Our Future Food Director’s first thoughts
October 19, 2022
This post is written by Andrew Salter. It has been a very strange start to the autumn term for me. For over 30 years, this time of year has been associated with preparing for teaching in the forthcoming semester. Instead, while I watch my colleagues going through this process, I am trying to get to …
Future Food PhD wins prestigious Carlos Fuentes award
September 21, 2022
Karla G. Hernandez-Aguilar, a PhD candidate with the Palaeobenchmarking Resistant Agricultural Systems project, has been awarded a Carlos Fuentes award by the Mexican Society of the UK for her PhD research. Karla’s PhD project is titled: Understanding microenvironments and the potential of traditional agricultural systems in a changing climate in Mexico and Belize. Her interdisciplinary …
Open letter from Prof David E Salt, Director of the Future Food Beacon of Excellence
April 8, 2022
Following on from the recent announcement by Zoe Wilson PVC Science (5th April, 2022) that I will be stepping down as the Director of the Future Food Beacon on the 31st July 2022, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your support and hard work. Your willingness to contribute to …
How do plant roots branch towards water?
February 27, 2020
Plant roots need to forage for water and nutrients in the soil. These key resources are not distributed equally through the soil so plants therefore have to send their roots towards the best available sources of water and nutrients. If plants couldn’t flexibly adapt to changing conditions in their environments, they would struggle to thrive …
The new agricultural bill: soils, sustainability and farming
February 4, 2020
It may have already left your news feed, but a few weeks ago a new agricultural bill was presented in parliament. We spoke to some of our local soil and plant scientists, Prof Sacha Mooney, President of the British Society of Soil Science, and Prof Malcolm Bennett, and Prof David Salt on what the new …
Giant Swamp Taro: plant for the future?
June 7, 2019
Giant Swamp Taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii) is an underutilised but highly productive plant native to the North Sulawesi region of Indonesia. It can grow up to 5 metres tall, and may produce tubers underground that are 2 metres in diameter and up to 3 metres in length. It grows in flooded, brackish conditions. This makes it an …
Global-local knowledge systems for innovation and entrepreneurship in the developing world: An international workshop in Nottingham, 2-3 May 2019
May 29, 2019
This post was written by Dr Bin Wu and Dr Peter Noy. About 2 billion people (two thirds of the population) in the developing world live on about 500 million small farms, defined as plots of land smaller than 2 hectares. Smallholder farmers are “knowledge-rich, but economically poor” and there is a significant gap in …
The Inaugural University Food Challenge!
May 2, 2019
Wednesday 27 February 2019 was a truly special day for the Institute of Food Science and Technology Student Group. The inaugural IFST University Food Challenge event was held at Coventry University. Teams from five different institutions: University College Birmingham, University of Nottingham, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Coventry University and Oxford Brookes University competed against each other to …
The Nottingham Festival of Science and Curiosity
March 1, 2019
Last week the Future Food Beacon participated in the Nottingham Festival of Science and Curiosity. The Festival (FOSAC for short) is a yearly celebration of all things science, in and around the city. The main festival day is the Saturday, and there are also activities taking place in schools the week before, and in libraries …
How to feed the mission to Mars, a talk by Dr Michele Perchonok
February 5, 2019
In December, the University of Nottingham Division of Food Science, and the Future Food Beacon were pleased to host Dr Michele Perchonok, current president of IFT, to a lecture on the question of feeding the mission to Mars. In this blog post, third year PhD candidate, James Huscroft, reflects on her talk and the logistics …
