Food Systems Institute

The University of Nottingham retired its blog service in December 2025.

The following is a list of preserved posts from the Food Systems Institute blog.

• A brief history of Africville, Nova Scotia
• A Creative Approach to Engaging with Male Eating Disorders: Animating the Patient-Doctor Encounter in Clinical Settings
• A PhD placement with AB InBev in the USA
• A tale of rhynes and reens in the South West corner: Part three in a botanical tale of exploring natural variation around us
• Adaptation and resilience in the Yucatan: an ode to farmers – by Karla G. Hernandez-Aguilar
• Adaptation in the face of adversity: unlocking the secret of the genome
• AfriPlantSci 2019: Healthy Plants, Healthy People, Healthy Planet: Building African capacity to tackle African Plant Health Challenges in Africa
• Agricultural systems in The Fertile Crescent – An interview with Ali Ben Mustapha
• An Interview with Dr David Gopaulchan, Visiting Research Fellow, Future Food Beacon
• An interview with Dr Tereza Campello, Visiting Research Fellow, Future Food Beacon
• Anatomics in Pearl Millet
• Antibiotic resistance and AI: New role for Dr Tania Dottorini
• Bambara groundnut for food and nutritional security
• Bees and neonicotinoids – what does the science say? – by Prof. David E. Salt
• BLA: An R Package for Boundary Line Analysis
• Blue copper in Casparian strips: the work of Dr Guilhem Reyt
• Breeding rice for higher temperatures: an interview with Tanvir Ahammed
• Can Agriculture Save the Planet? Insights from COP28 and Beyond
• Can we improve heat tolerance in rice? An interview with Dr Jordan Robson
• CEPHaS: understanding soil water and its potentials for agriculture
• Changing commensality during the crisis: the Nottingham Social Eating Network and Covid-19
• Chasing auxin through the plant – international collaboration leads to Nature paper – by Anthony Bishopp
• Cocoa fermentations and chocolate flavours
• Collaborations with Embrapa to research Brazilian agricultural practices
• Completing a PhD: Dr Chris Chagumaira reflects
• Computer Vision and plants – An interview with Bowen Deng
• Coronavirus and the food system: a reading list
• Crack(er)ed it! Food Science students win Ecotrophelia UK finals
• Crops for the future: the case of the winged bean – by Chong Yuet Tian
• Disease susceptibility and genes in wheat
• Diversity in wheat and the potential solutions
• Diversity of duckweed sites in Elgin, Scotland: Part four in a botanical tale of exploring natural variation around us
• Doing science in the field: stories from our Colombian cocoa project
• Droughts and their effects on agriculture – An interview with Amit Kumar
• Duckweed hunting in the South West: Part two in a botanical tale of exploring natural variation around us
• Duckweed: plant for the future!
• Eating chocolate in the name of science!
• Eating Your Way to a Greener Future
• Elizabeth David on food and belonging: Keeping house during a lockdown
• Engaging with Engagement – Connecting Science, Public Engagement Masterclass at the Wellcome Genome Campus
• Evolving grass pea from ‘orphan’ crop to staple food
• Exploring diversity in pearl millet seed – An interview with Brighton Gapare
• Fascination of Plants Day 2022
• Fieldwork in the Yucatan during the Covid-19 pandemic – An interview with Karla G. Hernandez-Aguilar
• Following the flight of the bumble bee – An interview with Chloe Sargent
• Food Security in Small Island Developing States (FSSIDS) – a conference report by Dr. Chung Hong Tan
• Food Systems in Small Islands and Developing States conference
• Foodprint: how to embed a social enterprise in the community – by Isabel Corlett
• From China to the UK during the pandemic – An interview with Dr Yiqun Gao
• Fungi alternatives could diversify sustainable sources of protein to feed the world
• Future Food Beacon Collaborators: Dr Silvia Busoms
• Future Food Beacon Collaborators: Tatiana Chavez
• Future Food Collaborators: Luisa’s Vegan Chocolates
• Future Food PhD wins prestigious Carlos Fuentes award
• Future Proteins: Is it all crickets?
• Genomic characterisation of the University of Nottingham dairy herd
• Genomic sequencing and Covid-19
• Giant Swamp Taro: plant for the future?
• Giving up meat and eating plants instead: Is it really that simple?
