by The UK’s main agricultural research facility is facing a funding crisis and its future work is at risk, it can be revealed.
Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, is one of the oldest agricultural research institutes in the world, having been founded in 1843, and its research is credited with preventing crop failures around the globe.
A letter from Rothamsted director Professor Angela Karp, seen by the Guardian, has warned staff that they will have to stop “non-essential” work, announcing a hiring freeze and warning of a pay freeze.
Concerned scientists have said they fear for their work, which is dependent on funding. About 350 scientists and 60 PhD students work at the facility. His research includes work on how farmers can be productive when growing trees in their fields, finding out how much carbon crops can store, and two national networks to monitor insect populations in the UK.
Rothamsted hit the headlines in 2012 when around 200 anti-genetic modification protesters occupied the site to campaign against their research into a wheat crop that would deter aphids.
Rothamsted receives most of its funding as a core grant directly from the government’s UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) department, in five-year cycles. For the past two cycles no inflationary costs have been included in the institution’s funding. The institution has been running at a loss for several years, with the government stepping in from time to time to increase funds.
While the UK was in the EU, Rothamsted also benefited from funding from the European regional development fund, which is no longer a title.
Now, the situation is understood to be at a crisis point, and the future operations of the facility are uncertain.
Karp wrote: “I feel it’s important to let the team know that after a promising start, our financial situation unfortunately weakened in the latter part of last year. Despite all our continued efforts, including outstanding achievements by many staff members of whom we can be proud, the grant targets achieved for the full year were not as we had budgeted.
“While free reserves have been maintained, these are still lower than we would like and highly susceptible to external factors, and we are currently considering how best to manage our operating model to to secure our longer-term future.
“To some extent we have managed the challenges we faced during 2023 by rebalancing funds within the IAE envelope. However, the mitigation steps we are taking going forward cannot be relied upon and we do not have sufficient reserves that we can access immediately.”
Rothamsted estimated that he is worth £3bn a year to the UK economy as his work helps crop yields, by determining the most efficient crops to grow and by developing disease and disease tolerant plants extreme weather.
New research is promising for much of the government’s offer to farmers after Brexit, as they struggle with a lack of workers and new environmental rules on government payments.
This would allow farmers to work more efficiently, using fewer inputs such as fertiliser, and also require fewer staff as innovations such as robotic vegetable harvesters are developed.
A UKRI spokesperson said: “Although Rothamsted Research is a major funder, the BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) recognizes and upholds the institution’s legal and governance specificity. We encourage our strategically supported institutions to seek research funding from a wide range of funders to support research outside of the activities we fund through a range of schemes.”
The top Rothamsted experiments
Park Grass Experiment
The Park Grass experiment is one of the longest running experiments in modern science; it started in 1856 and has been going ever since. What it shows most clearly is how biodiversity drops when you add fertilizer to a grass meadow.
The study takes place at Rothamsted Park in Harpenden on 2.8 hectares (6.9 acres) of parkland that has been under permanent pasture for at least 100 years. The initial objective was to find out how to improve grass yield by adding inorganic fertilizer or organic manure.
However, within a few years scientists noticed that the diversity of wild species had drastically decreased as the fertilizers changed the soil’s pH and nutrient composition. On the unfertilized spots, the scientists observed 35-45 species, but only two or three were treated with artificial fertilizer. Once established to aid crop yields, field grass has become a very important source of evidence for ecologists and soil scientists.
Artificial fertilizers
Sir John Bennet Lawes, 1st Baron, inherited the Rothamsted estate from his father. He founded the research centre, which first began with his own experiments on the effects of manure on potted plants and field crops on the grounds. He went on to patent the treatment of phosphate rock with sulfuric acid to produce superphosphate, a fertiliser, before opening a fertilizer factory.
Although they are now an environmental bete noir, in part because of the field grass experiment that showed the damage they did to nature, man-made fertilizers helped feed the world.
The insect apocalypse revealed
The Rothamsted moth survey has been ongoing since the 1960s. This provides the basis for the moth data in the UK, which showed their decline. The moth traps provide the world’s most comprehensive long-term standardized data on insects.
The 16 traps provide farmers with information on the timing and extent of aphid migration to prevent excessive prophylactic use of insecticides.
Butterfly discoveries
Rothamsted discovered the secrets of painted lady migration – the fact that butterflies born in Britain return from northern Europe and the Arctic to Africa in late summer. It was the Rothamsted radar that got pictures of the butterflies high in the air, much higher than people thought they flew.
In one of the largest citizen science projects ever recorded, Rothamsted scientists discovered where butterflies go when they migrate. The butterfly was known to migrate from the continent each summer to UK shores in varying numbers. But scientists previously did not know whether the painted lady made the return trip at the end of summer, like the closely related red admiral, or whether she died in the UK.
They discovered that the painted lady migrated south each autumn – but made this return trip at high altitude, out of sight of butterfly watchers on the ground. Radar records indicated that painted females flew an average of more than 500 meters on their journey south and could clock speeds of 30mph.
