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AFCP is delighted to welcome Prof. Stuart Reid, who joined the AFCP Board at the AFCP AGM on 1st November.

 

Professor Stuart Reid is President & Principal of the Royal Veterinary College, the oldest and largest veterinary school in the English-speaking world. He is recognised by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons as a specialist in veterinary epidemiology and in veterinary public health by the European Board of Veterinary Specialists.

 

Stuart is a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  His research interests are focused on zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance in a One Health context. He has over 160 scientific publications, including in PNAS and Science, and he has secured over £16M in competitive funding during his career.

 

In his public service, in addition to other and current roles, he served on the UK Food Standards Agency Board 2017-2020.  He was made a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2018 for services to the veterinary profession and higher education and in 2019 he was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Medicine in the USA.

 

Prof. Graham Jellis, AFCP Chairman said “We are pleased to welcome Prof. Stuart Reid as a director. He brings a wealth of experience within the veterinary sciences alongside previous roles with in the charity sector. We look forward to working together.”

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Photo credit: Veterinary Record Mark Thomas

A successful conference brought together more than 50 attendees to discuss the latest challenges which are facing animal science.

The Joint AgriFood Charities Partnership Conference was held in the Harper Adams Food Academy earlier this summer, and drew researchers, students, academics, farmers, charity representatives and more for a full day of discussion and networking.

Among the organisers were Harper Adams Honorary Professor in Agricultural Economics Bob Bansback and ABP Chair of Sustainable Beef and Sheep Production Professor Jude Capper.

Bob said: “It was really encouraging to have over 50 conference attendees at this highly successful event.
“There was participation from AFCP member charities, animal scientists and researchers from Harper and other universities, post-graduate students in animal science as well as farmers - the excellent presentations and the variety of participants really enhanced the whole day. There was a particular buzz of conversation during the lunchtime poster session.”

Alongside academics from other universities, Harper Adams was well represented during the day, with research and presentations from Professor Michael LeeProfessor Liam SinclairProfessor Karl BehrendtProfessor Bob BansbackDr Lynn McIntyre and the Director of the School of Sustainable Food and Farming, Simon Thelwell.

Professor Capper emphasised the importance of the conference in encouraging the next generation of animal scientists.

She said: “It was a real pleasure to be part of the organising committee for the Joint Agrifood Charities Partnership Conference on the challenges facing animal science. We had a great day, delegates ranging from farmers to academics, students to industry professionals.

“The number of topics covered were equally diverse, from sharp focuses on sheep foot health and modelling environmental and economic sustainability of beef finishing systems; through to the global challenge of choosing the correct metrics to quantify the sustainability of ruminant systems. 

“Of particular note were the excellent posters presented by Harper Adams MRes, PhD and post-doctoral researchers.

“The conference provided these early-career researchers with a great opportunity to talk one-on-one and explain their research to interested delegates.

“It was lovely to see how much interest these posters generated and the very high quality of these short poster presentations."

The conference was kindly supported by sponsors Alltech and MSD Animal Health.

AFCP Chairman, Professor Graham Jellis, added: “AFCP is very grateful to HAU for hosting this meeting and providing some of the excellent speakers and posters, and to our sponsors for their support. It was also a pleasure to hear presentations and read posters from current and past students supported by AFCP charities.”

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AFCP logo.jpgHAU logo.jpg

 

 

 

AFCP/HAU Conference

Animal Science - Addressing Current Challenges

Friday 14th July at Harper Adams University

 

Programme:

10.00     Arrival, registration and refreshments

10.45     Introduction Prof. Bob Bansback (HAU & AFCP)

10.50     Welcome Prof. Graham Jellis (Chair of AFCP)

11.00     Animal Science and the new Harper Adams/Keele Veterinaray School Prof. Michael Lee (Deputy Vice Chancellor HAU)

11.20     Tour of Farm and Livestock Research Area options:

              - Applied Ruminant Research at the Beef and Sheep Unit - Prof. Jude Capper (Sustainable Beef and Sheep Production, HAU).

              - Dairy Research Work - Prof. Liam Sinclair (Animal Science, HAU).

              - Pig Unit Work - Sarah Icely (Deputy Sector Manager, HAU).

12.20     Return to the Regional Food Academy (RFA) Lecture Theatre:

              - HAU Food Activity and RFA Resources - Dr Lynn McIntyre (Senior Lecturer in Food Safety, HAU).

              - Evaluation of net carbon emissions from dairy production systems - Fern Baker (PhD student, jointly funded by AFCP members, Nottingham University)

13.00     Lunch and Poster Session

14.30     Lameness in Ruminants (based on her PhD funded by AFCP member, The Perry Foundation) - Dr Caroline Best (University of Bristol, Veterinary School)

              HAU School of Sustainable Food & Farming (SSFF) - Simon Thelwell (HAU Strategic Director, SSFF)

              Agri-tech Developments in the Beef and Sheep Sectors - Prof. Karl Behrendt (Agri-Tech Economics, HAU).