• Giving voice to farmers and producers: An interview with Associate Prof Anne Touboulic
• Global food supply chains in times of pandemic
• Global trading: the good, the bad and the essential
• Global-local knowledge systems for innovation and entrepreneurship in the developing world: An international workshop in Nottingham, 2-3 May 2019
• Goodbye to the Future Food Beacon and welcome to the Food Systems Institute
• Greenhouse gas emissions from sunflower oil production – by Thomas Alcock
• How can the winged bean improve our futures? An interview with Chong Yuet Tian
• How do plant roots branch towards water?
• How do plant roots respond to higher temperatures? – An interview with Aneesh Lale
• How do we feed the world in the face of global population growth, changing demographics and climate change?
• How does rice reproduce when it’s hot? – An interview with Maureen Ng’ang’a
• How should uncertainty in spatial information be communicated?
• How to feed the mission to Mars, a talk by Dr Michele Perchonok
• Humanity’s impact on earth – An interview with Matt Jones
• “I guess it’s quite trendy”: New research explores young meat-eaters’ sustainable food consumption habits.
• Identifying heat tolerant rice varieties to maintain future food security
• Imagining the sustainable supply chains of the future: an interview with Dr Christine Roussat
• Improving animal feeds for the future: An interview with Noriane Cochetel
• Improving Brassica rapa for better nutrition – An interview with Dr Guillermina Mendiondo
• Improving farmer livelihoods through better cocoa bean fermentation
• Improving rice cultivation: An interview with Aishwarya Shankhapal
• Improving the drought tolerance of pearl millet
• Improving wheat with wild relatives: An interview with Jack Walker
• Including unexploited novel high protein crops in the alternative protein revolution
• Indigenous Farming in Mexico and Belize – An interview with Karla Hernandez-Aguilar
• Innovation Challenge: Reflections and Project Announcements
• Innovations in Agriculture and Food for Healthy Societies: Workshop Report
• Is the UK losing its way in transitioning towards a more healthy and sustainable food system?
• Making better proteins: an interview with Kamil Szepe
• Making sense of food waste: an interview with Hina Kamal
• Measuring carbon and water cycles in crop resource-use efficiency research
• Measuring metabolites across the food chain: An interview with Dr Tristan Dew
• Meet the Beacon: Associate Prof Levi Yant
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Christopher Moore
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Gabriel Castrillo
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Guillermina Mendiondo
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Jonathan Atkinson
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Michael Pound
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Michael Wilson
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Rahul Bhosale
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Sally Eldeghaidy
• Meet the Beacon: Dr Sina Fischer
• Meet the Beacon: Prof David Salt
• Meet the Beacon: Prof Murray Lark
• Meeting the protein needs of a growing, and aging, global population with healthy and sustainable protein sources
• Micronutrients in cereals in Ethiopia and Malawi – the GeoNutrition team’s Nature paper
• Mini-Traction Machine (MTM-2): Tribometer / Soft Contact Tribometer
• Modelling ancient Mayan farming – An interview with Rik Rutjens
• Next Generation X-ray Computed Tomography system awarded to UoN Hounsfield Facility, boosting soil research capacity
• Nottingham Good Food Partnership: making food accessible to all in Nottingham
• Nourishing the Future: Alternative Proteins and Global Agriculture Challenges
• Open letter from Prof David E Salt, Director of the Future Food Beacon of Excellence
• Our Future Food Director’s first thoughts
• Our technology platforms: AEDNA
• Our technology platforms: Genomics
• Our technology platforms: Ionomics facility
• Our technology platforms: Maker Space
• Our technology platforms: Molecular Phenomics
• Palaeobenchmarking Resilient Agricultural Systems (PalaeoRAS) – by Prof. Matt Jones
• PhenomUK
• Pint of Science, in Greek
• Plant root breakthrough leads to Science paper – Bipin Pandey and Rahul Bhosale tell us how it happened!
