Jane Craigie traces the origins of the humble tomato from a small hairy specimen to a juicy plump red fruit, and discovers the science and technology behind the delicious ingredient.

Jane Craigie traces the origins of the humble tomato from a small hairy specimen to a juicy plump red fruit, and discovers the science and technology behind the delicious ingredient.

The Science Behind Your Salad shines a spotlight on the innovation, technology, digital and sustainability for healthy food made by BASF in Agriculture.

The Science Behind Your Salad shines a spotlight on the innovation, technology, digital and sustainability for healthy food made by BASF in Agriculture.

The Science Behind Your Salad

Tomatoes

Feeding humanity in the future brings a complex set of interconnected challenges. What’s abundantly clear is that, over the coming decades, farming isn’t just about producing more, it’s about doing it differently, with the environment and society’s needs central to the task in hand.  

In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad, Jane Craigie explores feeding the future, evolving and adapting to climate change and its mitigation, and innovating, just as agriculture has done for centuries.  

For Jack Bobo, UCLA’s Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies, and seasoned keynote speaker, it’s important not to forget what has been achieved thanks to agricultural advances. To put this into context, he says that if we were farming today with 1960s technology, we would require one billion additional hectares.  

What we consider as ‘the future’ centres around the year 2050 and feeding 1.5 billion more people with an estimated 50% more food and 70% more protein, this is a very stretching goal, yet farmers are ready to take on the challenge. 

For Thomas and Jana Gäbert, their cooperative farm in Trebbin near Berlin in Germany, seems to encompass what the farm of the future should be – serving the community, running circular and self-sufficient approaches and with the aim to sourcing as much as possible locally including their energy, workforce and services.  

As farmer Richard Hinchliffe, from Yorkshire in the UK accepts, the challenges are ever changing, but there is always a solution, as he describes in his battle against blackgrass, a common weed in cereal farming. His understanding of the weed’s behaviour, and how to break the cycle of seed return, has helped him control an increasingly difficult foe.  

BASF’s Michael Hoelter works closely with farmers like Richard, to research how resistance to herbicides builds in weed populations, and the best solutions to control grassweeds like blackgrass. The partnership between farmer and researchers like Michael and crucial for farmers to feed the future.  

Feeding humanity in the future brings a complex set of interconnected challenges. What&rsquo;s abundantly clear is that, over the coming decades, farming isn&rsquo;t just about producing more, it&rsquo;s about doing it differently, with the environment and society&rsquo;s needs central to the task in hand.&nbsp;&nbsp;
In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad, Jane Craigie explores feeding the future, evolving and adapting to climate change and its mitigation, and innovating, just as agriculture has done for centuries.&nbsp;&nbsp;
For Jack Bobo, UCLA&rsquo;s Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies, and seasoned keynote speaker, it&rsquo;s important not to forget what has been achieved thanks to agricultural advances. To put this into context, he says that if we were farming today with 1960s technology, we would require one billion additional hectares.&nbsp;&nbsp;
What we consider as &lsquo;the future&rsquo; centres around the year 2050 and feeding 1.5 billion more people with an estimated 50% more food and 70% more protein, this is a very stretching goal, yet farmers are ready to take on the challenge.&nbsp;
For Thomas and Jana G&auml;bert, their cooperative farm in Trebbin near Berlin in Germany, seems to encompass what the farm of the future should be &ndash; serving the community, running circular and self-sufficient approaches and with the aim to sourcing as much as possible locally including their energy, workforce and services.&nbsp;&nbsp;
As farmer Richard Hinchliffe, from Yorkshire in the UK accepts, the challenges are ever changing, but there is always a solution, as he describes in his battle against blackgrass, a common weed in cereal farming. His understanding of the weed&rsquo;s behaviour, and how to break the cycle of seed return, has helped him control an increasingly difficult foe.&nbsp;&nbsp;
BASF&rsquo;s Michael Hoelter works closely with farmers like Richard, to research how resistance to herbicides builds in weed populations, and the best solutions to control grassweeds like blackgrass. The partnership between farmer and researchers like Michael and crucial for farmers to feed the future.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Feeding the Future 

This episode of The Science Behind Your Salad from BASF visits Spain, Portugal and Egypt in a quest to discover how olive crops will be affected by climate change.
 
Jane Craigie meets the farmers busily harvesting their crops, ready to take them off to the mill to be pressed into delicious golden olive oil.
 
