were to better support biopesticides at the food production level it would provide economic impetus to their manufacture and development.

About Wyn Grant

Wyn Grant is a graduate of the universities of Leicester, Strathclyde and Exeter. He joined Warwick University in 1971 and was chair of the Department of Politics and International Studies from 1990 to 1997. He is currently a member of the Population and Diseases Research Group in the Department of Biological Sciences at Warwick Horticultural Research International, Wellesbourne, and is Vice President of the International Political Science Association.

Contact details

Wyn Grant

W.P.Grant@warwick.ac.uk

Plants must secure high levels of nitrogen, and in conventional agriculture nitrogen is added at high concentrations in the form of inorganic fertilisers. Artificial nitrogenous fertilisers can increase yield by as much as 50% and the global farming system, and hence our own food supply, is now dependent on them. We would face very severe food shortages if nitrogen fertilisers were to become unavailable.

However, their use comes with high economic and environmental costs.  Farmers, especially in developing countries, spend a high proportion of their income on fertilisers that account for a significant proportion, sometimes the majority, of the costs of crop production.  Fertiliser synthesis and application leads to high amounts of nitrous pollution in aquatic systems causing algal blooms and dead zones in shallow seas as well as nitrous pollution of the atmosphere causing poor air quality and significant greenhouse gas emissions.

But we cannot stop using fertilisers and meet a food security agenda; nor can we afford to keep using them and meet an environmental sustainability agenda.

Producing nitrogenous fertilisers requires lots of energy that currently comes from the burning of fossil fuels. It is anticipated that by 2050 2% of global energy will be used in fertiliser production [ref 1]; this represents the single largest energy input into intensive agriculture. This is unsustainable, and if the price of oil increases, so does the price of fertilisers, and so our food. Add to this the environmental costs of these fertilisers and it is clear that we need to find another way. I believe the answer lies in plants themselves – finding a biological and sustainable means of fertilising plants.

My research looks at leguminous plants, such as peas and beans. On the roots of these plants are small growths called nodules which are factories that supply all of the nitrogen the plant needs. Within the nodules are specialised bacteria that form a mutually beneficial relationship with the plant. The bacteria take nitrogen from the air and covert it into a form that the plant can use. In exchange the bacteria are supplied with sugars produced by the plant. It’s a beautiful and elegant system, and I’m interested in understanding the fundamental science behind this association. 

This interaction involves signals between the bacteria and the plant. The signals trigger the plant to produce nodules to house the bacteria and also control the exchange of nutrients. Getting a complete understanding of the process will take a long time, but the driving force behind it is that if we can get a better understanding of the process we can look to transfer it into non-leguminous crops like wheat, rice or maize, the world’s three most cultivated crops. This would slash the amount of oil needed to grow them, and the amount of pollution caused by the fertilisers they currently need. However, transferring this process can only occur with the use of genetic modification (GM).

I see GM as a natural and biological solution to this huge problem. However, I know many people have a negative perception of GM. In this case I think the benefits are clear.

We are working very carefully and thoroughly to understand the process [ref 2,3], and then to predictably and safely transfer nitrogen fixation to crops. We know the effects of nitrogen fertiliser pollution on the environment, and we know the effect that burning huge amounts of fossil fuels has on our climate. But we do this anyway out of necessity to support current food supplies.

Balancing these very detrimental impacts against the perceived dangers of GM will, in my opinion, be the key to delivering the second, greener revolution in farming that we need to secure our food supply now and into the future.

References

1. Is it possible to increase the sustainability of arable and ruminant agriculture by reducing inputs?
2. Nodulation Signaling in Legumes Requires NSP2, a Member of the GRAS Family of Transcriptional Regulators
3. Nodulation independent of rhizobia induced by a calcium-activated kinase lacking autoinhibition

About Dr Giles Oldroyd

Dr Giles Oldroyd leads the Plant Perception and Response to the Environment Programme at the John Innes Centre. He received a David Phillips Fellowship from the BBSRC and has received a number of awards for his research, including European Molecular Biology Organisation young investigator, European Research Council young investigator, Society of Experimental Biology President’s medal and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award.

