| Cereals
addition, and more importantly, the
more farmers participate in the
scheme the more insights will be
generated into the UK’s soil health.
Fera is also engaging with
supply chain organisations,
retailers and farming groups on
the project – retailers, for instance,
will be able to gain an
understanding of the soil health of
their growers and benchmark this
against the wider community.
Guy Thallon, Strategic Business
Development Manager in the Crop
Health division at Fera Science,
who is leading on the project, said:
“Sustainable farming and Soil
Health has never been higher on
the agenda as it is now, which is
why it’s the right time for this study
to unlock the potential of soil
biology.
“The soil microbial communities
in our agricultural systems are
incredibly rich and complex but
hold great promise for sustainable
agriculture. Large-scale,
collaborative projects are required
to break down this complexity and
move the interest of soil health into
a biology space.
“We’d therefore greatly
encourage as many farmers as
possible to become involved with
this community, the more samples
that we analyse, the richer the
datasets and the quicker the pace
of change and understanding.”
Fera is driven by a need to
address important global issues,
www.farmingmonthly.co.uk
Guy Thallon, Strategic Business Development Manager in
the Crop Health division at Fera Science
such as sustainably feeding a
growing population and security
challenges. Fera uses original
thinking and innovation in
developing early stage detection
to solve the big issues facing the
agri-food industry.
To enable sustainable solutions
in agriculture, Fera offers a suite of
resources, testing facilities and
expertise. It also creates and
delivers integrated, innovative and
expert research services and
products for its partners in crop
protection, chemical and animal
health companies, as well as food
producers and growers,
manufacturers, distributors and
retailers.
Fera launched the Big Soil
Community at Cereals 2018.
For more information on the Big
Soil Community, visit
https://info.fera.co.uk/bigsoil/
For more information on Fera,
visit https://www.fera.co.uk
July 2018 | Farming Monthly | 19