Glimpses of the Visit of the External Examiner Prof Alison Bailey, New Zealand, Prof Collins, Australia and Prof Cowon , South Africa

Talk by Prof Alison Bailey, University of Reading

“Empowering agricultural graduates for the job market: challenges for the HEIs and prospective employers”

By Associate Prof Alison Bailey, External Examiner (University of Reading)

Agriculture is a vital and successful industry worldwide. Globally forecasters are estimating a worldwide population explosion to over nine billion by the year 2050.  To meet the demand for food and other products, agricultural production will have to significantly increase, more so than in the last 10,000 years. However, the relative importance of agriculture as part of developed, primarily western, economies is decreasing.  Internationally, and conversely, there is new competition from other nations arising from factors such as increasing liberalisation of international trade in agri-food, huge changes in the demography of populations in developing nations, rapid advances in knowledge-based industries, and new and internationally shared concerns with regard to issues such as sustainable farming systems, the environment, food quality and safety, and animal welfare.

This talk will cover a number of areas, focused on the UK but with reference to the global market. First, a review of the agricultural industry. Second, the recent fall and rise of the agricultural education sector, examining concerns raised 10 years ago and the current situation today, with reflections on the future for the research and educational sector, and the students themselves. Fourth, it will outline the provision of agricultural education in the UK with particular reference to the University of Reading. Finally, reference is made to the employer perspective. Findings from a one day conference to mark the 25^th Anniversary of the Farm Management Unit at Reading entitled ‘Educating managers for 21^st century agriculture and the countryside’, which included speakers providing perspectives from the industry are highlighted. Although held 10 years ago, the issues raised then are still of relevance today.

Biography:

Dr Alison Bailey is an Associate Professor in Agricultural Business Management and Director of the Farm Management Unit at the University of Reading. She studied at Aberystwyth University and has previously worked at Edinburgh and Cranfield Universities in the UK. The focus of Alison's current research is on the analysis of agricultural production systems encompassing: the financial and economic analyses of the impact on farm productivity of alternative farming systems and agri-environment policy strategy, and the investigation of farmer decision making processes and motivations. She also has an interest in the application of socio-economic principles and techniques for resource and environmental management, including environmental economic valuation, cost benefit analysis and accounting. She is Programme Director for the degree in Agricultural Business Management; with teaching focused on farm business management, including agricultural, rural development and agri-environment policy.

External Examiners for Academic Year 2015

This year the Faculty had 3 external examiners for the 4 final year undergraduate programmes. They had interaction with the students, assessed their posters, dissertations among other tasks. The staff also had time to discuss with all of them.

Mycotoxins in the Food Chain

A Research Presentation: Mycotoxins as natural contaminants in the food chain (Food Research Laboratory, GCU, Glasgow)"

Prof Aidoo, External examiner

 

BSc,MSc, PhD, CSci FIFST, FRSPH, FREHIS, CBiol MSB
Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University

The presentation focused on research on mycotoxins as natural contaminants in the food chain. Some of the data on research carried out in the Food Research Laboratory on occurrence of aflatoxins in some food commodities including milk from local farms and foods imported from warmer regions of the world and marketed in the UK will be presented. Legislative levels of mycotoxins in food will also be considered. 

The presentation covered in vitro inhibitory effects of Fingerroot, a culinary herb, on formation of aflatoxin mutagenic metabolites. The Food Research Laboratory is accredited to ISO 17025 by the United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS) and the consultancy includes services to food companies particularly in nutritional analysis, food pathogens, shelf life of foods and various aspects of food safety.

Molecular Aspects of Heat Stress Response of Rice Plants

Molecular Aspects of the Heat Stress Response of Rice Plants

by Prof Anil Grover - External examiner- Department of Plant Molecular Biology, University of Delhi South Campus Benito Juarez Road, DhaulaKuan, New Delhi‐110021, India (email:anil.anilgrover@gmail.com)

Rice (Oryzasativa L.) is the most important food crop. The rice transcriptional profile is significantly modulated by heat stress: the enrichment of GO terms protein kinase activity/ protein serine kinase activity, response to heat and reactive oxygen species in up‐regulated genes signifies the role of signal transduction events and reactive oxygen species during early heat stress (Mittal et al. 2012a,b, Sarkar et al. 2014). The proteins associated with chaperones and protein degradation machineries of the cell are stimulated as one of the early steps in minimizing damages to other proteins. Genome‐wide biology of rice Hsp20, Hsp40, Hsp70 and Hsp100 as well as heat shock factors has been unearthed from our studies (Sarkar et al. 2009, Singh et al. 2010, Sarkar et al. 2013a, Sarkar et al.2013b). Rice contains three ClpB/Hsp100 proteins localized to different cellular compartments: cytoplasm/nucleus (OsClpB‐c), mitochondria (OsClpB‐m) and chloroplast (OsClpB‐p) (Mishra and Grover 2015). OsClpB‐c (Os05g44340), OsClpB‐m (Os02g08490) and OsClpB‐p (Os03g31300) proteins are able to complement the thermo‐sensitive phenotype of yeast hsp100 mutant (ΔSchsp104) (Singh and Grover 2010, Singh et al. 2010). Arabidopsis Hot1‐3 is a null mutant for ClpB‐c gene, and is highly thermo‐sensitive both at the seed and seedling levels (Hong and Vierling 2000). We are interested to analyse the strategies of expression of Hsp100 forms which can possibly result into high temperature resistant crops. We have documented that OsHsfA2c (a) has rapid transcript induction under high temperature stress, (b) possesses transactivation activity, (c) forms homo‐oligomeric configuration, (d) regulates expression from OsClpB‐c promoter in heat shock element (HSE)‐dependent manner and (e) interacts with OsClpB‐c and OsHsfB4b proteins (Mittal et al. 2009, Mittal et al. 2011, Singh et al. 2012). We infer that supra‐complexes, involving several OsHsfs, regulate Hsp promoters under high temperature stress in rice.