Water security

The wettest country in the world is Columbia, which receives over 3200 ml of rain annually and the driest nation, Egypt, receives just 18 ml. Agriculture uses around 70% of the world's freshwater, and irrigated farmland is crucial in delivering, on average, double the production of rainfed farming …

Coffee

More than 3 billion cups of coffee are drunk every day but how did the bean inside a fruit become synonymous with kick starting our mornings with a caffeine hit to wake us up? Jane Craigie speaks to growers and traders who explore the history and culture of coffee and look to the future when the cl…

Weeds

Weeds are plants that are growing in the wrong place. Certain species can totally devastate farmers crops, resulting in huge losses of both productivity and income for the farmers. They can be the difference between survival and failure of a farm. But are they all bad? Tom Radford is a forager who…

Sustainable Agriculture

Improving the sustainability of agriculture extends far beyond the production of food, as farmers share the global challenges of climate change mitigation, increasing space for nature and protecting resources. In this episode of The Science Behind your Salad, we explore the sustainability of food, …

Fruit

Sweet and juicy, plump and delicious: In this episode of The Science Behind Your Salad we’re telling the story behind the production and innovation of fruit salad! Apples, peaches and watermelons come under the spotlight in our whistle stop tour of the sweeter crops we love to eat. We’ll hear from…

Food Loss and Food Waste

If food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the United States, according to the UN's environment program.  Each year around 2.5 billion tons of food is lost or wasted each year, leaving roughly 3.1 billion people with…

Vegetables

Vegetables are at the heart of a healthy diet. They are packed with vitamins and minerals and play an essential role in our physical and mental well-being. The global vegetable market is a multi-billion-dollar industry. For the past few decades, globalisation has enabled retailers to supply consum…

Wine Grapes

The first traces of wine production date back some 9,000 years to parts of the Middle East. Georgia is known for making some of the earliest wines by burying Kvevris, giant earthenware pots, filling them with grapes and allowing the fruit to ferment. Over the millenia, the production of wine has e…

Holiday Bonus Episode: Celebrate Grapes

In this bonus episode, we’ll explore the meaning of grapes from a seasonal perspective. During the holidays, grapes play an important role – both in liquid and solid form. We talk to a winemaker who is working on non-alcoholic wine. His goal is to approach the same quality and taste levels of the …

Onions

Loved by Ernest Hemingway in a sandwich, around 4.5 milliion tonnes of onions are grown globally each year. While Hemingway ate his onions raw, the vegetable is truly versatile and is the basis of sauces and stews, and can be a condiment on meats such as hotdogs and burgers and much, much more. O…