Innovating agriculture

03 - 04 June 2024 09:00 - 17:30 Online Free Watch online

This meeting explored the agricultural science and innovation that is transforming the future of food and farming to meet rising production and environmental demands.

The agricultural sector needs to meet the challenge of producing more food to meet rising demand whilst also achieving environmental targets. This two-day conference examined the science and innovation aiming to transform the future of food and farming.

The event has brought together stakeholders from across industry, academia, government and the wider agricultural community to address three key areas: increasing sustainable yields, improving input efficiency and developing novel food production systems. Panel discussions had considered how best to support and fund innovation in food and agriculture, and how to accelerate translation and take-up of new ideas.

Transforming our future conferences

This conference forms part of the Royal Society's industry-focussed Transforming our future series. These unique meetings feature cutting-edge science and bring together experts from industry, academia, funding bodies, the wider scientific community and government to explore and address key scientific and technical challenges of the coming decade.

Organisers

  • Professor Richard Flavell

    Professor Richard Flavell CBE FRS

    Richard Flavell is a plant geneticist who has focused much attention on traits important in crop plants. In the last 5 years he has served as Chief Scientist in two companies in the USA. The first, Indigo, Cambridge, Mass. is an agricultural microbiome company. The second, Inari, is an agricultural plant genetics company. He is currently a consultant for companies and public sector organizations committed to plant improvement, including the International Wheat Yield Partnership. After his undergraduate degree in microbiology, his PhD in the John Innes Institute and the University of East Anglia he spent two years of postdoctoral research in Stanford University, California. He then joined the Plant Breeding Institute in Cambridge UK where he built up a large Department of Plant Molecular Genetics between 1969 and 1987. He was then appointed as Director of the John Innes Centre (JIC), Norwich and to a chair at the University of East Anglia and oversaw a large expansion of JIC’s activities and impact. In 1998 he became the Chief Scientific Officer of Ceres, a young plant genomics company in California. This became a public company and was recently bought by a multinational agricultural company. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and a Commander of the British Empire for services to science.

  • Sir Charles Godfray

    Professor Sir Charles Godfray CBE FRS

    Charles Godfray is a population biologist with broad interests in science and the interplay of science and policy. He has spent his career at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, and is currently Hope Professor of Entomology and Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food at Oxford. His research involves experimental and theoretical studies in population and community ecology, epidemiology and evolutionary biology. The two main current projects in his laboratory involve experimental studies of the interactions between aphids and their food plants, natural enemies and symbionts, and the control of malaria vectoring mosquitoes using novel genetic interventions. He is particularly interested in food security and chaired the Lead Expert Group of the UK Government Office of Science’s Foresight project on the Future of Food and Farming and is currently chair of Defra’s Science Advisory Council. 

  • Professor Angela Karp

    Professor Angela Karp

    Angela Karp is Scientific Director of the Rothamsted Centre for Bioenergy and Climate Change. Her research focuses on optimising perennial biomass crops (especially willows) for bioenergy and biofuels.  Amongst many projects, Dr Karp is responsible for the UK willow breeding programme and also coordinated a RELU-Biomass project on the social, environmental and economic implications of increasing land use under energy crops. She now leads the BSBEC-BioMASS Programme - one of six research hubs comprising the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre. In 2007 she received the RASE Research Medal and, in 2008, the Alfred-Toepfer prize for research achievements in willow. 

Schedule

Chair

Professor Richard Flavell

Professor Richard Flavell CBE FRS

International Wheat Yield Partnership

09:00-09:05 Welcome and opening remarks
Professor Dame Linda Partridge

Professor Dame Linda Partridge

Institute of Healthy Ageing, University College London

09:05-09:25 Opening keynote: Adapting crops to global atmospheric change

The rapid pace of atmospheric change presents challenges and opportunities for agricultural crop production. Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations potentially increase the rate of photosynthesis in C3 crops and decrease stomatal conductance in C3 and C4 crops, which in theory could lead to water savings during times of drought. Ozone is an oxidant that accelerates the process of senescence, reducing fitness of crop species. For the past 20 years, the Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment (SoyFACE) facility has served as a testbed for studying mechanisms of crop responses to atmospheric change in the field. The facility has examined interactive effects of changing atmospheric conditions with rising temperature and drought stress to identify germplasm that could be used to breed crops for future atmospheric conditions. More recently, experiments have tested potential climate mitigation strategies under elevated CO2. In this talk, I will highlight research from 20 years of SoyFACE, discussing the lessons learned and the accelerating need for climate change solutions.

