The UK needs a competitive agricultural

industry to meet the future challenges of

food production and land use.

This competitiveness will only occur if

innovations and new technologies are

produced and quickly adopted by its

producers. The motto of the RASE is

“Practice with Science” which

recognises that, to be successful, the

practice of agriculture must work in

partnership with science. The RASE

believes that this partnership in

agriculture is under serious threat, and

that a new approach is required

involving both public and private sectors

working together in partnership.

The Royal Agricultural Society of England(RASE) was established 170 years ago at a timewhen UK agriculture was at a low ebb. Enlightened enthusiasts had seen the potentialto develop technologies for food productionusing the new understanding of chemistry,physics and biology, and RASE was formed tobe a catalyst to these changes. The latterhalves of the 19th and 20th centuries inparticular saw upsurges in the scienceunderpinning agriculture being translatedinto new technologies globally.

This enabled food production to growbetween 1900 and 2000 at a rate that morethan matched the growth in the globalpopulation which over that period increasedfrom below 2 billion to over 6 billion people.

The motto of the RASE is “Practice with Science” which recognises that, to be successful, the practice of agriculture mustwork in partnership with science. It is concerned with knowledge moving in both

directions along the research chain andbeing adopted and adapted through furtherapplied research as required. Unfortunatelyover the last 25 years, UK governmentpolicy has tended to separate science andpractice to the extent that this partnershipin agriculture is under serious threat.Throughout this report both agricultureand horticulture are considered under theheading of agriculture.

The implications of a non-functioning research chain are that new innovationsand technologies will evolve and beadopted more slowly, UK agriculture willgrow in productivity and competitivenessat a lower rate than other countries andthis will result in a greater reliance onother countries to produce our food.

The food price spike in 2008 challenged politicians to re-consider their views onfood security and the role of UKagriculture in food production. Nevertheless whilst a number of activitieshave commenced in government departments, relevant actions arestill awaited.

The Need to Increase FoodProduction SustainablyThe separation of practice from science in agriculture has occurred at a time whenfood production and land managementhave never been so important. The UKexists in a global market place for foodwhere the forecast is that due to population growth and to dietary changesin emerging economies, there will be arequirement to increase food productionby 50-100% by 20501, but this will have tobe achieved with the added challenges of a

reduced area of agricultural land available toproduce it, and of using lower inputs of energy, water and chemicals..

UK agriculture can and should increase its contribution to the food supply not only tomeet the rising global requirement for food,but also to meet the rising demand for foodin the UK which is projected to increase inpopulation by about 25% over the next50 years.

The UK is well placed to do this as it has anexcellent climate and some of the mostresilient soils capable of achieving much greateramounts of primary production. At presentonly 60% of our food is produced in the UK.

The need to increase food production in theUK sustainably has recently been recognized bythe government which has said that “Domestically, we want a profitable, thriving,

competitive UK food sector to continue to play its

part in keeping us food secure” and that

This Report was prepared for the RASE’s

“Practice with Science”

Advisory Group by the

Group’s Chairman,

Professor David Leaver.

David is a former Principal

of the Royal Agricultural

College, Cirencester, and

former Professor of

Agriculture at Wye College.

Since retirement in 2007, David has

continued serving agriculture through his

involvement with the RASE, Commercial

Farmers’ Group, BIAC, the Frank

Parkinson Trust and the Government’s

Council of Food Policy Advisers.

Practice with ScienceExtract 3: Applied

Agricultural Research

Practice with Science and Agriculture:The need to Re-invigoratethis Partnership

Professor David Leaver

1The Royal Society (2009) Reaping the benefits. Science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture. The Royal Society, London.

Chloe PWS_Layout 1 15/04/2010 10:32 Page 2

“Sustainable increases in food production can be

achieved through improving productivity and

competitiveness, while conserving and enhancing

the natural environment”2.

The importance of new technologies in providing solutions to these challenges facingfood production and land use have been emphasised on a number of occasions by theGovernment Chief Scientific Adviser, ProfessorJohn Beddington. At the 2010 Oxford FarmingConference he said that “Deploying new

technologies, processes and knowledge that make

our agri-businesses more sustainable and efficient

will be critical in meeting our economic,

environmental and social goals, including

promotion of a thriving food sector”3.

New Technologies and theFuture of AgricultureA technological revolution has occurred in thelast 10-15 years which is certain to impact in asignificant way on agriculture in the future.These new technologies include biotechnology,GPS technology and in communications in particular by mobile telephone technology. The introduction of new and improved traitsfor crops and livestock, the development oftechnologies to monitor crops, livestock andthe farm environment, and automatedprocesses to assist in optimising productionprocesses will continue to transform futureproduction systems..

This is emphasised in a recent review of research priority areas by the CommercialFarmers Group4 which identified two of themain priority areas as:

1.