Contact details

Dr Giles Oldroyd
John Innes Centre
Norwich Research Park
Colney
Norwich
NR4 7UH

Tel: 01603 450000
Email: giles.oldroyd@bbsrc.ac.uk

Threats from diseases are predictably unpredictable – think BSE, foot-and-mouth disease, and the avian and swine influenzas. 40 new species of pathogens have been recognised in livestock and man during the past 25 years; most are RNA viruses but diseases caused by prions, bacteria, rickettsia, fungi, protozoa and worms are also represented.

The recent incursions of Bluetongue (BT) virus into northern Europe have provided an effective reminder that livestock can quickly become exposed to a new and serious disease introduced because of changing weather patterns. In this case, a warming climate across northern Europe created conditions favourable for the spread in sheep and cattle of the BT virus typically found in Africa and the Mediterranean. In 2008 up to 10% of the sheep died in some European countries and only the UK’s introduction of a national plan for vaccination prevented similar establishment and spread of the disease.

In addition to completely new disease threats such as bluetongue, the livestock sector has to contend with re-emerging pathogens that were once thought to be controlled, only for them to reappear in more aggressive or virulent forms that are no longer well controlled by existing vaccines.

A classic example is presented by Marek’s disease in poultry. This herpes virus produces rapid-onset tumours in the heart, ovaries, testes, muscle tissue and lungs (with mortality rates as high as 80%) and continues to change in virulence such that every decade or so a new vaccine is required.

Let’s take a specific look at poultry production. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) regards poultry products as a key component of growth in food production. An estimated 51Bn chickens are now produced each year worldwide, of which 46Bn are broilers (for meat) and 5Bn are layers (for eggs). Developing countries share of world poultry meat consumption rose from 43 to 54% between 1990 and 2005, with major contributions from east and southeast Asia, Latin America, China and Brazil. The FAO estimates that production and consumption of poultry meat will increase by around 3.6 percent per annum from 2005 to 2030.

The poultry sector is especially dependent up on the availability of vaccines and several diseases, if uncontrolled, have the potential to seriously derail the productivity of the poultry industry at a time when in some parts of the world up to 1M birds are reared together in order to meet increasing demand.

The sheer size and scale of poultry industry presents a great strength for the efficient production of meat, but a potential weakness if the control of devastating diseases such as Marek’s disease ever becomes unachievable.

The production of poultry and livestock is clearly ever dependent upon continued scientific innovation to deliver effective strategies for the control of infectious diseases. My task is to ensure that a public sector-funded institution such as the Institute for Animal Health is able to provide a network of global intelligence on the spread of pathogens, assess risk to specific countries, and deliver effective vaccine strategies to control new and existing livestock pathogens which distinguish between animals that are infected naturally or vaccinated deliberately.

It is sometimes tempting to think that the availability of a vaccine delivers a permanent solution; it is but a lull in the arms race between host and pathogen.

The livestock industries must therefore contend with a succession of emerging and re-emerging pathogens at a time when world population is increasing and meat consumption rises in the world’s most populous countries.

Finally, there are now fewer ‘easy wins’ available to researchers to develop vaccines at a time when consumer resistance to the use of drugs (especially those given in-feed) is changing. Unfortunately, the rate at which the commercial animal sector is able to introduce new drug therapies and vaccines might slow further because of increasing costs of both research and development, and of getting new products into the field.

About Professor Martin Shirley, Director of the Institute for Animal Health

Martin Shirley started his career at the Houghton Poultry Research Station (HPRS) as a junior technician upon leaving school in 1967. Ten years later, he returned to HPRS and was awarded a PhD by Brunel University for research on protozoan parasites from the domestic fowl.

Martin is now a world authority and author of more than 150 scientific papers and articles on coccidial parasites of poultry.

Martin was appointed Director of the Institute for Animal Health in July 2006 and his awards and honours include Honorary Professor at the Royal Veterinary College (2007) and Research Medal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (2002).

Contact details

Professor Martin Shirley, Director
Institute for Animal Health
Pirbright Laboratory
Ash Road
Pirbright
Surrey
GU24 0NF

Tel: 01483 232441
Email: martin.shirley@bbsrc.ac.uk