Dr Lisa Ainsworth

Dr Lisa Ainsworth

USDA ARS

09:25-09:30 Q&A

Chair

Professor Richard Flavell

Professor Richard Flavell CBE FRS

International Wheat Yield Partnership

09:35-10:00 Breeding: why we need to start all over again

The humble wheat grain was central to the birth of civilisation and, together with rice and maize, continues as a global staple on which humanity depends. The statistics which support these statements are worth careful consideration. In the season 2023-24 global wheat production was almost 785 million tonnes. Production steadily increases, most years are a new record, perfectly tracking global population increase which is predicted to peak in 2050 with no new land available to expand production. Can wheat continue to deliver for us until then? This depends on the success of plant breeders who made possible the increases achieved so far. From the late nineteenth century a select and quite random group of unimproved landraces were sampled from limited geographical ranges and became the founders of modern breeding programmes. We rely on the genetic gains delivered by reshuffling their genomes to this day! By reading the genetic code of global wheat landrace collection, assembled by AE Watkins in the early twentieth century an international team of researchers has shown that the foundations of modern wheat are simply too narrow and that most of the genetic diversity present in landraces has been unused in systematic breeding. Taking into account the existential challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, declining soil health, and dietary crisis on top of our absolute need for food security I argue we need to revisit the origins of breeding and start again, enabled by the revolutionary technologies that underpin precision breeding.

Dr Simon Griffiths

Dr Simon Griffiths

John Innes Centre

10:00-10:20 Innovating agriculture at microscopic level: using nanotechnology to boost photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is the biological process that gives us oxygen to breath and food to eat. It has evolved over billions of years, but not for the purpose of feeding an ever growing human population, but rather to pass on the plant’s genetic material to the next generation. As such from our point of view it is very inefficient - usually only 1% efficient! Glaia has a unique technology that makes use of recently discovered carbon-based nanomaterials to directly interact on a cellular level with the photosynthetic machinery of plants to increase its efficiency and thus produce more food. It is a versatile approach, that avoids GM and is virtually applicable to any plant. And because photosynthesis relies entirely on natural resources, we can also decrease carbon emissions from crop production at the same time. 

Dr Imke Sittel

Dr Imke Sittel

Glaia

Chair

Professor Richard Flavell

Professor Richard Flavell CBE FRS

International Wheat Yield Partnership

10:50-11:15 Data-driven approaches to reduce methane emissions from livestock

The global food system is responsible for feeding every human on the planet, and currently suffers a number of challenges, including climate change, global inequity, and changing consumer needs. Innovation in the food system has been key to meeting the global demand for food, and I will present some data-driven innovations from academia and industry which ae helping drive the food system of tomorrow. In particular, I will focus on how microbiome-based innovations are leading to a more efficient and sustainable food system.

Professor Mick Watson

Professor Mick Watson

DSM-Firmenich

11:15-11:35 Safeguarding wheat yields from cereal fungal invaders

Wheat rusts are known as the “polio of agriculture” due to the threat they pose to wheat production worldwide. Despite long-standing efforts by a global community to wrestle the wheat rusts into submission, new strains are constantly evolving that can overcome the barriers we create to inhibit infection; and once again, leave the world’s wheat crops vulnerable. To tackle these re-emergent threats, in our lab we use various genomics-based approaches to enhance the resilience of our wheat production system. For instance, developing new strategies to identify plant genes targeted by the wheat rust pathogens to support successful colonisation of wheat. Disrupting the function of several of these genes has shown that their function is essential for supporting wheat rust infection. Thus, presenting these genes as new potential targets for manipulation in wheat rust resistance breeding that could help in our battle to safeguard wheat yields from these notorious cereal invaders.

Professor Diane G.O. Saunders

Professor Diane G.O. Saunders

John Innes Centre

11:35-11:55 The AGROBODY FoundryTM: Biotalys’ innovative platform to generate novel and sustainable biocontrols

Taking a completely new approach to biocontrols, the AGROBODY Foundry™ offers reliable, cost-effective tools to safely prevent crop losses and reducing residues and food waste. Using its ground-breaking technology platform to develop crop and food protection agents, the AGROBODY™ biocontrols provide the effectiveness and consistency of chemicals, as well as the clean safety profile of biologicals. The AGROBODY Foundry™ technology uses the features of camelid antibodies as inspiration of its active ingredients, as has already been proven successful in the development of human therapeutics. Biotalys is leveraging the flexibility of its technology platform to advance a broad pipeline of products with new modes of action that will safely and reliably address key crop pests and diseases across the food value chain.

