Food@Manchester in press

This section highlights the length and bredth of work of relevance to food taking place at the University of Manchester.


Manchester researchers successful in collaborative bid for Nexus Network funding.

Maria Sharmina, Claire Hoolohan, Alice Bows-Larkin, Paul Gilbert, Kevin Anderson,Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester; Paul Burgess, Jerry Knox, Cranfield University; James Colwill, Loughborough University; David Howard, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

Land is a precious and finite resource, but a tradition of disjointed management in the UK leaves energy, food and water competing for available land. This includes the expansion of housing and industry to support a growing population; increased production of biofuels to meet low-carbon energy targets; intensification of agriculture to support food security, plus use of land for recreation, renewable energy, forestry, biodiversity, mining and landfill. Combined with policies and tools ill-equipped to reflect this complexity, there is little practical decision support available to policy makers and practitioners for developing sustainable solutions.

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For presentation at Nexus Network Conference and paper will be available in Autumn 2014.


Climate Change and Resilience to Weather Events.

Schultz, D.M. and Janković, V.

The overemphasis within the media on the effects of anthropogenic climate change distracts from the issue that weather happens regardless. For most food security issues, any change in the weather due to climate change is a less immediate concern than the impact of the weather itself. Thus, to maintain a balanced perspective, society ought to do its best to protect the planet from adverse human activities, but society should also protect its crops against more immediate weather disasters. Press release here.

Published in: Weather, Climate, and Society. April 2014 (doi)


Excited about Potassium

Linda Campbell, Mark Tyrer and Alan Dyer

The availability of soil nutrients is an essential part of food production in all parts of the world. Our research is concerned with natural soil/regolith components; certain minerals derived from volcanic ash which are not only rich in the nutrient potassium, but can release it easily for plant uptake. We aim to better understand these components, their global occurrence, and how they change with different environmental conditions. Press release here.

Published in Geoscientist 2013.