̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Howard Griffiths

Cambridge experts on UK drought and climate change

lw355 — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 09:25:55 +0000

From pollinators to profits, food to fires, here's what Cambridge experts say about the impacts of water scarcity – and what it signals about our changing climate.

Vice-Chancellor’s Awards highlight research impact and engagement across Cambridge

zs332 — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 14:44:34 +0000

Academics from across the ̽��ֱ�� have been recognised in this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Research Impact and Engagement Awards for their research into improving management of maternity emergencies during COVID-19, helping rural communities in India become agriculturally more sustainable and aiding the Government’s real-time COVID-19 monitoring.

̽��ֱ��£2 billion vegetable and the agricultural future of the East

lw355 — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 11:00:01 +0000

From crop science to robotics, supply chains to economics, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� researchers are working with farmers and industry to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and profitability.

Cambridge and Indian partners launch collaboration to transform India’s "Green Revolution”

ag236 — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 09:58:15 +0000

̽��ֱ��adoption of modern methods and new technologies in agriculture that propelled India to self-sufficiency in grain production in the second half of the 20th century is known as the country’s “Green Revolution”. It allowed India to overcome poor agricultural productivity, especially in regions like the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, although it relied on overuse of water, fertilisers and pesticides.

Today, climate change, continuing population growth and the rapid process of urbanisation have put added pressure on India’s ability to feed its population. TIGR2ESS – an acronym for “Transforming India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies” – is a £7.8 million programme funded by the UK Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) to develop more resilient, equal and diverse food systems in India. It aims to define the requirements for a second more sustainable Green Revolution, and to deliver this through a suite of research programmes, training workshops and educational activities

̽��ֱ��TIGR2ESS launch event took place in the context of a three-day workshop that brought together all the UK and India partners to discuss and finalise a plan for the programme’s effective implementation.

TIGR²ESS will support 14 postdoctoral researchers employed at partner research institutions and universities across India, as well as eight post-doctoral research associates from collaborating institutions in the UK

̽��ֱ��programme will create 3-year research opportunities for a total of 22 early-career researchers in the UK and India, and also promote academic exchanges at all levels in laboratories across India and the UK.

One of TIGR²ESS’ objectives is to foster mutually beneficial knowledge exchange and collaborative research through workshops in Cambridge and India. In addition, it will deliver a programme of outreach, education and entrepreneurship. In doing so, TIGR²ESS will help strengthen Indian research capacity in key areas of the food system, and will contribute to the development of smart agriculture in India.

At the heart of the TIGR2ESS proposal are a series of Flagship Projects tackling fundamental research questions, and addressing the associated social issues facing farmers in the context of increasing urbanisation and climate change.

Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “TIGR²ESS will inform best practice in crop development and growth. It will allow greater genetic understanding of crop resilience to drought and disease. It will contribute to more effective use of scarce water supplies. It will build capacity and foster education.”

“It will empower women and entrepreneurs, and encourage innovation along the food supply chain. It will create opportunities for early-career researchers, and in doing so will contribute to India’s efforts to ensure it is able to meet the needs of its growing population. I am delighted that Cambridge is a part of this extraordinary initiative.”

Professor Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary of India’s Department of Science and Technology and Department of Biotechnology, added: “"India is a diverse country, and negotiating this diversity is the key to developing any interventions. ̽��ֱ��TIGR²ESS programme takes into account this diversity, and that will define its success. We need to take a holistic view at the nexus between agriculture, environment, water, climate, energy and health. Assessing the impact of technology applications or interventions in a larger setting is very important."

Presenting TIGR²ESS, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Professor Howard Griffiths, the programme’s principal investigator, said: “This unprecedented programme of joint activities will enable capacity building both in the UK and India, and shape the policy needed to define a second Green Revolution for India.”

“TIGR²ESS will address the challenges identified by our colleagues in India, and translate research outcomes to build agriculture systems that support sustainable livelihoods, enhancing the well-being and health of rural communities with a particular focus on improving the opportunities for equality, female empowerment and youth employment, and market-led entrepreneurial opportunities.”

Daniel Shah, Director, Research Councils UK (RCUK) India, said “TIGR²ESS is a great example of the UK and the Indian research teams partnering to address issues around food security and agriculture systems. This initiative also aligns with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to double farmers’ income by 2020."

Researchers met in New Delhi today to formalise the launch of a programme that aims to jointly address some of India’s most pressing food security challenges.

This unprecedented programme of joint activities will enable capacity building both in the UK and India, and shape the policy needed to define a second Green Revolution for India.