EVOCA™ is the first biofungicide product of a new generation of protein-based biocontrol solutions built on Biotalys‘ AGROBODY Foundry™ platform. EVOCA™ will help growers effectively control key fungal pathogens in the field. Specific target diseases are Botrytis and powdery mildew, which impact a wide range of fruit and vegetables, including vines, berries and covered crops. The environmentally friendly, innovative biofungicide offers a completely new mode of action to reliably help farmers overcome increasing fungicide resistance.

Dr Carlo Boutton

Dr Carlo Boutton

Biotalys

Chair

Professor Angela Karp

Professor Angela Karp

Rothamsted Research

13:00-13:20 Soils! The heart and lungs of our food systems

Soil has sat at the heart of my works for over 30 years. Light sandy loams, through silts to heavy clays and back again. Have we made the soil story so complex it hinders progress? I will explore the intertwined relationship between nutrition, water and soil and the importance of knowing your own soil. What’s in your fields and how well do you know it? Can data and technology help transfer knowledge during transitions? Should we simply judge soils by their functionality?

Andrew Francis

Andrew Francis

Home Farm Nacton

13:20-13:45 Achieving sustainable productivity in agriculture through beneficial microbial associations

The availability of nitrogen and phosphorus is a major limitation to crop productivity and this is currently addressed primarily through application of inorganic fertilisers to augment these limiting nutrients. Use of such fertilisers contributes the greatest cause of pollution from agriculture in high and middle-income countries, while access to inorganic fertilisers is extremely limited for farmers in low-income countries. In natural ecosystems many species of plants acquire nitrogen and phosphorus through associations with beneficial fungi and bacteria, but the use of these beneficial microbial associations is currently very limited in agriculture. Through a detailed understanding of how plants associate with beneficial microorganisms, we are attempting to broaden their use in agriculture to facilitate sustainable productivity, accessible to all of the world’s farmers.

Professor Giles Oldroyd FRS

Professor Giles Oldroyd FRS

University of Cambridge

13:45-14:05 GeoNutrition: Exploring the roles of healthier soils to support improved nutritional outcomes

Micronutrients, including vitamins and minerals, are required in small quantities in the diet for a range of functions in the body. Micronutrient deficiencies (MNDs) pose a serious risk to human health, for example, zinc deficiency in children increases risks of infection and stunting (low height for age), while adequate dietary selenium is essential for a healthy immune system and thyroid function. The prevalence of MNDs is especially high among poor and rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with nutrient-poor and degraded soils being a dominant causal factor, compounded by low micronutrient bioavailability in staple cereal crops and a lack of access to diverse diets for many people. This talk will describe aspects of recent GeoNutrition studies, with a focus on developing a greater understanding of the roles of soils—and wider aspects of soil health and management—in supporting more sustainable nutritional outcomes which can improve human health and well-being.

Professor Martin Broadley

Professor Martin Broadley

Rothamsted Research

Chair

Professor Angela Karp

Professor Angela Karp

Rothamsted Research

14:20-14:45 The role of soils in supply resilience

Diageo is a premium drinks business that relies on a wide range of crops from all over the world to make its iconic brands. All of these crops are impacted by climate change, especially changes in temperature and water availability, and as climate change progresses, the impacts are expected to be further exacerbated, providing challenges in terms of supply resilience. Soils have a major role to play in ensuring yield stability in a changing climate. Good soil structure can help buffer extremes of rainfall through improved water infiltration rates and greater water holding capacity while also preventing run-off and the associated soil erosion and pollution of water courses. In addition, Diageo has a long-term commitment to water stewardship and to reducing its Scope 3 carbon emissions: our raw materials account for 35% of our Scope 3 carbon footprint. This presentation will outline Diageo’s work on soils to increase the resilience of our key crops, decarbonise our supply chain and deliver positive outcomes in terms of biodiversity and water.

Professor Debbie Sparkes

Professor Debbie Sparkes

Diageo

14:45-15:10 New technologies to reduce the Fertilizer Product Carbon Footprint

Approximately 25% of global GHG’s are associated with the food chain, within which 20% are attributed to agriculture, forestry, and land use. A further deep dive reveals that fertilizer use (5%) and production (6%) accounts for 11% of the 20%. These represent two distinct areas of focus for farming and food companies as part of meeting the sustainability targets and pledges set in platforms such as SBTi. Focusing on fertilizer production, three areas of technology are offering simple, effortless, and impactful solutions; N20 abatement of nitric acid production, CCS to produce ‘blue’ ammonia, and electrolysis driven by renewable energy to produce green ammonia. A transition towards ‘green ammonia’ based fertilizer products over the next decade reduces the carbon footprint associated with fertilizer production by approximately 80%. The challenge for the sector is that such technologies can typically double the cost of fertilizer. This requires new business models to share the cost of implementation across the value chain, ensuring the extra cost is not borne by the farmer.

