Introduction

CHRISTOPH GRAF GROTE,

CHAIRMAN, NUFFIELD FARMING SCHOLARSHIPS TRUST CONFERENCE

Every year, Nuffield International holds a Contemporary Scholars Conference (CSC) in one of its member countries. As last year’s CSC had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 restrictions, this year, in March, the UK was pleased to host two cohorts totalling over 120 scholars from 15 countries for a week based in Norfolk and London.

The Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust is a charity founded some 75 years ago in the UK and awards individuals with life-changing opportunities in their field of food and agriculture, through fully sponsored, eight-week travelling scholarships. Today, the umbrella organisation, Nuffield International, has extended its reach around the world to include countries such as Australia, Brazil, US, Japan and France.

We chose Norfolk for our main programme as it’s a county that embraces a long tradition of forward-looking farming, as well as world-leading science in food and agriculture, best explained by the conference title ‘Food-ClimateHealth and the Power of Collaboration’. The aim was to bring practise and science together to debate some key challenges facing our industry and come up with some thoughts for potential solutions.

Norfolk made us most welcome. The response by all hosts and participants, and in particular Norwich Research Park, was overwhelming. On behalf of Nuffield International and Nuffield UK, I would very much like to thank everybody for their individual contributions and all the help and time dedicated to making our CSC a great success. I would also like to take the opportunity to sincerely thank the many local sponsors who contributed so generously. Without all of you, we could not have made it such a diverse, inspiring and successful programme.