Prof Howard Griffiths

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Changing the face of Indian farming

jg533 — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 15:11:03 +0000

̽��ֱ��rains are less reliable. Sudden heat waves create challenging conditions for crops. Poor harvests result not only in debt, but also in malnutrition for smallholder farmers. Farming in India is not an attractive career option.

Many Indian farmers are turning their backs on the life altogether. ̽��ֱ��pull of the city, with the promise of better work and a better income, is drawing huge numbers of rural Indians away from the land.

Women in India have always been involved in farming, typically doing work between the traditionally ‘male jobs’ of sowing and harvesting, such as weeding and applying fertiliser. But they usually work land that belongs to their husbands’ families, and when households become more impoverished they have to work harder yet still earn less than the men.

“It’s becoming difficult to get a reliable income from agriculture in many parts of the Indian subcontinent,” says Dr Shailaja Fennell, from the Centre of Development Studies. “It’s quite common for the majority of younger family members to go to a town to look for work. In the last decade in regions like the Punjab – which benefited from the Green Revolution – even many of the young women are leaving the land, to study at school and college.

“So now the farming is left to the older women – the mothers and sometimes the grandmothers. They’re in the difficult situation of having to make do in households where incomes are falling. In poorer states such as Odisha, this can lead to malnourishment, which has long-term effects on the children.”

̽��ֱ��record grain outputs of India’s ‘Green Revolution’ in the 1970s and 1980s established the country as one of the world’s largest agricultural producers, sustaining its booming population and boosting its economy. But the level of success varied from region to region, and the continued overuse of water, fertilisers and pesticides, together with post-harvest crop losses, has put increasing pressure on natural resources. India’s rapid population growth continues, and the UN estimates it will surpass China by 2022 to become the most populous country in the world. And more people means more mouths to feed.

Fennell is a co-investigator of TIGR²ESS: a new, large-scale, multi-partner project that has just been awarded £6.9m funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) by Research Councils UK to address this complex web of issues. Drawing together a formidable network of partners from research, industry, government and NGOs in the UK and India, the project aims to define the requirements for a second, more sustainable Green Revolution, and to deliver this through a suite of research programmes, training workshops and educational activities.

̽��ֱ��funding forms part of the UK government’s Official Development Assistance commitment, and partners from both countries will work together, with over 22 new researchers funded in both the UK and India.

“India is developing fast. A new approach is urgently needed to ensure a more resilient outcome for the future of the country’s food production,” says plant scientist Professor Howard Griffiths, who leads TIGR²ESS. “To be successful, we need to address the challenges in India today, from equality and sustainability in agriculture, to the problems associated with climate change.”

̽��ֱ��empowerment of women will be a key theme of this multifaceted project. Providing India’s women with the skills and knowledge to contribute to improved food security for their country, and better nutrition for their families, will take various approaches. ̽��ֱ��UK–Indian partnership will set up ‘nutrition kitchens’ in Indian villages alongside existing health centres to run monthly cooking classes and provide nutrition-relevant education. And in the field, workshops will educate female farmers to help them improve their farming practices.

“Some crops, like certain varieties of millet for example, are currently used only for animal feed,” says Griffiths. “But they have a better nutrient balance and are more climate resilient than the preferred staples like wheat, so switching may partly be a question of education.”

“In parallel, our research will be looking for ways to increase the value of these crops, to raise family incomes,” adds Fennell. “These are very specific interventions that have huge potential impact. TIGR²ESS will bring together science and social science to drive interventions that actually work for Indian farmers and their communities.”

TIGR²ESS will include fundamental research addressing crop productivity and water use in India, and will identify appropriate crops and farming practices for different climatic regions. It also includes a capacity-building programme of researcher exchanges between the UK and India to ensure skills development and build expertise for the longterm. And it will draw on expertise at Cambridge’s Centre for Science and Policy with the aim of bringing about policy change in India, to ensure that it is not just the men who receive farming support.

“Recognising that an increasing number of India’s smallholder farmers are women, we need to ensure that state resources and services, and knowledge, are equally accessible to them,” says Dr V. Selvam, Executive Director of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, one of the India-based project partners.

“ ̽��ֱ��ultimate impact of TIGR²ESS will be to deliver sustainable practices and improved food security, whilst promoting equal opportunities and enhancing nutrition and health for rural communities across different regions and climatic zones in India,” says Griffiths. “For Cambridge, this is an opportunity to build on our commitment to international scientific excellence and to translate this into real benefits for society through our partnership with India’s Department of Biotechnology and institutions across India.”