Mark Tucker

Mark Tucker

Yara Farming Solutions Europe

15:10-15:35 Ammonia and nitrate from air and water using plasma and electrocatalysis

Since the early 1900s, the Haber-Bosch process has been pivotal in nitrogen fixation, producing ammonia for nitrogenous fertilisers crucial in sustaining global agriculture and feeding over half the world’s population. However, its reliance on fossil fuels leads to significant CO2 emissions and therefore poses significant environmental challenges. Carbon capture with storage and/or utilisation may only provide interim solutions; we must reduce fossil fuel dependency. Haber-Bosch’s energy-intensive nature and demanding operating conditions make integration with renewable energy sources difficult.  As we work towards a more sustainable future we must explore alternatives.  Technologies capable of effectively harnessing renewable energy are emerging; could plasma and electrocatalytic technologies offer a viable, economically feasible solution to nitrogen fixation?

Dr Mike Craven

Dr Mike Craven

Plasma2X Ltd / University of Liverpool

15:35-15:55 Translating UK agri-tech research

Agri-tech is focussed on driving economic and environmental productivity within the food system. It covers a broad remit of technologies and has received considerable private equity and industrial investment over the last few years, including across robotics and AI, plant breeding systems, vertical farming and alternative proteins. The commercialisation of agri-tech remains a challenge, not least for innovations emerging from the UK research sector. This presentation discusses the commercialisation of agri-tech research developed at the University of Lincoln but translated through collaboration with the University of Cambridge.  Using FRUITCAST.AI as an exemplar, the paper discusses the challenges of converting core ideas into a credible business, including the development of diverse teams, access to funding and necessary support.  It shows FRUITCAST.AI's development pathway and how robotics and AI research can be exploited to secure both private and public goods.

Professor Simon Pearson

Professor Simon Pearson

Lincoln Institute of Agri Food Technology / Fruitcast.ai

Chair

Professor Angela Karp

Professor Angela Karp

Rothamsted Research

16:25-17:15 Panel: How do we make the innovation pipeline more effective for food and agriculture?
Dr Angie Burnett

Dr Angie Burnett

Advanced Research and Invention Agency

Dr Andy Cureton

Dr Andy Cureton

Interim Director Agri Food Systems, Innovate UK

Dr Andrew Muir

Dr Andrew Muir

Future Planet Capital

Tom Ritchie

Tom Ritchie

Cibus Capital

17:15-17:20 Closing remarks
Professor Angela Karp

Professor Angela Karp

Rothamsted Research

Chair

Sir Charles Godfray

Professor Sir Charles Godfray CBE FRS

University of Oxford

09:35-10:00 "Ungeography": how vertical farming could help transform how we grow

Agriculture is one of the least efficient, most highly polluting and conservative industries on the planet. The human population is booming exponentially and needs to be fed. Anthropogenic effects are causing climate change, making it harder to grow our food in their traditional locations: you can’t move a farm. Much of our arable land is degraded or severely degraded, being over-tilled rendering it prone to flooding and being blown away. This talk will highlight one technology – Vertical Farming – that can grow food far closer to centres of population, regardless of the geography and the external climate. It will explore the necessity to undertake extensive Crop Research and describe the need to combine such a controlled growing environment in a hybrid system with the best of modern farming practices such as Regenerative Agriculture.

David Farquhar

David Farquhar

Tech investor and serial entrepreneur: Advisor to the board of the John Muir Trust

10:00-10:25 Microorganisms as a sustainable source of next generation food and ingredients

Microorganisms have been used for millennia to process food and improve its nutritional properties, taste and shelf life. Nowadays, microbes are still used to process food ('traditional fermentation') but can also be grown in bioreactors to produce biomass and proteins, which can be used to replace meat or to make food ingredients such as vitamins, flavours, antioxidants, etc (via 'precision fermentation'). Recent advances in Engineering Biology are taking microbial foods to the next stage, where we can design the properties of these microbes to reduce food production costs and improve quality, sustainability and consumer acceptance.