2.

BiotechnologyBiotechnology in crops (including GM) isneeded to develop the “greener revolution”that is required to enable increased

production to be achieved with lowerinputs of energy, water and chemicals.Priority traits will include nitrogen fixation,increased efficiency of N, P, and K use,improved water use efficiency, resistanceto pests and diseases and provision ofnutrients to improve human health.

Biotechnology in livestock, in particulargenome-wide selection methods, willallow faster rates of genetic progress to beachieved with the objective of increasingproductivity, improving the quality of theproduct for human health and reducingGHG emissions and nutrient (N + P)losses from the system.

Precision TechnologyPrecision technology in agricultural and horticultural crops will lead to increasesin efficiency of production (productivity)and reduce environmental impact, through reducing the external inputs of energy,water and chemicals, and by reducingsoil degradation.

Precision technology in livestock is likelyto be influential in nutritional managementof livestock and in the application of inputsduring field operations. This technologywill lead to increases in the efficiency ofproduction, to reduced energy inputs andto reduced environmental impacts fromnutrients and GHG’s.

Practice with science

Impact of Public Sector FundingPolicies for Agricultural ResearchThe partnership between practice and science worked well until the mid-1980swith many university and research institute scientists being involved in looking for practical solutions through research to improve the productivity of UK agriculture

and doing this in collaboration with extensionworkers and farmers.

However over the last two decades publicfunding of science has not encouraged thispartnership56. Government policy has beenpredominantly concerned with expanding itsfunding of science research in universities andresearch institutes with the objective ofmaking this science “world-class” as judged bythe league tables relating to scientificpublications in international journals. To achievethis objective the government and its agencieshave concentrated their efforts on supportingbasic science research. At the same time theyhave withdrawn funding from applied researchwith the expectation that the industry(farmers, suppliers, processors, wholesalers orretailers) would pick up the innovations frombasic science and develop them into newproducts and technologies.

The first part of this policy has been highly successful with the UK now being recognisedas one of the top nations in basic science(based on the citation index of its scientificpublications). However, the second partinvolving the withdrawal from fundingresearch directed at increasing theproductivity of agriculture has not resultedin the private sector replacing the lost fundingfrom the public sector. One outcome of thishas been a falling behind in growth ofproductivity and competitiveness ofUK agriculture7.

Nevertheless there remains a considerableconfusion over how much public sector research funding is supporting agriculture. At first sight this would appear to besubstantial as government funding of “agricultural research” for 2010 is claimed tobe £280m8. However this is misleading as thisamount is mainly spent on basic science aimedat a deeper understanding of how plants andanimals function and on research to supportgovernment policy objectives. Only a verysmall proportion of this funding appears tobe directed at improving the efficiency andcompetitiveness of UK agriculture.

The amount of research funding provided bythe farming industry is also small. The farmingindustry is made up mainly of micro-businesseswith low profitability and not surprisingly itdoes not make a significant contribution toagricultural research funding.

The levy bodies of the Agriculture andHorticulture Development Board (AHDB)funded mainly by farmers contribute about£23m per year7. Other agriculturalorganisations provide a further £6m and thetrade £56m to agricultural R&D7.

A clear conclusion is that the outcome of focusing government research funding onbasic science and the associated loss of public infrastructure and expertise in applied research

Genetic improvement in crops andlivestock exploiting the latest biotechnology methods to increase productivity, to control pests anddiseases, to reduce environmental impactand to increase nutritional benefits tohuman health;Increased productivity and reduced environmental impacts of crop and livestock production systems throughprecision technology developments.

2Food 2030 Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. London, January 2010 | 3Professor John Beddington (2010) Key issues in agricultural science. www.ofc.org.uk | 4Commercial Farmers Group(2009) Priorities for agricultural and horticultural R&D. www.commercialfarmers.co.uk | 5Commercial Farmers Group (2008) The need for a new vision for agricultural research and development6NFU (2008) Why science matters for farming. National Farmers Union, Stoneleigh | 7Thirtle and Holding (2003) Productivity of UK agriculture. Causes and constraints. Chapter 4. http://statistics.defra.gov.uk

Chloe PWS_Layout 1 15/04/2010 10:32 Page 3

has created a gradual distancing of agriculturalpractice from science.

How are Practice and Science Linked?The research chain, sometimes called the research pipeline, links both science with practice and practice with science. It is concerned with knowledge moving in bothdirections along the chain and being adoptedand adapted through further innovation asrequired. The adaptation process is throughapplied research, and this is the area which hasbeen hardest hit.

It is also important to understand that a successful research chain is also likely to bedifferent for different types of new technologies.

The development of new technology productsin agriculture such as vaccines, antibiotics,livestock feeds, seed varieties or cropchemicals appears relatively simple to understand although expensive and time consuming to carry out.

