Securing food for the future

Health benefits

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, around 40 per cent of children aged under five in developing countries are anaemic, so high-iron watercress could have a significant impact on health. Other potential benefits include the natural release of a chemical called phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC), which is known to be effective in preventing blood supply to cancer cells.

Gail is now working with a number of commercial partners including Sainsbury’s and Vitacress Salads so the benefits of the crop can be made widely available across both developed and developing nations.

Providing future security

Approaching food security from a different angle, Guy is leading a multi-million pound programme in Malawi, Colombia and Peru, looking at how we can make sure people living between forests and agriculture are healthy in terms of nutrition.

Guy explains: "This project is looking at the different types of benefits people get from the environment that enable them to feed themselves, and how, by feeding themselves they in turn affect the environment.”

Entitled Attaining Sustainable Services from Ecosystems through Trade-off Scenarios (ASSETS), the project brings together partners from around the world as they work to understand how people in vulnerable parts of the world can keep themselves food secure.

“Food security is a very pressing issue; globally, around a billion people are already food insecure, around a billion more are obese, and another billion are malnourished, not in terms of lack of calories, but not having a diet that provides a healthy lifestyle. This is a challenge that we are working hard to address at Southampton,” says Guy.