Inset image: A farmer at work weeding in a maize field in the Indian state of Bihar. Credit: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.

Indian agriculture is expected to feed a growing and increasingly urbanised population. But if everyone wants to move to towns and cities, who is left to farm the land?

̽��ֱ��farming is left to the older women – the mothers and sometimes the grandmothers. They’re in the difficult situation of having to make do in households where incomes are falling.

Shailaja Fennell

M. DeFreese/CIMMYT

Farmer from the Indian state of Bihar

Changing the way we eat, grow and distribute food

While TIGR²ESS focuses on improving India’s food production, a £340m EU Innovation programme involving Cambridge aims to put Europe at the centre of a global revolution in food innovation and production.

Around 795 million people worldwide don’t have access to enough food to meet their minimum daily energy requirements, while at least two billion consume too many calories but don’t get the nutrients they need. Both the hungry and the overweight suffer the health consequences of poor diet.

And while our increasing population is creating a growing demand for food, 25% of what we already produce is going to waste. Add to this the changing climate affecting crop growing conditions, rapid urbanisation and the increasing demand for resource-intensive foods like meat – the net result is a food system that’s increasingly under pressure.

Cambridge is one of several European universities and companies that last year won access to a £340m EU Innovation programme to change the way we eat, grow and distribute food.

̽��ֱ��project, funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and called EIT Food, has ambitious aims to halve the amount of food waste in Europe within a decade, and to reduce ill health caused by diet by 2030.

“Sustainability is a top-level agenda which is engaging both global multinational food producers and academics,” says Professor Howard Griffiths, who helped to lead Cambridge’s involvement in EIT Food, a consortium of 55 partners from leading European businesses, research centres and universities across 13 countries.

“Our joint goal is in making the entire food system more resilient in the context of a changing climate, and improving health and nutrition for people across the world.”

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Cambridge-led collaborations aim to tackle global food security and public health challenges

cjb250 — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 10:00:46 +0000

̽��ֱ��two collaborations are focused on food security in India and public health in Bangladesh and will see researchers from the UK and developing countries working together as equal partners.

̽��ֱ��awards are part of the Global Challenges Research Fund, which aims to build upon research knowledge in the UK, and strengthen capacity overseas, to help address challenges, informed by expressed need in the developing countries.

Jo Johnson, Minister for Universities and Science, said: “From healthcare to green energy, the successful projects receiving funding today highlight the strength of the UK’s research base and our leadership in helping developing countries tackle some of the greatest global issues of our time.

“At a time when the pace of scientific discovery and innovation is quickening, we are placing science and research at the heart of our Industrial Strategy to build on our strengths and maintain our status as science powerhouse.”

Andrew Thompson, GCRF Champion at Research Councils UK, said: “ ̽��ֱ��37 projects announced today build research capacity both here in the UK and in developing countries to address systemic development challenges, from African agriculture to sustainable cities, clean oceans, and green energy, to improved healthcare, food security, and gender equality.”

TIGR²ESS (Transforming India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies)

Lead: Professor Howard Griffiths (Department of Plant Sciences)

Talk of a second Green Revolution has been around for a while. ̽��ֱ��first – in India and other developing countries, in the 1960s – brought a massive increase in crop production that sustained the country’s mushrooming population. But now there are new pressures – not just the need to produce even more food, but to reduce the damage done by excessive use of pesticides, fertiliser and water in the face of climate change.

TIGR²ESS, a collaboration between UK and Indian scientists, seeks to frame the big question – how to bring about a second Green revolution – in all its breadth and depth. India is developing fast– agriculture needs to take account of urbanisation, for example, which has drawn so many away from the land. Smallholder farmers- particularly women- need smart technologies to sustain crop yields, and improve health and nutrition.

̽��ֱ��TIGR²ESS programme will assess these options, as well as supporting basic research programmes, and providing advice to local communities. There will be many opportunities for academic exchanges, mentoring and career development for scientists from both countries. Links with the relevant government ministries in India, plus industrial connections built into the programme, will hopefully turn the best recommendations into reality.

“We are extremely pleased that the TIGR²ESS programme will help to deliver our vision for partnerships with institutions in India to improve crop science and food security,” says Professor Howard Griffiths, Co-Chair of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Strategic Initiative in Global Food Security.

“Agriculture is feminizing. We need to ensure that state resources and services, and knowledge resources, are equally accessible to women farmers,” adds Dr V Selvam, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, India, one of the collaborators.

