New University Centre for Food Security offers real-world solutions
Release Date 22 November 2010
What is Food Security?
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Centre for Food Security at Reading
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Feeding the globe's population healthily and in a sustainable way is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today.
The Government Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir John Beddington, will highlight the problems we face during a lecture to mark the launch of the University of Reading's Centre for Food Security today.
The new Centre joins together existing areas of research excellence at the University to provide a platform for developing real-world solutions to tackle issues such as changes in climate and land use, over-nutrition in western societies, changes of nutrition in developing countries and increased awareness of the environmental consequences of food production.
The University is a world-leader in being able to offer natural and social science expertise across the whole food chain, from soil through food production and processing, to dietary health. It also has unique cross-disciplinary work with climate research.
Sir John's lecture on The global future of food and farming' is the Museum of English Rural Life's 2010 annual lecture. It comes ahead of the publication of the Government's Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures' report, due in January, which addresses the challenges the world will face in 2050 with a global population of nine billion.
Sir John said: "The challenge is not only to increase food production, but to do so in a way that is sustainable, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and preserving biodiversity. In addition, as demonstrated by the 2006-2008 food price spike, we must make the food system more resilient to volatility, both economic and climatic. A further challenge is that of ending hunger; currently around 1 billion people are hungry, and we must work to ensure that this number decreases rather than increases in the future."
The University's Centre for Food Security will harness the research excellence at Reading that is looking for solutions to the issues raised in the report. In particular research is focused on three interconnected strands:diet and health, sustainable agriculture and biodiversity.
The Centre's Director, Professor Richard Tiffin, said: "Careful consideration of the journey from food production to processing to the table is vital in order to ensure resilient, sustainable, healthy food supply chains.
"At Reading we are unique in having individual research projects that cover the whole food chain. However, we recognise that a single institutional approach will not succeed in addressing all of the challenges that food security presents. We want to encourage the development of links with leading research groups beyond the University that complement our own strengths and can make a real difference to the food security agenda."
Current research within the Centre for Food Security includes:
- Milk research could help reduce heart disease: Professor Ian Givens, of Food Chain and Health Research in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, is investigating how unhealthy saturated fats in cows' milk can be reduced. Researchers will assess the potential health benefits for people who consume reduced saturate dairy products with particular regard to those at risk of coronary heart disease or strokes.
- Developing wheat varieties for the future: Dr Hannah Jones, Lecturer in Crop Science and Production, is working with industry to increase the flowering stage of particular wheat varieties to overcome sudden extreme stress. Temperatures of 33oC and above can cause sterility during flowering. If flowering is stretched over a number of days, a number of flowers will escape the stress of sudden temperature spikes.
- Safeguarding our chocolate supply: Dr Paul Hadley, from the School of Biological Sciences, is leading a five-year project to assess the threats to future supplies of cocoa. Pests and diseases already destroy about a third of potential cocoa production, and with climate change there will be a risk future . The University is home to the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre (ICQC), which handles all international movement of cocoa breeding material and is the only facility of its kind in the world. ICQC is playing a pivotal role in stopping the spread of pests and disease on cocoa, whilst ensuring that research centres worldwide have access to new and interesting types of cocoa.
- Making health eating messages effective: Dr Laurie Butler, of the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, is researching how healthy eating messages/information provision can be improved to make messages more relevant, more persuasive and more effective in producing long-term changes in behaviour. For example, a healthy eating message describing the benefits of a reduction in cardiovascular risk in later life does not appeal to a 20-year-old, but a message regarding energy levels and good skin might.
- Fat taxes and their subsidies: Professor Richard Tiffin is researching the impacts of fiscal food policies and dietary choices and consequent impacts on nutrient intakes and health. The research recognises that groups consuming the worst diets are often those who would experience the biggest impact on real income as a result of a tax on food. The use of such policies therefore entails a careful balance between health and other social objectives.
ENDS
For more information please contact Rona Cheeseman, press officer, on 0118 378 7388 or email r.cheeseman@reading.ac.uk
Notes to editors
The Centre for Food Security is developing its strategy under the direction of Professor Richard Tiffin with an advisory board comprising Professor Glenn Gibson, representing a theme in Diet and Health; Professor Ken Norris, representing a theme in Biodiversity; and Professor Tim Wheeler, representing a theme in Sustainable Agriculture.