Louise Abayomi, Senior Research Fellow – Postharvest Specialist, NRI | Nigeria is the most populated African country, with almost half the Nigerian population living in extreme poverty (WB, 2018). Food and nutrition security is therefore of...

Conor Walsh, Environmental Scientist, NRI | What constitutes a global crisis? What differentiates it from a national or regional problem? By definition, a pandemic reflects a threat to human health that transcends territorial and jurisdictional...

Keith Tomlins, Professor of Food Science, NRI | How might COVID-19 affect food systems in LMICs (Low- and Middle-Income Countries)? Of the few published articles about food and pandemics, most refer to obesity or high-income countries. [1,2]...

Judy Bettridge, Fellow in Biostatistics for Food and Agriculture, NRI | Hazelnut muesli bars, fresh mackerel, frozen mushy peas: the curious selection of scattered items among the desolation of empty shelves in my local supermarket in Kent, UK,...

The UN has adopted by consensus, a resolution declaring that 20th May will become known as World Bee Day so that, “every year on this day, the attention of the global public will be drawn to the importance of preserving bees and other pollinators....

Ethiopia faces multiple interacting development challenges linked to environmental change and land degradation, which have negative consequences for food security. As a plant diversity hotspot for both wild plants and domesticated crops, Ethiopia...

Predators such as ladybirds directly consume the pest, whereas parasitoids, like parasitoid wasps, lay eggs on or inside pest insects that grow and ultimately kill the pest. Non-crop habitats such as field margins provide shelter, alternative...

July has been declared ‘plastic-free July’ where everyone is encouraged to notice and check their use of plastics, especially ‘single-use’ plastic items. The Plastic Free Foundation, the organiser of this month’s initiative, was founded in 2017...

This year’s graduation will happen virtually. At 1000 BST today, Friday 24 July 2020, the names of graduating students will be read out by NRI’s Director, Professor Andrew Westby. Awards will be conferred by the University of Greenwich Vice...

Like most of the UK, NRI began the process of closing down its office and laboratory-based work the week immediately preceding official lockdown, and those who could, began working from home. Since then, only one or two people have been allowed on...

At the beginning of March 2020, Manuela Carnaghi was elected President of NRIPS – the Natural Resources Institute Postgraduate Society – and she was brimming with ideas. But what she hadn’t bargained on, was the entire country entering lockdown,...

As the world reels from the deadly ravages brought by COVID-19, another plague – at least as old as mankind itself – is devastating huge swathes of east Africa and the Middle East, and is going largely unnoticed. Massed swarms of desert locusts,...