CAPABLE (Cambridge Programme to Assist Bangladesh in Lifestyle and Environmental risk reduction)

Lead: Professor John Danesh (Department of Public Health and Primary Care)

Gathering a big group of people and studying their health in the long term can uncover game-changing facts. ̽��ֱ��British Doctors’ Study, for example, which began in 1951, revealed that smoking causes lung cancer. Imagine if the same could be done in a country facing a perfect storm of chronic health problems.

Bangladesh is admired worldwide for its success in cutting child mortality and fertility rate, yet it faces an onslaught of chronic diseases that arise from an interplay of factors ranging from arsenic-contaminated drinking water to iron-deficient foods and from air pollution to the rise of the western lifestyle.

CAPABLE has the ambitious goal of recruiting 100,000 people from landscapes ranging from the green paddy fields of rural Bangladesh to the slums of the densest city in the world – Dhaka. From their data, engineers, sociologists, health researchers and a host of other disciplines will try to understand how the risk factors interact – and build a model that can be used to test interventions before they are implemented.

“We aim to help develop simple, scalable and effective solutions to control major environmental and lifestyle risk factors in Bangladesh,” says Scientific Director of the CAPABLE programme Dr Rajiv Chowdhury from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Two major research collaborations led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have been awarded almost £15 million in funding, the Minister of State for Universities and Science, Jo Johnson MP, announced today during a visit to Cambridge’s Sainsbury Laboratory.

CIAT

NP India burning 60

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Cambridge to play major role in €400m EU food innovation project

cjb250 — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 09:25:34 +0000

̽��ֱ��project, called EIT Food, has ambitious aims to cut by half the amount of food waste in Europe within a decade, and reduce ill health caused by diet by 2030. It has received €400 million (£340m) of EU research funding, matched by 1.2 billion euros (£1 billion) of funding from industry and other sources over seven years.

̽��ֱ��project is funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), and will have a regional headquarters at the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading to co-ordinate innovation, cutting edge education programmes and support start-ups in the ‘north west’ sector of Europe, covering the UK, Ireland and Iceland.

̽��ֱ��Europe-wide scheme was put together by a partnership of 50 food business and research organisations from within Europe’s food sector, which provides jobs for 44 million people. Cambridge is part of one of five regional hubs across Europe. Already confirmed as core partners in the UK-based ‘Co-Location Centre’ (CLC) alongside Cambridge are academic centres Matís, Queen’s ̽��ֱ�� Belfast and the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading, as well as businesses ABP Food Group, PepsiCo and ̽��ֱ��Nielsen Company. Further partners are expected to be announced in the next year.

Professor Howard Griffiths, co-chair of the Global Food Security Strategic Research Initiative at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who will lead Cambridge’s involvement in the EIT, said: "Sustainability is a top-level agenda which is engaging both global multinational food producers and academics. Our joint goal is in making the entire food system more resilient in the context of a changing climate, and improving health and nutrition for people across the world."

EIT Food will set up four programmes to target broad societal challenges, including:

personalised healthy food
the digitalization of the food system
consumer-driven supply chain development, customised products and new technology in farming, processing and retail
resource-efficient processes, making food more sustainable by eliminating waste and recycling by-products throughout the food chain.

EIT Food will also organize international entrepreneurship programmes for students, and develop a unique interdisciplinary EIT labelled Food System MSc for graduates. Thousands of students and food professionals will be trained via workshops, summer schools and online educational programmes like MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and SPOCs (Specialized Private Online Courses).

Peter van Bladeren, Vice President Nestec, Global head Regulatory and Scientific Affairs for Nestlé and Chair of the Interim Supervisory Board of EIT Food, said: “EIT Food is committed to create the future curriculum for students and food professionals as a driving force for innovation and business creation; it will give the food manufacturing sector, which accounts for 44 million jobs in Europe, a unique competitive edge.”

Adapted from a press release by the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is one of a number of British universities and companies that have won access to a £340 million EU Innovation programme to change the way we eat, grow and distribute food.

Our joint goal is in making the entire food system more resilient in the context of a changing climate, and improving health and nutrition for people across the world

Howard Griffiths

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Fresh Food In Garbage Can To Illustrate Waste

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Scientists aim to improve photosynthesis to increase food and fuel production

gm349 — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:16:04 +0000

Two new initiatives at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge aim to address the growing demand on the Earth’s resources for food and fuel by improving the process of photosynthesis.

As part of a new collaboration, the scientists have been awarded the major component of a $4M initiative to improve the process of photosynthesis, which allows biological systems to convert sunlight into food and is also the source of fossil fuels.