15.30     Panel Discussion, Chaired by Prof. Jude Capper.

16.00     End

 

Click here for biographies of all the speakers

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Cultivations and Carbon

Capturing value from the 10-year Traffic & Tillage Project at Harper Adams

 

The long-term programme of Traffic & Tillage research at Harper Adams University started in 2010 with the first experimental crop harvested in 2012 and has been the “field laboratory” for three successful doctoral graduates (Emily Smith, Anthony Millington and Magdalena Kaczorowska-Dolowy).

This is a long-term internationally unique study focusing on soil management techniques where the interaction between traffic management practices and different tillage practices are considered. It resulted as a direct output from the formation of the industry led (coordinated by Agrii) Soil and Water Management Centre at Harper Adams University with scholarship funding and in-kind support from, The Morley Agricultural Foundation , Douglas Bomford Trust, Michelin, Vaderstad, AGCO and Harper Adams University.

The research started with an initial focus on the soil physical conditions, yield and the cost/benefits of the effects of three traffic management systems imposed on a sandy loam soil:

  1. standard inflation pressure tyres (STP)
  2. low tyre (high flexion) inflation pressure tyres (LTP) and
  3. controlled traffic farming (CTF)

on soils managed with three tillage treatments:

  1. deep (25 cm),
  2. shallow (10 cm) and
  3. no-till

for a winter wheat/winter barley/spring oats/winter field beans crop rotation.

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Figure 1 - a) Experimental design map showing the distribution of the blocks and plots and the different traffic and tillage treatments. b) Aerial photo of Marge Marsh field.

 

More recently, in addition to maintaining the monitoring of soil physical conditions and crop responses, the focus moved to studying soil biological and health condition and is now focusing on soil carbon sequestration.

The results of the continuing long-term study have shown that the effect of both traffic management and tillage systems can have significant effects on the crop yield and farm economy together with soil biology and health.

 

Key messages on crop yields:

 

  1. Deep tillage gives no yield advantage over shallow tillage.
  2. Shallow tillage gives the best compromise between yield and soil structure.
  3. Zero tillage produces lower yields initially, though yield recovers over time (7-8 years) as the soil structure develops.
  4. Rotations need to be adjusted to manage crop residues to optimize zero tillage systems.
  5. The benefits of mitigating traffic (low pressure tyres and CTF) appeared from the start of the system and are consistent over time.
  6. Deep tilled soil benefits the most from traffic mitigation, indicating that loosening and re-compaction causes the most damage to soils.
  7. Zero tilled soils show the least response to traffic mitigation, indicating that they are more resilient to traffic.

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Figure 2: Samples from CTF zero tillage (left, not tilled for 10 years) and CTF deep tillage (right, tilled down to 250mm for 10 years) showing very little difference in crop growth and large differences in soil structure, its stability and resilience (zero tillage) vs weak and loose soil at high risk of soil damage (deep tillage).

 

Key messages on soil carbon:

 

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a component of soil organic matter (SOM). There has been growing interest in soil carbon dynamics in recent years. Many agricultural soils have reduced SOM and so, it is argued, they likely have the potential to sequester carbon through building SOM. Different soil management practices have different impacts on SOM dynamics and so total soil carbon stocks.

 

The results from our field experiment to date have shown that:

  1. Tillage had a strong effect on total carbon (C) stocks, with soils under Zero tillage storing 5 t/ha more than Shallow and Deep tillage treatments on average at 0-30 cm depth.  
  2. The highest total C stocks were observed in Zero tillage CTF (89.0±4.2 t/ha), followed by Zero tillage LTP (85.3±4.1 t/ha). The lowest total C stocks were observed in Shallow and Deep tillage both in CTF treatments (70.0±4.0 t/ha and 70.1±4.3 t/ha respectively). 

 

These results confirm that soils have different levels of potential to store carbon dependent on management, with almost 20 t/ha of C stored more under the optimum management practice compared to the most detrimental practice. This leads to the obvious question as to how or why more C is stored under some treatments than others.

 

 

The next steps of the project

 

Ana Prada (PhD student, apradabarrio[at]live.harper.ac.uk) will investigate this by using natural abundance C12/C13 stable isotope probing. By growing millet, a C4 plant, in soils where only C3 plants have been grown previously, it will be possible to trace the flow of C from the plants into the different organic matter fractions. These have different turnover times and dynamics within the soil and so this investigation will provide insights into the mechanisms that determine the residence time of C in soils. This will help inform as to best practices for maximising C sequestration into soils thereby improving soil health and helping to help mitigate climate change.

 

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AFCP was registered as a company limited by guarantee in February 2008 and became a registered charity in June 2015. The Board and its Directors and advisors represent a range of charities and organisations from across the UK..

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