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Impact: Economic: Genomic selection has revolutionised, and is now standard practice, in the major dairy cattle, pig and chicken breeding programmes, worldwide and provides multiple quantifiable benefits to breeders, producers, consumers and animals.
Significance: Increased food production world-wide
Beneficiaries: Breeding companies, primary producers, consumers, livestock.
Attribution: Work led by Haley and Woolliams (Roslin Institute now part of UoE).
Reach: Methodologies applied worldwide in livestock improvement, and more recently applied in human genetics and plant breeding.
Impact: Economic, public policy and animal health and welfare: Selective breeding based upon identification of PRNP genotypes can eliminate animals that are susceptible to scrapie from the flock.
Significance: UK sheep meat exports are worth >£380million. Breeding for scrapie resistance protected the sheep industry from similar damage to that inflicted by BSE on cattle and the UK economy.
Beneficiaries: Farmers, animals, consumers
Attribution: Professor Hunter and Dr. Goldmann (Roslin Institute, now part of UoE) identified polymorphisms of the PrP (PRNP) gene linked to scrapie susceptibility and resistance in sheep.
Reach: International, programmes breeding for resistance to scrapie in sheep are now used in the UK, Europe and USA.
Research using novel techniques of genetic marker-aided selection enabled the development of new high yield, disease- and drought-resistant pearl millet hybrids, of which HHB67-Improved was released throughout India. HHB67-Improved is the first product of marker-assisted breeding to reach cereal producers in India and has spread rapidly since its release, preventing yield losses to downy mildew of up to 30% (valued at £7.8M) per year, and providing £2.6M additional annual grain yield. By 2011, it was grown on over 700,000 ha and currently three million people have improved food security as a direct result of this international development focused work.
Oats are recognised as a healthy grain reducing the risk of coronary heart disease and as a valuable grain for livestock feed. Research within BEAA has provided the genetic, physiological and agronomic knowledge that underpins the breeding of high yielding husked and naked oat varieties that meets the needs of end-users in the human food and livestock sectors. BEAA bred oat varieties account for approximately 65% of the UK market and have a significant impact on health and welfare, the economy and on production and support the expanding instant oat breakfast market sector that alone is worth £160million per annum.
Impact: Economic / animal health and welfare / environment: Improved profitability and sustainability of the UK dairy industry.
Significance: The use of the Profitable Lifetime Index (£PLI) increased the profitability of the dairy sector by an estimated £634M in 2008-2013 and reduced the greenhouse gas emissions from the sector by an estimated 8.4%.
Beneficiaries: Dairy producers, breeding companies, general public/environment, dairy cattle welfare and health.
Attribution: Drs Wall, Mrode (SRUC), and Brotherstone (UoE), Profs. Coffey, Simm, Stott, Veerkamp, Oldham (SRUC), and Woolliams (UoE/Roslin)
Reach: UK dairy industry. Tools developed, such as the routine recording of body condition score, and using these data in national genetic evaluations, have been widely adopted internationally, including in major dairy genetics exporting countries such as the USA, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
BEAA research on high sugar grasses (HSG's) led to the breeding of HSG varieties that have had a significant impact on the contribution of grassland to livestock feeding across the UK. Their impact on the economy, commerce and the production of livestock products has been significant in the UK and increasingly in other countries. HSG varieties currently account for over 28% of the perennial ryegrass seed sales in the UK, with over 150,000 ha sown in the UK alone of these varieties since 2008, as their positive benefit on the economics of livestock production from grass and environmental benefit through reduced N pollution from livestock production is recognised.
Impact: Economic: The first fungicide-based control schemes minimising UK barley yield losses (saving approx. 516K tonnes / £95.1M per annum). A risk assessment method, which minimised pesticide usage.
Significance: Barley is the second most popular cereal crop grown in the UK — in 2012, 5.52 million tonnes of barley were grown (market value £1.02 billion). The research led to savings to the UK farming industry of ~£5.4 million per annum
Beneficiaries: Farmers, malting and brewing industries, UK tax revenue.
Attribution: Drs. Oxley, Havis, Hughes, Fountaine, and Burnett (SRUC) identified the pathogen and produced a field test for early identification of infestation.
Reach: Barley growing, malting and brewing sectors, seed and agrochemical industries UK-wide and in Ireland.
Application of Bangor's DNA forensic research has had major impacts on the management and control of illegal wildlife trade. After initial work providing evidence for criminal prosecutions with wider deterrent effects on wildlife crime, Bangor-led research went on to apply these techniques to trace fish (products) to their source populations to ban illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing practices. Since 2009, this work has improved stock management by the UK government and European Commission, directly affected the Common Fisheries Policy reform and has been implemented by the Marine Stewardship Council as a verification tool for correct labelling of products.
Sanderson's research focuses on cataract formation in humans. In the 1990s, cataracts became prevalent in EU farmed salmon causing reduced growth, increased disease susceptibility and annual losses of €27.9M in Norway alone. Working with the Norwegian National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research and industrial partners, Sanderson applied her expertise to the salmon lens to overcome this problem. The research showed that the amino acid histidine is essential to salmon lens physiology. Therefore, the dietary requirements of farmed salmon were reviewed worldwide and histidine was specifically added to fish feed. The incidence of cataract formation is now drastically reduced, with major economic benefits.
Omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) are essential nutrients and have many beneficial effects on human health. Fish are the major source of omega-3 LC-PUFA in the human diet, and its level was maintained in farmed fish through the use of fish oil as a major component of extruded aquafeeds. Around 10 years ago it became clear that demand for fish oil would rapidly outstrip supply, limiting expansion of aquaculture activities, if fish oil use was not reduced. The challenge this presented was that alternatives to fish oil lack omega-3 LC-PUFA. However, replacement of fish oil with more sustainable alternatives is now standard practice in the industry. Research into fish oil replacement and omega-3 metabolism in the Nutrition Group, Institute of Aquaculture has been at the forefront of the scientific research in the UK and Europe that has ensured nutritional quality of farmed fish by developing alternative feed ingredients and feeding strategies that have maintained levels of omega-3 LC-PUFA despite radical changes to feed composition driven by sustainability and food security. This work culminated with recent demonstrations that farmed salmon can be net producers of marine protein (2010) and oil (2011).