Advisory Committee on Nutrition

Research for Food Security

Record of a facilitated discussion meeting held, under the Chatham House rule, on 8 December 2008 at the Royal College of Physicians, London, attended  by sixty leading senior and junior scientists from a variety of backgrounds in agricultural and food research.

The previous meeting on food security organised by the Rank Prize Funds Nutrition Advisory Committee was a major international symposium in December 1996: Feeding a World Population of More Than Eight Billion People.  The recent increase in food prices served to remind consumers and governments of the very fine line between food sufficiency and insufficiency both globally and regionally.  The developed world has again been alerted to the fact that food production has to be increased simply to feed adequately the present population, let alone the continuing major increases in many parts of the world. The World Bank estimates that cereal production needs to increase by 50% and meat production by 80% between 2000 and 2030. But such increases – if indeed they are possible – have to be achieved while minimising or reducing the present deleterious effects on the environment – whether argued from the point of view of loss of biodiversity, of decreasing the use of fossil fuels or of reducing the output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Supplies of freshwater limit or will limit production in many parts of the world. Other food supplies, like fisheries, are in deep trouble from over-exploitation. Again, the question is being asked: can the avoidance of Malthusian starvation continue?

In simple terms the world needs: more food, with higher nutritional quality of diets, from less land, using less energy and less water.  This meeting was planned to discuss what research needs to be done and how it might best be organised to address the nutritional requirements of a still-increasing world population, the aspirations of increasing affluence and the demands to use land for biofuel production. Discussion was predicated on the research UK needs to do in an international context since by doing so it not only increases its own chances of maintaining secure food supplies of sufficient nutritional quality but, as resources used for food production are scarce and becoming scarcer, increases energy security and political stability, as well as food security, throughout the world. In short, research delivers the ability to have rational, evidence-based policies for food production.

Discussions at the meeting were held under five main headings: World Food Production, Food Production from Plants, Food Production from Animals, Protection of Plants and Animals from Disease, Energy Use and Lifecycle Analysis in Food Production, each of these topics being introduced by 2-3 leading scientists. Across all these topics and cross-cutting issues like nutrition and health, a number of key issues and recommendations emerged:

·         The production of sufficient food to provide adequate nutrition for a projected 9.5 billion people by 2050 was recognised as a major global challenge which UK and Europe had a responsibility to confront and help solve.  It was agreed that a high priority must be placed on the development and deployment of science and technology which will elevate both quantity and quality of agricultural production in Europe and globally.

·         A thorough knowledge of the whole food chain is needed both to inform policy but also to highlight research requirements. Lifecycle analysis, involving energy use and carbon dioxide for example, is a key requirement needing a multi-disciplinary approach and collaboration between scientists and economists throughout the world. Such analyses and approaches will provide a more strategic approach to enabling and funding science with focus on key issues where success must be achieved, as well as leading to better integrated systems of agriculture and land use.

·         Agricultural productivity, assessed variously as output per unit land, per unit energy, per unit fertiliser, per unit greenhouse gas emission will remain the over-riding concern of research effort. An important part of productivity is the prevention of waste and spoilage along the entire food chain.

·         Nutritional quality of diets and foods must be considered alongside increases in yield. Non-staple crops are important for a balanced diet.

·         Emphasis on efficient utilisation of the whole agricultural product, i.e. the “waste” should be treated as a valuable co-product and its utilization incorporated into strategic planning and lifecycle analysis. Biofuels are one example of use of non-food “waste”.

·         Different food production ecosystems may need different solutions., e.g. a particular genotype of a crop plant may react completely differently in different environments and management regimes.

·         Water supply, conservation and decreased utilisation will be of increasing importance as attempts are made to increase food production.

·         The EU regulatory regime for agriculture imposes a major impediment to European countries being able to play a full part in advancing the cause of sustainable food production through innovation and the application of appropriate technology.  Inappropriate (i.e. not evidence-based) EU regulation does not just affect European agriculture and food production - it also has adverse impacts on the adoption of beneficial agricultural technologies in poorer countries.  The EU’s costly regulations governing field experimentation with GM crops and their subsequent approval were of particular concern. The elaborate process and associated expense of satisfying these regulations means that only large multinational corporations can afford to consider the development of new GM products of benefit to EU farmers and consumers. Scientists acknowledge that a range of different technologies will be needed to achieve the magnitude of food production required in the future and, amongst these technologies, GM is already well accepted outside the EU. Delivery of specific genetic improvements with sought-after environmental, nutritional and other consumer benefits is being thwarted. Participants at the meeting were strongly of the view that the UK government should take a leading role within the EU to press for a thorough review of all those regulations which impact on agricultural production and for which scientific evidence of benefit deriving from their operation was lacking.

As well as discussing these and other research issues, participants were of the strong opinion that organisational, funding and personnel issues were of outstanding importance to research on food security along the whole food chain in the UK:

·         A resurgence of agricultural and food research is required in UK, with a single agency responsible for funding. The agency must incorporate the capacity for high-level strategic analysis, synthesis, integration and co-ordination both nationally and as the UK partner in international collaborations. The funding agency should operate at arm’s length from government and have funding systems suitable for the long-term nature of agricultural and food research and development.

·         Research needs to be done in a mixed economy of research institutes and university research groups. Present funding systems based essentially on three-year projects are not suitable for the sustained effort and institutional memories required for long-term agricultural research and development and the “translational” effort needed to integrate research at the levels of molecules, genes and cells with whole organisms and entire agricultural systems.

·         Private-public partnerships in research must be fostered; an example is in the exploitation of wheat traits and transgenes for increased yield and utility.

·         An urgent review of physical and intellectual infrastructure for agricultural research and development is recommended. Important facilities, intellectual firepower and skillsets have been lost in animal, plant and food sciences, particularly at the holistic level; already there are notable shortages in areas such as agronomy, plant breeding and animal physiology.

·         An important task of the research environment is to train the next generation in skills necessary for the future.

·         A major problem is to attract and retain the brightest and best scientists . Changes in  organisational structure outlined above, a commitment to long-term careers by employers and a concerted effort stressing the importance and intellectual rewards of a career in the strategic underpinning of food security are all seen as necessary to achieve this aim. Examples of success, for example, the dramatic improvements in animal welfare brought about by genetic selection in recent years, need to be publicised more widely.

·         Engagement with the public and with academia is essential in order to gain and retain public support for effective research for  future food security. Again, examples of success should be stressed.

·         It was noted that no single professional body exists for agricultural and food scientists, for example, in the style of the Royal Academy of Engineering or the Academy of Medical Sciences. Such a body could have important influence on the promotion of research in food security.

January 2009