Four transatlantic research teams - two of which include academics from Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences - will explore ways to overcome limitations in photosynthesis which could then lead to ways of significantly increasing the yield of important crops for food production or sustainable bioenergy.

Professor Howard Griffiths from the Department of Plant Sciences said: “Plants really matter, and for the next generation, plant and microbial productivity will become the focus of key global issues: the basis for feeding an additional 2-3 billion mouths, to drive forward an economy currently trading on past sunlight, and maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change.”

̽��ֱ��funding has been awarded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) in a pioneering undertaking for the best minds from the USA and UK to join forces to explore this important research.

Despite the fact that photosynthesis is the basis of energy capture from the sun in plants, algae and other organisms, it has some fundamental limitations. There are trade-offs in nature which mean that photosynthesis is not as efficient as it could be - for many important crops such as wheat, barley, potatoes and sugar beet, the theoretical maximum is only 5%, depending on how it is measured. There is scope to improve it for processes useful to us, for example increasing the amount of food crop or energy biomass a plant can produce from the same amount of sunlight.

Some of the research will focus on improving a reaction driven by an enzyme called Rubisco, which is a widely recognised bottleneck in the photosynthesis pathway. By attempting to transfer parts from algae and bacteria into plants, the researchers hope to make the environment in the plants' cells around Rubisco richer in carbon dioxide which will allow photosynthesis to produce sugars more efficiently.

Professor Griffiths added: “ ̽��ֱ��enzymatic powerhouse Rubisco takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and uses light energy to produce sugars and other building blocks of life. However, the enzyme is rather flawed and somewhat promiscuous: it engages with oxygen as well as carbon dioxide, to the detriment of potential plant productivity.

“Some plants have evolved mechanisms, which act like biological turbochargers, to concentrate CO2 around Rubisco and improve the enzyme’s operating efficiency. These carbon concentrating mechanisms have evolved in certain key crops, such as sugar cane and maize. Other plants, such as aquatic algae, have developed mechanism in parallel which actively concentrate bicarbonate as a source of CO2 for Rubisco.”

̽��ֱ��research projects have been funded by BBSRC and NSF following a multidisciplinary workshop held by the funders in California in September 2010. ̽��ֱ��workshop, called the Ideas Lab, enabled scientists from different disciplines and institutions in the UK and USA to explore ideas and potential projects before submitting them to BBSRC and NSF.

̽��ֱ��Ideas Lab experience was likened by Professor Griffiths to be a combination of Big Brother, ̽��ֱ��Weakest Link and ̽��ֱ��Apprentice. Professor Griffiths is the consortium leader for one of the joint proposals funded, which will be exploring the operation of an algal carbon concentrating mechanism, and the possibility for introducing components into higher plant cells.

Dr Julian Hibberd from the Department of Plant Sciences is part of one of the other initiatives which is seeking to increase the efficiency of light harvesting by broadening the wavelengths of light, as used by bacteria, to power biophysical transport processes in higher plants.

This research will consolidate a major Plant Sciences initiative at Cambridge, which is exploring the means to improve photosynthesis from the perspective of sustainable plant productivity and crop yields for the future. Additional work is also being undertaken by Dr Hibberd to investigate the potential introduction of C4 photosynthetic traits into crops such as rice. This programme is part of a broader sweep of strategic research relevant to sustainable crop development, involving RNAi, pathogen suppression and epidemiological controls to maintain yields in a changing climate.

New collaboration aims to address the growing demand for food and fuel by improving the process of photosynthesis.

Plants really matter, and for the next generation, plant and microbial productivity will become the focus of key global issues: the basis for feeding an additional 2-3 billion mouths, to drive forward an economy currently trading on past sunlight, and maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change.

Professor Howard Griffiths

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̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Howard Griffiths

Cambridge experts on UK drought and climate change

Vice-Chancellor’s Awards highlight research impact and engagement across Cambridge

̽��ֱ��£2 billion vegetable and the agricultural future of the East

Cambridge and Indian partners launch collaboration to transform India’s "Green Revolution”

Changing the face of Indian farming

Cambridge-led collaborations aim to tackle global food security and public health challenges

TIGR2ESS (Transforming India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies)

Lead: Professor Howard Griffiths (Department of Plant Sciences)

CAPABLE (Cambridge Programme to Assist Bangladesh in Lifestyle and Environmental risk reduction)

Lead: Professor John Danesh (Department of Public Health and Primary Care)

Cambridge to play major role in €400m EU food innovation project

Scientists aim to improve photosynthesis to increase food and fuel production

TIGR²ESS (Transforming India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies)