Showcasing the best of Irish food science

INNOVATION PROFILE: Teagasc:EUROPE'S LARGEST science event comes to Dublin next week. The Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) is held in a leading European city every two years and is coming to Dublin as part of the city's designation as European City of Science for 2012.

Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority, is celebrating the occasion by hosting three separate events focusing on Irish food science and technology, Irish food culture, and the challenges facing the industry in the future.

The first of these, “A harvest of Irish food” on July 10th, is being organised in partnership with University College Dublin, Bord Bia and Dublin Institute of Technology, and involves a tour of the Teagasc Food Research Centre in Ashtown; UCD in Belfield, and Dublin Institute of Technology on Cathal Brugha Street. The aim is to allow participants experience the best of Irish food and current food science and technology research.

Among the speakers will be Bord Bia chief executive Aidan Cotter, who will speak on the sustainability of Irish food production, and Teagasc director Prof Gerry Boyle, who will outline the role of science-based innovation in developing the Irish food sector. There will also be a series of demonstrations under the research theme “Conversion of Ireland’s high-quality raw materials into food and food products as demanded by today’s consumer”. This will be followed by a presentation on the science of personalised nutrition at UCD, with the day concluding with an Irish dinner in Trinity College.

The second event is being held on July 12th in the Convention Centre Dublin and is on the theme of “Milk – nature’s perfect food”.

“What we want to do is present the latest scientific research which underpins the health aspect of milk and dairy,” explains Dr Paul Ross, head of Teagasc’s food programme. “There is huge potential for milk and dairy in Ireland, it’s our great white hope. But in 2020 we’ll be producing 50 per cent more milk as a result of the lifting of the milk quota in 2015, but we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do with it.”

Among the speakers at the event will be Prof Bruce German of the University of California Davis. “He is a world authority on the evolution of milk and how it impacts on health,” says Ross. “Milk has been designed by Mother Nature down through thousands of years to contain everything needed to feed the animal’s young. In Ireland, we are fortunate to have pasture-fed milk which is healthier. This adds to the health advantages of milk – it is rich in polyunsaturates and conjugated linoleic acid which is also important for health.”

Ross’s Teagasc colleague, Dr Mark Fenelon, will look at the dairy processing sector and how it is going to cope with the increase in milk production over the coming years. “He will be looking at how we can change milk and produce different products for world markets. Ireland is already a leader in infant formula and produces 11 per cent of global exports of the product. A third of our milk is turned into cheese and Mark will outline the other opportunities for dairy processing, such as probiotics and so on. We have highly innovative companies with global reach here like Glanbia and Kerry and the increase in milk production could produce a huge economic dividend for the country. And if there’s one thing we do well, it’s dairy.”

The final speaker on the day will be Dr Catherine Stanton of Teagasc’s Food Research Centre in Moorepark, Fermoy, Co Cork, who will address the hot topic of “milk intelligence”.

“She will be looking at the bioactive qualities of milk and how it can educate young in different ways,” Ross explains. “For example, some of the complex sugars in milk have been shown to promote the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. Also, it probably educates the immune system of an infant. It’s not just nutrition, it’s about helping programme the infant for dealing with the world around it. We have a large research programme with UCC, which is aimed at the development of functional foods, and another programme in association with Dairygold, Glanbia, Carbery Milk Products, Kerry, and Enterprise Ireland aimed at milk bioactives such as fatty acids or protein components, and Catherine will be discussing these.”

On the same day in the RDS in Dublin, Teagasc will host the first in a series of lectures on the growing challenges of sustainably meeting the food security needs of the world – “Grand challenges for global agriculture and food”. The six-part series will explore key aspects of the complex challenge of producing sufficient food, ensuring access to that food whilst ensuring more efficient use of scarce natural resources, developing more sustainable and resilient production systems, dealing with competing demands for scarce land, including energy, and adapting to and helping to mitigate the encroaching influence of climate change.

The lecture will be given by Prof John Beddington, chief scientific advisor to the UK government, who will address what he calls the “perfect storm” of having to deal with consumer revolutions in terms of their changing dietary requirements, increasingly diet-related health problems and increasing consciousness of the role of food and diet in enhancing health.

The final event in the ESOF series takes place in the Convention Centre on Friday, July 13th, and is entitled “The great debate on the battle to feed a changing planet”. The event is aimed at seeking answers to questions such as: can we beat hunger and climate change; how can we curb greenhouse gas emissions from food production and at the same time provide access to affordable food for everyone; how can we be sure we make the right choices in attempting to achieve these goals simultaneously?

“We will be looking at the twin challenges facing the next generation – food security and climate change,” says Rogier Schulte, head of Teagasc’s environmental research department. “The world population is growing and diets are changing. Meat and dairy consumption is increasing. We’ll need to produce up to 70 per cent more food by 2050. This is possible but agriculture is a contributor to greenhouse gases and any increase in production will be at odds with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by the same date. The great debate asks the question whether we will starve or burn.”

Both main strands of opinion will be analysed. “There are those who say that climate change should be tackled first and that we can feed the world by eliminating waste – 30m per cent of food is wasted between the farm and the plate,” Schulte points out. “They also say that we eat far more meat than we need from a nutritional point of view. Technically, they are right but how could you enforce a reduction in beef consumption?”

The second strand of opinion holds that food production can be increased with no accompanying increase in emissions through knowledge transfer that makes certain regions of the world more productive and so on.

“Both opinions are valid and Teagasc does not come down on either side,” Schulte adds. “We are just facilitating the debate.”

To register to participate in these events, go to esof2012.org. To register for the 'Grand challenges for global agriculture and food' lecture, email lectureseries@teagasc.ie or tel 059-9170200