{"id":7703,"date":"2017-11-30T15:40:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T15:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainableagriculturewaitrose.org\/?p=7703"},"modified":"2017-11-30T15:40:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T15:40:14","slug":"thirteen-years-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/2017\/11\/30\/thirteen-years-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirteen years to go"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u00a9

Professor Achim Dobermann<\/p><\/div>\n

Agriculture has just over a decade to adapt and evolve to new ways of working that will enable it to feed a growing global population without causing lasting damage to the environment, says Achim Dobermann<\/a>, Director and Chief Executive of Rothamsted Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a vision statement that concludes the\u00a0institute\u2019s annual report, released online today<\/a>, Dobermann looks ahead to 2030, the year when the\u00a0current 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations\u00a0<\/a>end.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is all the time we have to make the more transformative changes towards a more sustainable development path. And if we fail, it\u2019s going to be incredibly hard to catch up afterwards,\u201d notes Dobermann. He goes on to highlight what could be achieved by then.<\/p>\n

Dobermann foresees the elimination of extreme poverty; revitalised yields of the world\u2019s staple cereal crops with traits that make them more healthy and resistant to damage; and novel plants producing fish oils and pharmaceutical drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2030, and not only in the English west country of our colleagues at\u00a0North Wyke<\/a>, we will have healthy cattle and sheep that produce high quality beef and lamb in a natural environment that is managed sustainably with low environmental footprints and no toxic leaks into air or water,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the UK and globally, in collaboration with industry, we must focus on solutions, and I stress\u00a0solutions<\/em>, for agriculture,\u201d insists Dobermann. \u201cJust as importantly, our goals must also meet high environmental standards and not only productivity targets. We can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the report, the main themes of the institute\u2019s work in 2016\u20132017 are productivity, engagement and new discoveries. The report also reflects on the achievements of the past five years, from 2012 to 2017, the period of the former strategic plan.<\/p>\n

“We helped to found three of the UK\u2019s four new agri-tech centres, staged a popular forum on innovation and, with the National Farmers’ Union<\/a>, came up with what\u2019s needed for a UK agri-science sector outside the EU,” recalls Dobermann in his foreword.<\/p>\n

On research, Dobermann notes: \u201cWe are pioneering a chemical spray for enhancing crop yields; we showed that damaged biodiversity can recover; and we revealed nutritional risks facing 1 billion people worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also looks at the institute\u2019s international activities over the past year; its taking over at the helm of the\u00a0Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS);\u00a0<\/a>the fruits of its continuing alliance with Syngenta<\/a>; the opportunities for postgraduates at Rothamsted; and its public engagement activities.<\/p>\n

The leaders of the four strategic programmes between 2012 and 2017 (20:20 Wheat; Delivering Sustainable Systems; Designing Seeds; and Cropping Carbon) summarise the science and impact of their teams\u2019 work.<\/p>\n

The heads of the four National Capabilities of the same period (Rothamsted Insect Survey; Long-Term Experiments; North Wyke Farm Platform and Pathogen-Host Interactions Database) have done similarly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that 2016\/17 was a \u2018critical period for us\u2019, as I predicted in the last annual report,\u201d says Dobermann. \u201cWe came through it all, and with flying colours.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Agriculture has just over a decade to adapt and evolve to new ways of working that will enable it to feed a growing global population without causing lasting damage to the environment, says Achim Dobermann, Director and Chief Executive of Rothamsted Research. In a vision statement that concludes the\u00a0institute\u2019s annual report, released online today, Dobermann […]<\/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":[14,33,414,769,906,1004,1116,1244],"class_list":["post-7703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-achim-dobermann","tag-agriculture","tag-eu","tag-national-farmers-union","tag-policy","tag-rothamsted-research","tag-sustainable-development-goals","tag-vision-statement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7703","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=7703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}