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The UK Sustainable Agriculture Research for International Development (SARID) has invested £7million ($14.1 million) for new research in a bid to develop agriculture in developing countries.

The SARID, the flagship initiative of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID), has unveiled 12 new projects aimed at increasing sustainable agriculture in developing countries.

 The initiative will see 32 collaborations between UK universities and global institutions over a four- year period. Projects will focus on both pest and abiotic factors to improve crop sustainability, making use of genetic research and biotechnology to produce hardier crops.

BBSRC interim chief executive Steve Visscher spoke of the importance biotechnology can play in helping the world’s poorest countries. “Bioscience research can make a vital contribution to improving sustainable agriculture across the globe,” he notes.

With three out of four people in developing countries living in rural areas, farming is an essential means for sustaining livelihood. Up to 1,000 million people survive on less than $1 a day, and the initiative seeks to concrete the productivity of agriculture and improve food supplies and trade through the outlined research.

Proposed projects include improving abiotic tolerance in rice and pearl millet, as well as reducing arsenic contamination in rice.

Researchers from the UK National Institute of Agricultural Botany and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines plan to examine the genetic composition and expression of rice to identify genes that can be used to develop new types of rice resilient to climate change. Providing a staple food for over 2,000 million people, environmental factors threaten to significantly reduce rice yields, calling for a prioritising of research into climate-tolerant rice.

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Pearl millet also provides a key area for research, with the crop providing over 500 million people with food security, particularly in Africa and Asia. Although better adapted than many crops to cope with low water, unpredictable rainfall has resulted in declines in yield, with the threat of continued climate change throwing pearl millet yields into further turmoil. Researchers from the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in the UK plan to work alongside the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics and the University of Cape Coast, India, to examine genetic behaviour in pearl millet in an attempt to modify the crop for a greater tolerance in water-stressed environments.

A further project lies with arsenic contamination, which continues to affect South East Asia. Ground water from base and precious metal mining contaminates rice paddies, producing dangerously high levels of inorganic arsenic in rice. Scientists are examining rice with lower arsenic uptake levels, attempting to unravel the genetic basis which allows this restriction. Field experiments are planned for India, Bangladesh and China, with the University of Aberdeen and the University of Calcutta collaborating on the research.

By Rebecca Debens

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