RADIANT: Diversifying farms with underutilised crops

Lead researcher: Dr Sean Mayes

Biodiversity is an essential part of food, nutrition and economic security, particularly for small farmers and farming communities in rural areas. Smallholder farmers often produce a variety of landraces and crop species but do not necessarily have links to consumers and the marketplace to generate income from this diversity. The RADIANT project will help realise dynamic value chains for underutilised crops, across a range of species including foxtail millet and winged bean, in Europe. Given that there are approximately 10.5 million farms in the EU, with 96% classified as family farms, there is an opportunity to work with farmers to create alternative production systems with greater agrobiodiversity. Simultaneously, increased demand for local, organic, GM-free products is necessary to support these farmers. The RADIANT project works across these systems to provide opportunities to increase biodiversity on farms, and support farmers finding new markets for their produce.

Collaborators on foxtail millet germplasm collection: UoN (Prof Malcolm Bennett and others), MacDonald institute, Cambridge University (Dr Harriet Hunt); Shanxi Agricultural University, China

Collaborators on winged bean germplasm: UNMC/UoN (Prof Festo Massawe), Kasetsart University, Thailand (Dr Prakit Somta); East West Seeds (Thailand Head Office, Philippines), Sime Darby Plantations (Malaysia)

This project is funded by Horizon 2020.