“Everything is politics,” as the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann famously wrote. Policies shape societies, right down to the food we eat.
This was reflected by Rothamsted Research’s CEO, Professor Angela Karp. After a 40-year career, she is in her final month at the Harpenden HQ, a powerhouse of agricultural research knowledge and experimentation.
Founded in 1843 by Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert, Rothamsted Research has evolved around the interplay of science, politics, and agriculture. Its enduring success is because it serves strategic political priorities, Professor Karp said.
Malnutrition is a leading cause of death and ill-health worldwide, and a block on global development. The priority of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nutrition for Development is raising the profile of malnutrition in Parliament and championing solutions to end it.
Its Co-Chairs, Steve Race, Labour MP for Exeter, and David Mundell, Conservative MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, were visiting Rothamsted, accompanied by APPG members, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Baroness Hodgson of Abinger, a Patron of United Against Malnutrition & Hunger (UAMH), and Lord Jonny Oates, its CEO.
UAMH runs the Secretariat of the APPG, and Parliamentarians made the journey to learn more about the role of British scientific research in improving the nutritional quality of crops for human and livestock consumption.
International development is often perceived as a zero-sum game. In truth it is a win-win, said Professor Martin Broadley, Rothamsted Research’s Science Director of Sustainable Soils and Crops.
He collaborates with soil and crop scientists, human and animal nutritionists and social scientists around the world. His colour-coded maps reveal how wheat and teff fortified with the mineral selenium improve long-term health in Ethiopia and Malawi. He also explained how lysine-fortified wheat reduces inadequate levels of that essential amino acid in rural households in India. Both nutrients are vital for a healthy immune system.
Dr Zainab Oyetunde-Usman, a social scientist, cautioned that nourishment only occurs when crops are consumed. Gathering information about human behaviour is essential to understand the obstacles to households adopting more nutritious and climate resilient grains, because if a traditional or fortified grain takes more time in preparation, it is less likely to be taken up.
Rothamsted’s bioimaging facility is led by Dr Smita Kurup, a Plant Developmental Biologist. Her focus is on rice growing, which is both threatened by climate change and contributes to it.
Seventy per cent of the world’s rice is cultivated in paddy fields, guzzling water, flooding land, and emitting the greenhouse gas methane. It takes 2,500 litres of water to produce 1kg of paddy field rice.
Dr Kurup’s team collaborates with international colleagues, notably the Philippine Rice Research Institute, analysing the genetic traits of seven hundred rice varieties, from Japan to India, for their sensitivity to temperature and light. The aim is to integrate better growing with higher yield, to produce climate-resilient varieties that require less water and boost food security.
As always, growers’ decisions are driven by economics. The Indian government offers subsidies to encourage time-poor smallholder farmers, often women, to try new nutritious rice varieties.
The next stop on the APPG’s tour was the Sample archive. Floor-to-ceiling shelving stacked with crop and soil samples in vessels of different shapes and sizes, including Marmite jars and Lyons Golden Syrup tins, collected when more conventional lab receptacles were less accessible during the Second World War.
Generations of Rothamsted scientists have added to the collection, allowing researchers to generate new data from 300,000 samples stretching back more than 175 years.
The quest for ground-breaking discoveries continues in the centres’ gene editing and transformation labs. Dr Mark Wilkinson, a Wheat Molecular Biologist, demonstrated gene manipulation by firing DNA into a cell under a microscope. His research aims to breed more disease-resistant wheat, in a complex plant with forty-two chromosomes.
Rothamsted Research is also part of a network of institutions analysing plants’ metabolisms, researching whether this energy source can provide the world with what it currently seeks from fossil fuels.
On a more granular level, everyone consumes wheat one to three times a day. So, improving the nutritional value of this staple is significant, as biochemist Dr Alison Lovegrove told the group.
Brown bread is not always best, she said, passing around a loaf of fibre-fortified white bread to chew. The additional fibre was indistinguishable by taste. A quality that makes bakers more likely to get on board, Dr Lovegrove said.
That encounter marked the end of the tour, which delegates agreed was impressive and informative. Wrapping up, Professor Karp emphasised the importance of maintaining consistent funding streams for research and development, noting that research programmes cannot be turned off and on like a tap, particularly programmes studying agriculture and nutrition.
The APPG is committed to continuing to advocate for UK investment in efforts to combat malnutrition and improve food security because it is the path to a healthier and more secure world.