Dr Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro

Dr Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro

Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London

10:25-10:50 Developing the cutting-edge technologies required to accelerate insect farming as a global industry

The climate emergency is the greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced. Agriculture is a major part of the problem, generating 19–29% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Additionally, ⅓ of food produced globally is either lost or wasted. Raising animals and creating the protein-rich feed they eat requires significant natural resources, contributing to deforestation, overfishing and biodiversity loss. Insects play a vital role in the natural food chain both as food for animals and as decomposers of waste, and yet are practically absent from the industrialised food system. Entocycle was founded to accelerate a global transition to sustainable protein using insects, innovation and technology. We've built an unrivalled reputation in the insect industry through the delivery of our technology, solutions, and services to businesses, entrepreneurs and organisations worldwide.

Keiran Whitaker

Keiran Whitaker

Entocycle Ltd

Chair

Sir Charles Godfray

Professor Sir Charles Godfray CBE FRS

University of Oxford

11:25-11:50 Cellular Agriculture: part of the whole systems approach for food security and net zero

Cellular agriculture can be defined as a collection of technologies seeking to produce consumables that are traditionally produced using agriculture by other means, such as precision fermentation or tissue engineering. For foods, the best-known examples are fats and oil from yeast or algae, and protein from mycelium or animal muscle cells (cultivated meat), but could be extended to plant cells, for example for coffee or chocolate. Achieving sustainable and ethical cellular agriculture means undertaking responsible research and innovation as we aim to achieve a circular bioeconomy with integrated ‘symbiotic’ culture systems (bioprocess) for manufacturing these products. This talk will give examples of the transdisciplinary approaches for bioprocess design, focused on tissue engineering-based cellular agriculture for cultivated meat, to minimise environmental impacts while maximising productivity and societal benefits.

Professor Marianne Ellis

Professor Marianne Ellis

University of Bath

11:50-12:15 Escape from the planet of the cows

The use of animals in food production is humanity’s most destructive technology. It is the primary driver of destruction and degradation of natural ecosystems and overwhelmingly responsible for a catastrophic global collapse of wild animal populations; a drastic reduction in its scale is essential to halting and reversing that collapse. Phasing out animal agriculture, especially cattle, over the next two decades would rapidly unlock negative greenhouse gas emissions sufficient to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset more than 2/3 of percent of projected CO2 emissions through the end of this century. New plant-based meat products can match or outperform their animal counterparts in deliciousness and nutrition. Paying farmers to transition from cattle husbandry to ecosystem stewardship would improve their livelihoods, dramatically reduce global heating, reverse the collapse of wild animal populations and restore vital ecosystems, at a small fraction of the cost of the renewable energy transition.

Professor Patrick Brown

Professor Patrick Brown

Stanford University School of Medicine

12:15-12:40 Is cultured meat a threat or opportunity for UK farmers?

While cultured meat is potentially transformative for its environmental, ethical and nutritional benefits compared with conventional livestock products, such benefits remain speculative and have yet to be tested at industrial scales of production. Despite these uncertainties, cultured meat has commonly been assumed to be a threat to existing farmers, and in turn, the farming sector has primarily been assumed to be unified in its opposition to cultured meat. However, little research has worked directly with farmers to understand their perceptions of cultured meat. Drawing on research from the ongoing multi-stakeholder UKRI-funded project – ‘Is cultured meat a threat or opportunity to UK farmers?’ – this talk will explore findings collected in collaboration with nine case farms across the UK. It will analyse the farmers’ attitudes to cultured meat in relation to their businesses under different scenarios, and under what conditions (if any) on-farm production of cultured meat might be practical, economically viable and desirable in the UK.

Dr Alex Sexton

Dr Alex Sexton

University of Sheffield

Chair

Professor Iain Donnison

Professor Iain Donnison

IBERS, Aberystwyth University

13:55-14:00 Introduction
Professor Iain Donnison

Professor Iain Donnison

IBERS, Aberystwyth University

14:00-15:00 How can innovations in food and agriculture be deployed at scale?

 

Professor Jo Price

Professor Jo Price

Royal Agricultural University

Dr Katrina Hayter

Dr Katrina Hayter

HSBC

James Evans

James Evans

John Deere

David Exwood

David Exwood

NFU

15:30-15:35 Introduction to keynote speaker
Professor Sir Charles Godfray CBE FRS

Professor Sir Charles Godfray CBE FRS

University of Oxford

15:35-15:55 Closing keynote: Where are we in understanding agricultural innovations?

In her closing remarks, Louise will share her reflections on the future of agriculture during a time of geopolitical tensions, climate, food challenges and pressing innovation in agriculture.

Professor Louise O. Fresco

Professor Louise O. Fresco

Wageningen University

15:55-16:10 Q&A
16:10-16:15 Closing remarks
Professor Richard Flavell CBE FRS

Professor Richard Flavell CBE FRS

International Wheat Yield Partnership