The UK is set to invest more than £7 million of taxpayers’ money into developing more sustainable methods of producing quality fruit and vegetables to help secure food for the future.
The government-funded Bio- technology and Biological Sciences Council (BBSRC) has launched a scheme called the Horticulture and Potato Initiative, which is a collaborative funding activity to support excellent quality, industrially relevant research projects on potato and edible horticulture crops.
One of the areas where the initiative will focus is on helping growers adapt to a changing climate, the BBSRC said.
“Many varieties of the food crops we grow in the UK have been tailored to very specific local climate conditions. This means that even slight changes in growing seasons, water availability and weather extremes could cause dramatic reductions in production if not countered with research expertise,” it said.
The BBSRC has identified six key areas for research: changing seasons, crop maturity and storage, soil, pests and pathogens, seed quality and vigour, and resource-use efficiency.
Additional funding will be also provided by industrial partners, the Scottish Government and the Natural Environment Research Council, and the money will be available through two calls for applications.
Dr Celia Caulcott, BBSRC director of innovation and skills, said: “Any research initiative to improve fruits and vegetables should start with the end product - what do we as consumers want to eat? We can combine the scientific expertise of academic researchers with the real world expertise of industry in the hope of delivering bigger yields of better quality fruit and veg for us all to buy.”
The NFU said BBSRC principally invests in pure science but is focusing on edible horticulture and potato crops after a great deal of NFU discussion and industry engagement.
“It’s now important for all other R&D stakeholders to come together,” it said.
“In what has been, and some would argue still is, a hostile environment to innovation, they must collaborate as business partners and deliver farm-gate uptake and investment output focus.”
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