Event: Working together to sustain the UK domestic supply system

Date: 21 Nov 11

Venue:

Summary

On the 21 to 22 November the Centre of Excellence for UK farming (CEUKF) hosted it's first conference: "Working together to sustain the UK domestic supply system"

CEUKF is a pioneering supply chain partnership which aims to deliver on the current and future requirements for a sustainable UK food supply, by:

–Communication, networking and partnership

–Strategic research and bespoke projects

–Addressing the skills agenda

The presentations and feedback from the breakout session are available click here

Breakout session

There was an interesting breakout session devoted to discussing the following four questions:

1. What defines a sustainable UK supply chain?

2. Risks and Opportunities ( 5 to 10 years)

3. How should [science>KT>policy>practice] work?

4. Partnerships s and cooperation: how important?

Brief notes on some of the presentations are below:

Tim Benton, Leeds University and Global Food Security Champion: “Global food security” (http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/ )

Tim Benton described how the Global Food Security initiate aims to provide improved coordination – joined up and greater awareness, and be a focal leadership point; achieve greater impact and provide horizon scanning.

A whole system approach is needed. Production growth alone is insufficient as some pre and post harvest losses remain high .

Bill Davies, University of Lancaster: “A research perspective”

Manipulating soil biology appears to be an interesting recent area of research with bacteria that increase drought resistance.

Described how land activities have caused desertification in China and how agriculture can change practices to mitigate water loss.

Consortium to improve yield of wheat – 20 partners, 7 countries and $70m with a target to double yield. Current rates of genetic response <1%.

Drops project – water resistant plants –four traits: leaf and root architecture, seed abortion and water use efficiency.

Even in UK mild water deficiency reduced crop yield. Alternating wet and dry parts of the root system increases yield relative to regulated deficit irrigation (RDI)

Using remote sensing of canopy temperature by infra red, with cooler canopies being associated with higher yield and greater root depth. In glass houses can use thermal images to detect water shortage and spot irrigate.

David Gibson, Moy Park (Poultry): "A supplier perspective"

Vertically integrated with 800 farms.

New ownership (Marfig) has enabled new investment in old buildings.

Using windowed growing sheds.

Showed a good graph of age of buildings in the industry and at Moy Park: Industry <10 years old 8%; Moy Park < 10 years old 45%.

Issues:

• Planning difficult

• Increasing environmental demands

• GM

• Alternative sources of protein

• Volatile commodity prices

• Use of cereals as bio fuel

• Rising world demand

David summarised by saying that "science will play a great role".

Calum Murray, Technology Strategy Board: "The sustainable agriculture and food platform of the TSB"

Calum outlined key assessment criteria for TSB calls:

• The Idea (how innovative, exploitable and achievable)

• The Market (Where, how big, exploitation plan)

• The Consortium (Capability and experience)

• Additionality (How will TSB make a difference)

• The Impact (How big, where and when)

After describing previous calls Calum highlighted several new calls:

Food processing and Manufacturing

Largest manufacturing sector with a turnover £ 72bn, GVA of £20bn; employs 400k people, £1bn committed to R&D annually. Waste 184m tonnes (WRAP, 2010) of 272mt total waste

New Call -£10m April for Manufacturing efficiency

• Increasing Raw material Use efficiency

• Reducing Energy & Water use in Manufacturing

• Reducing Supply chain waste

• Improving Product shelf Life

A whole supply chain approach:

• from innovative technologies for “pre and post” farm gate handling & storage.

• to more efficient food processing, & packaging and distribution in the retail and food service sectors.

• and the efficient recycling of manufacturing by-products and waste streams

Calls further ahead include:

• Phenotyping and trait measurement technologies

• Integrated farming systems

• Integrated engineering solutions

• Climate change adaptation

Marco Winters, DairyCo: “Expanding dairy cow selection indices”

Tremendous genetic increase in milk yield

Also good use of indices by farmers, as evidenced by the fall in SCC index (Somatic cell count) and fertility index. Marco linked farm needs to genetic tools to help farmers.

He emphasised that “show cows” were not the future, but an evolving assortment of profitable traits.

New developments were the inclusion of slaughterhouse data, lameness, TB resistance and fatty acids, genomic evaluations (That will provide traceability options, individualisation of health, nutrition – “mass customisation”.

Genetics makes a contribution of £10m/year for the UK and 0.8% reduction in GHG emissions / year, but collaboration is essential for future success.

Michael Lees, IBERS,”Ffluorescent detection of faecal contamination of meat”

Described their work on developing markers for fluorescence faecal contamination markers.

Ian Given, Reading University: “The development of low saturated fat milk”

He stressed that Food security included providing access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food for people to maintain a healthy and active life and that human health was an integral aspect of food security. The extent of industry collaboration in the project was significant leading to the DRINC project. There were various work packages involved - dietary changes, the use of novel lipids to reduce methane production. Other health aspects underway are dairy products and weight control and milk proteins and blood pressure and arterial stiffness.

Peter Kendall, NFU

Highlighted why Science Matters with an increasing population that eats more, with UK yields stagnating, and the cost of resources increasing and climate change.