News
See below for the latest news from the Warwick Crop Centre.
For our latest publications see Crop Centre in Print
26 May 2017: Inaugural Elizabeth Creak Distinguished Guest Lecture on Food Security
On Friday 26 May Professor John A Pickett, from Rothamsted Research, will be coming to the School of Life Sciences to give the Inaugural Elizabeth Creak Distinguished Guest Lecture on Food Security. The title of his presentation is 'Global food security: removing production constraints with GM but learning from nature'.
Abstract:
The need further to intensify, in a sustainable way, global agriculture becomes ever more pressing. Our current tools mainly comprise seasonal inputs for dealing with constraints relating to crop protection and production but delivery of associated traits via seed, and other planting material, sets high demands often without obvious solutions. GM will need to play a major part certainly in dealing with constraints and because of the low impact on primary metabolic processes, secondary plant metabolism presents powerful new targets. By definition, the genetic apparatus for exploitation of these metabolites only requires identification and natural regulatory processes provide evidence of value already realised in some elements of biological control such as companion cropping. Synthetic biology can then extend these opportunities and will be exemplified for the isoprenoid pathway in plant defence and production.
The lecture will be in GLT1 13:00-14:00.
Warwick Crop Centre researchers speaking at AHDB Horticulture 2017 Narcissus Growers Workshops
John Clarkson, Andrew Taylor, Rob Lillwhite and PhD student James Syrett will be contributing to the AHDB Narcissus Growers Workshops to be held on:
17 May 2017, Pool Innovation Centre, Trevenson Road, Pool, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 3PL
25 May 2017, Springfields Events & Conference Centre, Spalding, Lincolnshire PE12 6ET
Producer or consumer? The house, the garden and the sourcing of vegetables in Britain, 1930-1970
Sophie Greenway, 3rd year (part-time) PhD student in the Centre for the History of Medicine, has just won the Postgraduate Paper Prize for the Social History Society's recent conference in London.
The paper was called 'Producer or consumer? The house, the garden and the sourcing of vegetables in Britain, 1930-1970'. It used women's and gardening magazines to explore the reasons why Britain did not become a nation of domestic vegetable producers, given the importance of nutrition in public health during the 1930s and 40s. The nutritional and hygienic health of the family in mid-twentieth century Britain was portrayed in magazines as the responsibility of women.
Housewives were the main decision makers regarding domestic food procurement. Advertising and articles in magazines encouraged them to purchase food from shops, not to take part in the 'dirty' job of growing it at home. 'Growing your own' was consistently portrayed as a practice for desperate times, due to unemployment or war, not a part of everyday life.
This paper thus provides historical and cultural context to present day efforts to create sustainable food systems. Sophie's PhD research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is 'Growing well: Dirt, health and the home gardener in Britain, 1930-1970'. The full paper will be available on the Social History Society website shortly: https://socialhistory.org.uk/conference-2017.