{"id":7233,"date":"2017-09-18T15:55:36","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T15:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainableagriculturewaitrose.org\/?p=7233"},"modified":"2017-09-18T15:55:36","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T15:55:36","slug":"transforming-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/2017\/09\/18\/transforming-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"Research seeking ways to increase yields for farmers worldwide has received $45 million to build on pioneering work in plant science to help feed the world<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The five-year reinvestment from the\u00a0Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation<\/a>\u00a0(BMGF), the\u00a0Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research<\/a>\u00a0(FFAR), and the UK\u00a0Department for International Development<\/a>\u00a0(DFID) will enable the researchers to continue their work to address the global food challenge.<\/p>\n

Led by the University of Illinois<\/a>, Lancaster University<\/a> is one of the key global partners on the project and one of only two UK partners.<\/p>\n

Transformative work by scientists in the\u00a0Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency<\/a>\u00a0(RIPE) research project, has already demonstrated yield increases of 20%.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday’s\u00a0report on world hunger and nutrition<\/a>\u00a0from five UN agencies reinforces our mission to work doggedly to provide new means to eradicate world hunger and malnutrition by 2030 and beyond,\u201d said RIPE Director\u00a0Stephen Long<\/a>, the Gutgsell Endowed University Professor of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology at the University of\u00a0Illinois. He is also a professor of crop sciences at\u00a0Lancaster\u00a0University, UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis investment is timely. Annual yield gains are stagnating and means to achieve substantial improvement must be developed now if we are to provide sufficient food for a growing and increasingly urban world population when food production must also adapt sustainably to a changing climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, in a study\u00a0published in the journal Science<\/a>, the team demonstrated that one of these approaches could increase crop productivity by as much as 20% \u2013 a dramatic increase over typical annual yield gains of one percent or less. Two other RIPE pipelines have now led to even greater yield improvements in greenhouse and preliminary field trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur modelling predicts that several of these improvements can be combined to achieve additive yield increases, providing real hope that a 50% yield increase in just three decades is possible,\u201d said Professor Long. \u201cWith the reinvestment, a central priority will be to move these improved photosynthesis traits into commodity crops of the developed world, like soybeans, as well as crops that matter in the developing world, including cassava and cowpeas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Martin Parry<\/a>,\u00a0the RIPE principal Investigator at Lancaster University said: \u201cIt is incredibly exciting to be working on a project of this scale, particularly because our work should make a difference bringing about some real improvements to crop efficiency within coming decades. \u00a0Globally, the problems we face are so big, that it would be na\u00efve to think that any single research group or university could solve them alone. RIPE brings experts together to increase our ability to make rapid progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Elizabete Carmo-Silva<\/a>, also Lancaster University, said: \u201cOur job at Lancaster is to focus on the properties and regulation of an enzyme called Rubisco, which plays an important role in photosynthesis in plants, enabling them to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, which they depend upon to live and grow. \u00a0We will focus on variation in Rubisco between different varieties of Cowpea, Cassava and Soybean, and use a modelling approach to work out which will perform best in particular environments. This will enable us to develop varieties that are tailored to be highly productive in different areas of the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article source: Lancaster University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research seeking ways to increase yields for farmers worldwide has received $45 million to build on pioneering work in plant science to help feed the world The five-year reinvestment from the\u00a0Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation\u00a0(BMGF), the\u00a0Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research\u00a0(FFAR), and the UK\u00a0Department for International Development\u00a0(DFID) will enable the researchers to continue their work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":381,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[117,142,287,317,325,350,444,468,679,727,877,896,965,987,1034,1086,1196],"class_list":["post-7233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-bill-melinda-gates-foundation","tag-bmgf","tag-crops","tag-department-for-international-development","tag-dfid","tag-dr-elizabete-carmo-silva","tag-ffar","tag-foundation-for-food-and-agriculture-research","tag-lancaster-university","tag-martin-parry","tag-photosynthesis","tag-plant-science","tag-realizing-increased-photosynthetic-efficiency","tag-ripe","tag-science","tag-stephen-long","tag-university-of-illinois"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}