Rothamsted Ready to Help Fix 'Broken' Food System

The independent review for the National Food Strategy has been welcomed by a range of Rothamsted experts, who have praised its attempts to set innovation at the heart of the solutions for our ‘broken’ food system.

The report, which was written by restauranteur Henry Dimbleby, has made national headlines with its calls for a sugar and salt tax, as well as proposals for fruit and veg to be available on the NHS.

But dive deeper into its 290 pages and you will find a slew of recommendations relating to land use, investment in research, and ways to help farmers transition to a post-Brexit, low carbon future.

Commenting on the report, Rothamsted Research Director and CEO, Professor Angela Karp welcomed the idea of a £500 million challenge fund to promote innovation on farms and agri-tech start-ups.

“Society will only successfully tackle the challenges laid out in this report by embracing scientific solutions – by developing more nutritious foods that are accessible to all, that are grown in harmony with the natural world, and that allow farmers to earn a fair living.

“The UK is home to some of the world’s foremost experts in agricultural research, experts who have already made great strides in addressing the issues laid out in this report. What is needed now is for industry, government and civil society to help us to build on these breakthroughs and realise them in the wider world.”

The report identifies numerous threats to human and planetary health from our current eating habits – not least the country’s ‘tragically high death rate’ from obesity or food production being responsible for a quarter of our total greenhouse gas emissions.

From developing a wheat for high-fibre white bread, to producing heart healthy fish oils in plants, to trialling low carbon and environmentally benign farming methods, Rothamsted is at the very forefront of research into how best to future-proof our food, said Professor Karp.

“Add in our thriving hub of agritech start-ups, as well initiatives such as our £3.5 million SHAKE Climate Change programme, and it demonstrates the real critical mass we have created here - and why the UK Government relies on Rothamsted to deliver nationally important strategic research into farming as well as training the next generation of researchers, technical specialists, entrepreneurs, and innovators.”

The report also encourages the government to set a target to reduce the nation's meat consumption by 30% over 10 years. 

Whilst reduced meat consumption is desirable for both human health and environmental reasons, it is not the only route to zero carbon for the livestock industry – and nor should it be, says agricultural economist Dr Taro Takahashi.

“The panel's effort to fully capture the complexities surrounding the protein transition should be applauded, and it is particularly good to see that the potential impacts of different transitional pathways on farmers and the countryside are clearly considered. 

“However, their choice on the unit of carbon footprint (kgCO2e/kg product) to support this discussion does not accurately represent the nutritional and health values of food produced from different farming systems. Alternative frameworks are available, and they could have led to a different 10-year target for reduction. We are eager to see these more modern approaches integrated into the Three Compartment Model the panel recommends for future policy planning.” 

Professor Johnathan Napier, who leads Rothamsted’s research into ways of sustainably producing omega-3 fish oils in camelina plants, said the report makes some good recommendations, but missed a trick in grouping all animal protein production systems together.

“Given the proven role of omega-3 fish oils in reducing metabolic disease risk for cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes and obesity, the prevailing dietary recommendations from pretty much everyone is that we need to increase our consumption of fish to get the omega-3s that are devoid in terrestrial animals.

“The world’s oceans cannot sustain that many fisheries, nor can it supply aquaculture with enough of the correct form of food so farmed fish can produce these oils. Therefore, the only viable solution is to find ways of producing these oils on land.”

The report can be found here.