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R2Kast - People in Food and Farming/All InAuthor: Wallace Currie
Brought to you from Rural2Kitchen. The podcast where agricultural minds open up.Sponsored primarily by Howden Rural Insurance as well as the Scottish Farmer Follow us on all platforms here - https://linktr.ee/rural2kitchenTo get in touch email rural2kitchen@gmail.comComplete this survey to help out the show! Thank you so much - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeBDRnGerPw2w-nNBT6st4wCI2ldi4OZPrIIrJ-_rsRWCKq1A/viewform?uspsf_link Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Language: en Genres: Natural Sciences, Science Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Tales of a Nuffield Scholar with Sarah Hughes
Wednesday, 11 March, 2026
Today on the Tales of a Nuffield Scholar series I had the pleasure of chatting with Sarah Hughes 🎙️ Sarah works with Syngenta leading their amenity business across the UK and Ireland, covering sectors such as turf, forestry, pest management and ornamentals. She is also a 2017 Nuffield Scholar whose study explored the economics of vertical farming and whether controlled environment agriculture could offer viable opportunities for food production 🌾We spoke about Sarah’s unusual career path through agriculture, from training as an agronomist and working in arable crops to later running her own edible flower business supplying high end restaurants and hotels. That experience of producing high value crops sparked her interest in vertical farming and ultimately shaped the focus of her Nuffield study 🚜Sarah’s travels took her across the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Dubai and the United States, alongside the global Nuffield group on the CSC in Brazil. She reflected on how much excitement surrounded vertical farming at the time and how her research quickly showed the real challenge was the economics behind it. The technology could work, but the costs of energy, labour and infrastructure often made the model incredibly difficult to sustain 🌍We also spoke about balancing Nuffield with family life, running a business and raising two children at the same time. Sarah made a really important point that there is no single way to complete a Nuffield Scholarship. Everyone’s circumstances are different and sometimes the best approach is simply finding a way to make it work around the life you already have 🌱Thank you to NFU Mutual for their support of this project.Enjoy! 🙂 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
