Dr Simon Griffiths

Designing Future Wheat
John Innes Centre

Simon studies height and flowering time in bread wheat and the genes which control the interaction between these traits to influence yield.

Simon’s research undertakes large scale screening of wheat lines, using mapping techniques to identify QTL for traits of interest.

Simon uses field phenomics platforms to measure traits in real time under agricultural conditions and identifies markers targeted to specific environments. These are used to inform breeders of traits of interest alongside provision of pre-breeding germplasm.

The group study height and flowering time in bread wheat, taking the two characteristics together, because the developmental processes behind them are entwined, exerting a complex influence on the way a wheat crop fits lifecycle to environment while allocating captured resources to one organ or another. What genes control this balancing act?

To answer this question, specialised techniques are used pinpoint genes within the large and complex genome of bread wheat. The specific DNA sequence changes that confer beneficial effects are identified and tools developed that allow breeders to use this new knowledge for the production of elite wheat varieties. Extensive use is made of Landraces to capture genetic variation that is lost to modern bread wheat but through work carried out here can now be used.

The genes identified in this work operate within molecular networks. They see how they operate within these networks to provide new ideas for the application of the genetic architecture of wheat to design new varieties of this crop fit for the challenge of sustainable food security.

Jerome Mayhew

Jerome Mayhew, Member of Parliament for Broadland

Jerome was as a Barrister and subsequently went on to help build ‘Go Ape!’ into a successful tourism business in Norfolk and across the country.  In more recent years, he has worked in the constituency as a director of an agricultural company, learning about farming and the opportunities that green energy brings to the region. Since entering Parliament Jerome has been elected on to the Environmental Audit Select Committee.

Rob Mutimer

Rob is an outdoor pig farmer in Norfolk. The family farm has 700 outdoor sows, the progeny of which are finished in four straw-based finishing farms in the local area.

The farm also has 100 acres of arable land contract farmed by his brother and 150 ewes lambed by his daughters.

Rob is chairman of the National Pig Association and is a AHDB pork board member.

He has experienced the rollercoaster of Brexit with both the farm and butchery businesses potentially affected by future trading agreements.

Christine Tacon CBE

Christine Tacon CBE was appointed chair of Assured Food Standards, which operates the Red Tractor Assurance scheme. The former Groceries Code Adjudicator took up the role on the 1st January 2021, replacing Dame Lucy Neville-Rolfe.

Ms Tacon joined Red Tractor with decades of experience as a leader and advocate for the British food and farming industry and with an extensive background in change management, regulation and the food chain.

Christine started her professional career as an engineer and then moved into marketing working at organisations including Mars, Vodafone and Anchor (now Fonterra). For more than 10 years, she ran the Co-operative Group’s farming business – the largest of its kind in the UK. In 2004, she was awarded a CBE for services to agriculture.

She currently serves as the chair of the BBC Rural Affairs Committee and MDS – a management training scheme for the food and fresh produce industry. She is also a Director of the AF Group, a £250m purchasing co-operative for agri-businesses.

Until October 2020, Ms Tacon was a government regulator responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Groceries Supply Code of Practice by large grocery retailers, who are designated by the Competition and Markets Authority, in their dealings with direct suppliers.

Daniel Zeichner

Daniel Zeichner was elected to Parliament as MP for Cambridge in May 2015, and has been serving on the Labour frontbench as Shadow Minister for Farming, Food, Fisheries and Rural Affairs for the last three years.

He previously served as Shadow Transport Minister from September 2015 – 2017 and was a member of the Transport Select Committee from September 2017 – November 2019.

Daniel founded and chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics, is chair of the All Party Parliamentary University Group and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Life Sciences, and is co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the East of England among others.

Daniel has a History degree from the University of Cambridge, and on leaving university ran a small nursery with his partner in rural Norfolk before embarking on a career in computer programming.

While living in Norfolk, Daniel served as both a parish and rural district councillor.