THE University of East Anglia (UEA) has announced a ‘groundbreaking’ new course that will explore farming’s role, including the use of GM crops, in addressing global food security.
The university’s MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security, which will start this September, will be the first of its kind in the country.
Course organisers said the course would ‘explore the cutting edge agricultural techniques needed to feed a rocketing global population’ and ‘help dispel the ‘Frankenfood’ myth’.
They said it had been given added relevance by the launch of last month’s Foresight Report, which said food production must be overhauled to sustainably produce enough food for a population likely to grow by 50 per cent in the next 40 years.
Students will learn about the latest developments in irrigation, machinery and plant breeding, including genetic modification (GM).
Course leader Prof John Turner, of UEA’s School of Biological Sciences, said GM was a technique accepted in many parts of the world but ‘still subject to myths and misunderstandings in the UK’.
“A world food crisis is almost upon us,” he said. “Last year a drought in Russia reduced its wheat harvest by a quarter, the international price of wheat increased, and this contributed to the unrest we have seen in the world’s largest what importer, Egypt.
“Graduates of this exciting new course will be instrumental in applying the latest scientific methods to tackle this global challenge. They will be part of the solution.”
The one-year Masters degree will be taught by experts at the Centre for Contemporary Agriculture – a recently-launched collaboration between UEA, Easton College, the John Innes Centre, the Institute of Food Research, the Sainsbury Laboratory, the National Institue for Agricultural Botany and the Arable Group.
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