Often these initiatives find it difficult to engage with farming organisations, and wherever possible the NFU will attempt to influence them to ensure that they are focussing on opportunities to improve the competitiveness and productivity of farm businesses.
A summary of some of the initiatives that the NFU have been engaging with in recent months is outlined below:
Sustainable Intensification Research Platform (SIP) is a Defra funded three year research platform ending in 2017; the latest update on progress can be seen here.
European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) are part of the Countryside Productivity Scheme (part of the new Rural Development Programme for England), more details here. Grants provide funding for collaborative groups consisting of farmers, researchers and others to look at solutions to real problems that farmers come up against. Defra were expected to announce the first successful EIP grants in summer 2016.
Innovative Farmers (IF) is a network giving farmers research support and funding for trialling, testing and hands-on research. The NFU sits on the Steering Group of this new initiative and more information can be found here.
Innovation for Agriculture (IfA) is also a partner of IF. IfA is a consortium of 15 English Agricultural Societies. Through the creation of technical centres around England, IfA delivers new science and innovation to farmers via its website, publications, conferences, seminars, workshops, on farm demonstrations and new media.
Global Food Security (GFS) brings together a number of funders of food-related research to meet the challenge of providing the world’s growing population with a sustainable, secure supply of nutritious food from less land and using fewer inputs. The Programme has recently run a series of Public Panels to gather public perceptions of food security issues. The NFU have been involved in this process, and further details are here.
GFS runs the Food System Resilience Programme and this includes funding for research projects on the theme: “Resilience of the UK food system in a global context”. There have been two funding calls:
Under Call 1, £7.2M was awarded to projects looking at:
Water-related risks in the UK fresh fruit and vegetable system. Lead by Cranfield with UEA, East Malling and Oxford
Resilience of the UK food system to Global Shocks (RUGS). Lead by Edinburgh with SRUC
PIGSustain: Predicting the impacts of intensification and future changes on UK Pig Industry Resilience. Lead by University of Lincoln, with Reading, Leeds and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
IKnowFood: Integrating Knowledge for Food Systems Resilience. Lead by York with Manchester and Liverpool
Securing the future of the UK’s favourite fruit. Lead by Exeter, with Oxford
More here http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/filter/food-system-resilience/
Call 2 has £6.5M available with an application deadline Nov 2016 and priorities are:
- Optimising the resilience of agricultural systems and landscape whilst enhancing productivity and sustainability.
- Optimising resilience of food supply chains locally and globally
- Influencing food choice for health, resilience and sustainability at the individual and household level
More here http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/filter/gfs-food-system-resilience-call2/
The Food Innovation Network (FIN) was announced by David Cameron and will form part of the UK Government 25 year Food & Farming plan, and according to Defra: “The new UK wide FIN will facilitate greater access to existing world-leading technology and science, helping businesses to innovate and grow. It will bring together, support, simplify and enhance the uptake of innovation across the whole food chain, driving productivity from farm to fork.” The FIN was launched in October 2016 and NFU is a supporting partner, details of the launch here.
Leading Food 4.0 is a report looking at how to improve business-university collaboration for the UK's food economy (including farms and fisheries, high-tech manufacturers, mass-market retailers and industrial caterers). The report has a number of recommendations that can be viewed here. Part of this initiative will involve the development of an online tool to help businesses find and connect to research and innovation opportunities in universities – this will be launched during 2016 and more information is here.
The N8 AgriFood Programme, launched in June 2016, combines the expertise of more than three hundred and seventy researchers and six farms at eight universities across the north of England, together with the support of more than forty businesses. This represents the largest concentration of researchers in the agri-food sector in the UK, set against a backdrop of some of the country’s most diverse and productive agricultural and rural economies. NFU sits on the Programme’s External Advisory Board. More here http://n8agrifood.ac.uk/
NFU continue to engage with the Agri-Tech Strategy, see here for recent activity, with regular updates on NFU Online.
SIRN (Sustainable Intensification Research Network), launched in September 2016, is a network of UK researchers in the agricultural, biological, environmental and social sciences working on sustainable intensification.
ASSIST (Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems) is a 5 year project to look at sustainable future farming systems, focussing on resource use efficiency.