• Plant vaccines for poultry disease – An interview with Ika Nurzijah
• Plants for future food security: the case of Bambara groundnut
• Predicting micronutrients in the soil: an interview with Christopher Chagumaira
• Producing future proteins sustainably: an interview with Prof Andy Salter
• Prof. Murray Lark delivered statistics research methods module for University of Zimbabwe students
• RADIANT: Realising dynamic value chains for underutilised crops
• ‘Reach and Teach Science in Africa’: Strengthening Research Capacity for Generating Future Foods
• Reconstructing the ecosystems of the past – An interview with Annegreet Veeken
• Redefining pearl millet: Dr Ndjido Kane
• Reducing disease in oilseed rape: An interview with Lisa Humbert
• Reducing protein malnourishment: an interview with Joe Godrich
• Researching fermentation in cocoa
• Researching the future of wheat: An interview with Manpartik Gill
• Resistance to disease in tropical crops – an interview with Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan
• (Re)thinking a different future: sociological perspectives of climate change
• Root growth in a complex microbiome – Dr Gabriel Castrillo’s paper in Nature
• Rovercam is here! by Lorna McAusland
• Screening heat tolerance in rice plants – An interview with John Ferguson
• Small Islands and Developing States, food systems and climate change
• Soils and decarbonisation: What future for agriculture?
• Solving micronutrient deficiencies in staple crops: an interview with Mesfin Kebebe
• Statistics in the GeoNutrition project – by Murray Lark, Christopher Chagumaira and Alice Milne
• Studying food safety in Brazil
• Supporting small scale farmers in developing countries
• Surviving drought: The root of the problem in Bambara groundnut
• Swift: A ten minute coffee with Dr Gabriel Castrillo
• Swift: A ten minute coffee with Dr Michael Pound
• Swift: A ten minute coffee with Prof Levi Yant
• Swift: A ten minute coffee with Prof Malcolm Bennett
• Take control of your career #1: ‘The Osprey’ – by Peter Noy
• Take control of your career #2: The early bird catches the worm – by Peter Noy
• Take control of your career #3: Preparing a fellowship – the secret is the 3Ps
• Take control of your career #4: Writing the narrative of your work
• The Baobab Genome Project: approaching the mysteries of diversification and death – by Levi Yant
• The clever roots of bambara groundnut: an interview with Kumbirai Ivyne Mateva
• The effects of increasing night time temperatures on plants
• The Food Innovation Centre at UoN
• The Future Food Beacon MakerSpace
• The Future Proteins Platform
• The great duckweed hunt! Part one in a botanical tale of exploring natural variation around us
• The growing power of the rhizotrons! – An interview with Dr Jonathan Atkinson
• The importance of food safety
• The importance of zinc in cereal crops: An interview with Veronica Guwela
• The Inaugural University Food Challenge!
• The legacy of soil surveys
• The National Food Strategy: our Director responds
• The National Food Strategy: Rebalancing our ‘protein economy’
• The new agricultural bill: soils, sustainability and farming
• The Nottingham Festival of Science and Curiosity
• The nutritional quality of crops and the impact of climate change
• The Perfect Storm: Environmentally and Socially Unsustainable Seafood Supply Chains
• The problem of cadmium in cocoa beans
• The real arsenate reductase stands up! – Is this the end of the HAC story?
• Time to diversify rather than demonize our dietary protein sources
• Transforming chicken feed for the future: an interview with Hannah Dallas
• Transforming our food systems
• UK Plant Health Week: A conversation with a plant pathologist
• Understanding genetic variation in winged bean: an interview with Niki Tsoutsoura
• Understanding micronutrient deficiencies for better health: an interview with Dr Molly Muleya
• Understanding more about oil palm farmed by smallholders
• Understanding oil crop sustainability: An interview with Dr Thomas Alcock
• Understanding plant microbe interactions
• Understanding plant-microbiota interactions: An interview with Katerina Velchova.
• Understanding the keys of adaptation in plants: An interview with Dr Raziyeh Abdilzadeh
• Understanding yield gaps: An interview with Chawezi Miti
• Underutilized crops and their future potentials
• Unlocking the science behind traditional farmer practices: An interview with Muneta Grace Kangara
• Using Bambara groundnut for animal feed: an interview with Tee Ann Jo
• Using eating together to think: reflections on doing research at public mealtimes
• Using narratives to understanding eating disorders: an interview with Associate Professor Heike Bartel
• Veronica Faith Guwela PhD experience
• Welcome to the Future Food Blog!
• When does rice not like water? – An interview with Gavers Oppong
• Why should academics participate in public engagement?
• Will meat alternatives ever taste as good as meat?
• Working between the field and the lab: understanding barley
• Working with worms: an interview with Dr Carlos Lopez Viso