It is sometimes called the “pharmaceuticalmodel” of the research chain and ischaracterised by a company identifying apotential market, and then using knowledgeacquired through basic science research orapplied research, from within the company orin the public domain, to develop a newproduct. The company then has to satisfy thelegal requirements for selling the product,obtain necessary Intellectual Property Rightsprotection and ultimately market the product.

This “pharmaceutical model” of the researchchain fits well with the present public sectorfunding model which supports basic scienceresearch to generate new knowledge with theexpectation that industry will carry out thenecessary translation of research into practice.In this case, industry provides the link betweenscience and practice and throughunderstanding the needs of the agriculturalindustry it also provides the link betweenpractice and science.

Nevertheless a new product will not necessarily have been tested over a wide rangeof farm conditions. Performance in practice ofa new crop cultivar or a new animal genotypeor feed will be influenced by a range of controllable and uncontrollable factors such assoil type and preparation, nutrient ornutritional regime, disease status, management,and weather. This requires applied research bythe industry to test these interactions and thishas been lacking in recent times with the lossof field-scale comparisons and demonstrations.

Many of the new technologies required for thefuture will not however be delivered by thepharmaceutical model of the research chain.The development of new systems of productionwhich might include for example soil cultivationsystems to reduce energy use, chemical input orwater loss; cropping systems to reduce pest and

disease losses; nutritional regimes forlivestock to increase feed efficiency; grazingsystems to increase livestock productivity,reduce GHG emissions and increase

carbon sequestration.

In these examples there could be a needfor some industry funding of research,particularly if new or existing productsare involved, but as there are potentialpublic benefit outcomes arising fromchanges in productivity from suchsystems, including environmental (diffusepollution/GHG emissions/biodiversity)and social (animal welfare/rural livelihood) benefits, it is strongly arguablethere should also be public sectorfunding of this type of research.

The objectives of sustainable foodproduction systems are to deliver beneficial outcomes economically,environmentally and socially and this oftenrequires multi-disciplinary research9 whichhas a sustainable production system andnot a saleable product as the output. Theresearch chain in this case is much morecomplex and requires a different type of

research chain and funding.

Restoring the Partnershipbetween Practice and Science

Make Basic Science Research more User-focusedThe tension between basic and appliedscience research is not new and does notonly apply to agriculture. It is often considered that basic science shouldonly be concerned with the deeperunderstanding of nature, and should not be

influenced by its potential use by industry.

This simplistic view that research to understand (basic science) and research todevelop use (applied research) should beseparate was challenged by Stokes in theUSA10 who emphasised that “we need a

more realistic view of the relationship between

basic science and technological innovation to

frame science and technology policies for a

new century” and he considered that“recognising the importance of use-inspired

basic research…. can frame a new compact

between science and practice”.

It is important that “blue sky” basic science research continues. However, if the principleof “use-inspired basic science research” wasadopted by the government and its agencieswhen funding a proportion of research programmes, and by research providers(universities and research institutes) indeveloping the career structures and rewardsfor scientists, this would represent animportant first step in restoring thepartnership of practice with science.

Link Practice with Science at theResearch Provider LevelThe loss of capacity in both infrastructure andexpertise in agricultural research has reducedthe innovation needed to translate basicscience and ideas generated at the applied levelinto practice, as has the facility to feed backinformation from practice to basic scienceabout the needs of the industry..

The research institutes in particular have animportant role in extending “use-inspired” research into application through field-scaleexperimentation and in collaboration withindustry research organisations. This will require them to restore adequate capacity inapplied research including both infrastructureand expertise.

Link Practice with Science at theIndustry LevelThere is a need for the agricultural industry,the private sector and research providers toco-operate in establishing appropriate meansof bridging the research chain gap.

The agricultural industry has been pro-activeover many years in attempting to replace theloss of government applied research fundingand advisory services by setting up farmer-ledresearch organisations (eg The Arable Group[TAG], Maize Growers Association, KingshayTrust), industry extension services (eg throughthe levy bodies, sector trade businesses) andfarmer discussion groups. Their link with basicscience has however become increasingly tenuous due to the lack of relevance of this research to the industry.

It is important that AHDB providesleadership to the industry in increasingagricultural productivity and sustainabilityby developing links with funders and research

8Oxford Farming Conference (2010) Agricultural research needs and priorities: survey findings from the food and farming industry. www.ofc.org.uk | 9UK Cross-Government Food Research and InnovationStrategy (2010) Government Office for Science, London. January 2010 | 10Stokes, DE (1997) Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic science and technological innovation. Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 212pp.