The main focus of the olive growing industry encircles the Mediterranean. Olives favour warm conditions, but in some areas the climate is warming. Arid regions of Andalusia are becoming drier, and so farmers rely more and more on irrigation.
 
Jane meets farmers working hard to ensure their water goes a long way and they get the best from the scarce supply. She also meets farmers reinvigorating the olive industry in Egypt, with the help of modern farming methods and crop treatments, plus in Portugal she learns how the circularity of the farming operation, ensuring nothing is wasted, is becoming normal practice.
 
Meanwhile she talks to Johnny Madge, internationally known olive oil expert to find out what the future holds for a crop that faces challenges from a volatile climate.

This episode of The Science Behind Your Salad from BASF visits Spain, Portugal and Egypt in a quest to discover how olive crops will be affected by climate change. &nbsp; Jane Craigie meets the farmers busily harvesting their crops, ready to take them off to the mill to be pressed into delicious golden olive oil. &nbsp; The main focus of the olive growing industry encircles the Mediterranean. Olives favour warm conditions, but in some areas the climate is warming. Arid regions of Andalusia are becoming drier, and so farmers rely more and more on irrigation. &nbsp; Jane meets farmers working hard to ensure their water goes a long way and they get the best from the scarce supply. She also meets farmers reinvigorating the olive industry in Egypt, with the help of modern farming methods and crop treatments, plus in Portugal she learns how the circularity of the farming operation, ensuring nothing is wasted, is becoming normal practice. &nbsp; Meanwhile she talks to Johnny Madge, internationally known olive oil expert to find out what the future holds for a crop that faces challenges from a volatile climate.

The Impact of Climate Change on Olives

Our volatile climate will impact the way we cook and the way we eat. And so, farming needs to adapt, eating needs to adapt, and how we cook, will also need to adapt.

In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad, Jane Craigie explores the world of carbon farming: how can we grow better? How can we eat better? How can we feed ourselves with the climate in mind?

For chef and best-selling author Alejandra Schrader, that’s simple! A little more thought and a little more planning can enable us to eat delicious, healthy food that has delivers all the required nutrients we need, and reduces our impact on the planet.

As BASF’s Marko Grozdanovic states, agriculture is responsible for 17% of greenhouse gas emissions, and so this episode explores ways to dramatically reduce this figure.

Jane attended the Carbon Exchange event in Paris to find out more: Andy Beadle is a soil scientist who studies the way carbon can be locked up in the soil to maintain soil health, cut emissions and improve biodiversity; Robert Racz works on the Better Pork project that looks at ways to cut emissions in the pig industry, not just at source, but at all levels of the supply chain, with all links in the industry playing their part ; Thierry Laval runs the FoodPilot initiative that relies on data to focus on the problem. Data is vital to crack the challenges farmers face and with everyone working together to move the industry in the right direction there is plenty of optimism that farming can play it’s role in providing us all the food we need to be able to cook delicious and healthy food for the future whilst also ensuring what we eat is sustainable.

Our volatile climate will impact the way we cook and the way we eat. And so, farming needs to adapt, eating needs to adapt, and how we cook, will also need to adapt.   In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad, Jane Craigie explores the world of carbon farming: how can we grow better? How can we eat better? How can we feed ourselves with the climate in mind?   For chef and best-selling author Alejandra Schrader, that’s simple! A little more thought and a little more planning can enable us to eat delicious, healthy food that has delivers all the required nutrients we need, and reduces our impact on the planet.   As BASF’s Marko Grozdanovic states, agriculture is responsible for 17% of greenhouse gas emissions, and so this episode explores ways to dramatically reduce this figure.   Jane attended the Carbon Exchange event in Paris to find out more: Andy Beadle is a soil scientist who studies the way carbon can be locked up in the soil to maintain soil health, cut emissions and improve biodiversity; Robert Racz works on the Better Pork project that looks at ways to cut emissions in the pig industry, not just at source, but at all levels of the supply chain, with all links in the industry playing their part ; Thierry Laval runs the FoodPilot initiative that relies on data to focus on the problem. Data is vital to crack the challenges farmers face and with everyone working together to move the industry in the right direction there is plenty of optimism that farming can play it’s role in providing us all the food we need to be able to cook delicious and healthy food for the future whilst also ensuring what we eat is sustainable.

Tomatoes

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