News - 2023
NRI’s Food Accelerator Programme showcased its rising stars and new entrants - all of whom are developing plant-based food and drink products – at the three-day food and drink festival, held in the gardens of historic Rochester Castle.
A team from the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) has won a prestigious research grant from the UK Research and Innovation and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs programme: ‘One Health approach to vector-borne diseases’. The aims of the research programme are to forecast, mitigate and avoid vector-borne diseases that threaten the UK, such as Lyme disease which is transmitted by ticks. The scientists aim to discover if grey squirrels, which carry young ticks – the ones most responsible for Lyme disease transmission to humans - can be sustainably managed by using contraceptive baits to lower the population.
A momentous agreement was reached on 4th March 2023, when negotiators from more than 190 countries agreed on the first international treaty to protect the high seas, also known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement.
In early 2020, Harrison Hardy began his PhD on climate-adapted rice agricultural systems and was looking forward to various research trips to irrigated rice fields in Africa to research levels of malaria transmission. However, his travel plans were abruptly halted by the Covid-19 pandemic. He found himself restricted to a solitary UK laboratory where he made a surprising discovery about the effects of different types of organic manure on mosquito larvae. Harrison takes up the story.
Prabath Jayasuriya came to the UK from his home country Sri Lanka, to follow his passion for chemistry by studying for his Master’s degree in Food Safety and Quality Management at NRI, University of Greenwich. It was a school science lesson, a lump of sodium and some water, that first ignited his interest for doing experiments in a lab. Prabath takes up the story.
Professor Maruthi Gowda has just signed an MOU – a Memorandum of Understanding – between the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), and the University of Agricultural Sciences Bangalore (UAS-B), to facilitate research, and the exchange of research material between the UK and India.
NRI’s Dr Pamela Katic is the research lead for two projects in the Peruvian Amazon, both focusing on improving the nutrition and health of Indigenous Peoples through agroforestry systems and capacity building. Just back from a trip to present the preliminary results to policy makers and other stakeholders in Lima, Pamela takes up the story of the projects and how she hopes to build on their success.
On Tuesday 24 January 2023, Rehman Chishti, MP for Gillingham and Rainham and Cllr Jan Aldous, The Worshipful The Mayor of Medway, joined Professor Jane Harrington, Vice Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, to declare open the brand-new food innovation centre at the Medway campus in Chatham.
In April 2022, NRI sent two of its experts to Uzbekistan to support farmers in solving agricultural pest problems in ways which minimise risks to people and the environment. Professor Richard Hopkins, Head of NRI’s Agriculture, Health and Environment Department, and Hans Dobson, Professor of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and a Crop Protection Specialist, travelled to the Uzbek capital Tashkent with colleagues, Dirk Babendreier and Manfred Grossrieder from CAB International (CABI), who brought complementary strengths in the area of biocontrol, research and implementation.
We are pleased to announce a series of four seminars hosted by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) of the University of Greenwich, under its Food and Nutrition Security Initiative (FaNSI). The seminars to be held in January and February 2023, will provide the occasion for NRI researchers, students and FaNSI partners to share with a wider audience, their recent research addressing challenges and potential solutions relating to food and nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa.
NRI’s Dr Kendra Byrd is co-author of a new study published in the journal Nature Food, which explains how small fish such as herring, sardine and anchovy could play a big part in tackling malnutrition and the food insecurity crisis across the globe. Until now, very little was known about the affordability, availability and superb nutritional value of these pelagic fish, so-called because they live in open waters rather than near the bottom, or the shore.