Chloe PWS_Layout 1 15/04/2010 10:32 Page 4

providers in the private and public sectors toensure that appropriate applied researchinfrastructure and expertise is now put inplace. The RASE has an important role to playin continuing to work with both private andpublic sectors to promote exchange of views,and in its knowledge transfer activities onbehalf of the agricultural industry.

Current Initiatives to Address theProblem of Linking Practice withScienceSince 2008, the issue of agricultural R&D hasbeen and continues to be widely discussed in government and by the industry. The recentgovernment strategy report Food 203011 hascalled on government, research councils andindustry to “develop new technologies and

techniques for sustainable agriculture and land

use, and better knowledge transfer” . The UKCross-Government Food Research andInnovation Strategy12 has neverthelesshighlighted the complexity of research strategies for food research, indicating that“The topic of food is inherently complex and

multi-faceted, and the research and innovation

landscape reflects this complexity”.

................The food price spike in 2008 challenged muchof the previous thinking on food security, theimportance of UK agricultural production, andthe relationship between agricultural R&Dand competitiveness.

RecommendationsThe country needs a competitive agriculturalindustry to meet the future challenges of foodproduction and land use. This competitivenesswill only occur if innovations and newtechnologies are produced and quickly adoptedby its producers. Whilst cooperation betweencountries is needed, the UK cannot continueto rely increasingly on other countries for itsagricultural innovations.

The RASE believes that a new approach is required involving both public and private sectors working together in partnershipas follows:

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Further copies of this Report can beobtained from: Joanna Righton, Secretary,“Practice with Science” Advisory Group,joannar@rase.org.uk, tel: 02476 858254

Royal Agricultural Society of England,Stoneleigh Park,WarwickshireCV8 2LZwww.rase.org.ukCharity no: 209961

Actions taken by government include:•

•

•

•

•

•

•

These initiatives are to be welcomed, but inthemselves are unlikely to deliver the dynamicresearch chain that will be needed to meet the2030 challenges.

Food 2030 published in 2010 is thegovernment strategy for food over thenext 20 years;UK Cross-Government Food Researchand Innovation Strategy is a researchstrategy12 report for food research andinnovation that extends across the UKpublic sector; Food Research Partnership was formedby the Chief Scientific Adviser, ProfessorJohn Beddington, to provide a high levelforum promoting cross-sector dialogueand collaboration across government,the research community and theprivate sector;The Technology Strategy Board (TSB)has established a new “SustainableAgricultural and Food Innovation

Platform” to fund innovative technologicalresearch and development at a level of £90mover five years;BBSRC will coordinate a multi-partner foodsecurity research programme acrossresearch councils and government;BBSRC Advanced Training PartnershipScheme has been developed to providehigh-level training (masters, professionaldoctorate and continuing professionaldevelopment) to meet industry R&D needs; BBSRC have proposed the developmentof a new farm-scale research facilityat North Wyke.

Currently £280m is directed by governmentand its agencies at what is designated asagricultural research, but this appears to behaving little impact on either totalproduction or productivity of the agriculturalindustry. Agricultural research should beaimed at increasing production andproductivity in sustainable productionsystems with the clear aim of increasingcompetitiveness of the agricultural industry;

Whilst “blue sky” basic science research underpinning agriculture is important, itshould not necessarily be at the funding levelof the past ten years if this prevents fundsbeing directed at this industry-directedresearch. The principle of “use-inspired

basic science research” should beadopted by the government and itsagencies when funding a proportionof research programmes. These programmes should have increasedagricultural productivity as aproposed outcome;

Research providers (universities andresearch institutes) should recognisethat research aimed at “use” rather than “understanding” is of great value to thecountry. This recognition should bereflected in the expertise of scientistsappointed and in the career structuresand rewards for these scientists;

Universities appear to have no mandateto deliver benefits to the agriculturalindustry at present, and until universitiesare encouraged to carry out moreindustry-directed research, a number ofresearch institutes should be retainedto lead research for the variousagricultural sectors;

Research institutes can extend“use-inspired” research into applicationthrough field-scale experimentation andin collaboration with industry researchand knowledge transfer organisations. The restoration of an adequate capacity

in applied research will be necessaryincluding the required infrastructureand expertise;

AHDB should provide leadership to the agricultural industry in developing a positivestrategy to increase agricultural production,productivity and sustainability. This willmean developing collaborative links withgovernment and with research providersin the public sector, extending currentagricultural extension activities, andsupporting the creation ofdemonstration farms;

The levy bodies of AHDB also have animportant role in utilising their levy fundingto support applied research in their sectorareas, where possible in collaboration withother public and private sector funders, andto support knowledge transfer activities.

11Food 2030. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. London, January 201012UK Cross-Government Food Research and Innovation Strategy (2010) Government Office for Science. London, January 2010

Chloe PWS_Layout 1 15/04/2010 10:32 Page 1