UCC punching above its weight in plants-for-food research


22 Jul 2011

The impact of plant and forest research at University College Cork (UCC) is double the global average for a university, delivering on the Government’s agenda for research commercialisation, according to Prof John O’Halloran of UCC.

He was speaking at a briefing to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine, Simon Coveney, TD.

“Research in UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES) is punching at a global level in one of the hottest fields in science – plants for food,” the professor said.

This research will help resolve the food energy ‘trilemma’ where delivering more food from less land, which now competes with energy crops, may have major environmental consequences. 

“With global populations growing rapidly, there are huge risks of food shortages and enormous environmental damage, and so we need new sources of food and higher yielding crops,” he explained.

BEES conducts research in plant science, including the development of better and novel crop plants and the sustainable control of plant pests and diseases.

The school is also committed to the innovation agenda and the generation of new wealth. Gourmet Marineis a recently established aquaculture company and is a BEES spin-out, one of the first in the marine food sector.

The school is also advancing further research in sustainable plant biology, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture.

Watch this video of Dr Roy Sleator of Cork Institute of Technology talk about the revolution uniting ICT with bioscience:

Dr Roy Sleator of CIT on the revolution uniting ICT with bioscience

For more, visit Digital Cork.