Food for thought

Produce more food from less land, with less impact on the environment: that is the challenge facing world agriculture. Many believe that this challenge cannot be met through existing agricultural practice and that the farming and food production industries must look beyond their traditional boundaries and existing technology to bring in ideas from engineering and the physical sciences.

This is the background to the recent launch of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Innovation Platform by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Up to £75m will be invested in the programme.

The initiative is something of a departure for the TSB, which is normally regarded as oriented towards engineering and the physical sciences rather than the domain of Defra and the BBSRC. But according to the organisation’s head of development, Paul Mason, its remit covers any part of the UK economy, provided it meets the following criteria: there must be potentially a large worldwide market; the UK must have the capability to exploit the technology; the timing must be right with the ideas normally about three to five years from being market ready; and the board’s intervention must add value, for example, by helping UK firms beat competitors to market.