News article

We caught up with a few of Niab's scientists and they told us about what they are currently working on and a little about how they got to their current roles.

The nestboxes, donated by schoolchildren from Bar Hill Primary School, will provide homes for nature at Niab’s recently renovated offices and laboratories in Histon, just outside Cambridge.

The expansion of Niab’s bird nestbox numbers has come at the perfect time. The current boxes sited at Park Farm have all been successfully occupied over the past two years by Blue and Great Tits.

It is hoped that more boxes will also lead to House Sparrows, a bird of the highest conservation concern, nesting once again at Niab.

The multi-partner exhibit, staffed by scientists from Niab, the John Innes Centre, Rothamsted Research, the Roslin Institute and the University of Lincoln, showcased UK taxpayer-funded research and innovation taking place across a range of sectors and technologies, including digital agriculture, robotics, advanced crop and livestock breeding, vertical farming and AI.

FSA Chief Scientific Officer Professor Robin May and Deputy Director of Science Evidence and Research Rick Mumford were joined by FSA colleagues along with members of the WSB Wine Standards Inspection Team, to learn about the continuing development of vine and wine research at East Malling.

They were also briefed on Niab’s ongoing research to maximise yield potential of soft and tree fruit crops and Niab’s novel approaches to harnessing natural ecosystems as a means for managing insect pest and disease in fruit crops.

Antibiotic resistance is a well-known problem in healthcare but similar problems are seen in agriculture, with resistance to the fungicides, herbicides and insecticides that are used to protect our crops.

In this short video, Niab's Dr Nichola Hawkins explains more about the work she is doing to doing to get one step ahead of the ever evolving pathogens.

Available to all - access the online flip-book and downloadable PDF versions of Issue 56 – Autumn 2024.

Niab Landmark: Autumn 2024

In this issue:

Joined by Combined Authority Business Board Chair Al Kingsley, and Business Board agri-tech lead Emma Garfield, they were visiting the site to find out how £3.5 million funding for NIAB over five years has helped grow small and start-up-companies specialising in cutting-edge areas like plant genetics, pest management, soil health, AI, and farm robotics.

Dr Hawkins will be leading on the plant health aspects - primarily fungicide resistance in plant pathogens.

This means, for example, that NIAB can access new diagnostic technologies being developed in the biomedical field, and assess and adapt them for use with veterinary and plant diseases.

An experienced leader in the food industry, Mr Healy retired from his role as CEO for Samworth Brothers in late 2022, after four years at the helm. Prior to that, he spent 14 years as CEO for Kerry’s consumer foods division, having previously covered several leading management and finance roles with the company. In February 2023, he took the role of chair of the board of Little Moons.

NIAB welcomed a delegation from ISTA to our NIAB Park Farm site outside Cambridge, with tours of our DUS and seed certification field trials, our crop transformation laboratories, a tour of our glasshouses highlighting our cereal pre-breeding research, our analytical services laboratories and the work of the Official Seed Testing Service in seed analysis and testing.