ILSI 2024 Annual Meeting Session 6 – Climate-Resilient Soil Management

ILSI 2024 Annual Meeting Session 6 – Climate-Resilient Soil Management Strategies

Tuesday, January 23, 2024 | 3:05 – 4:05 p.m.

Chair: Louise Dye, PhD, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Featuring the following speakers and presentations:

Leveraging Novel Technologies to Increase the Resilience of Agricultural Systems to Abiotic Stress – Holly Croft, PhD, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
Smart Soil Management for Soil Revitalization Resulting in Healthy and Climate-resilient Cropping Systems – Koen Willekens, Dr. ir., PhD, Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Belgium

Louise Dye

Louise Dye, PhD, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Louise Dye is a Chartered Health Psychologist and Co-Director of the Institute for Sustainable Food at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the effects of nutrition on cognitive function, health and wellbeing and in how to encourage and sustain dietary behaviour change at individual, organisational and societal levels. Her work on breakfast and cognition has highlighted the importance of diet in vulnerable groups e.g. children, in food insecurity. Louise chairs the BBSRC Strategic Advisory Panel for Biosciences for an Integrated Understanding of Health, is past President of ILSI Europe, current Co-Chair of ILSI Global and Associate Editor of Nutritional Neuroscience. She leads a work package on increasing dietary fibre intake in low-income consumers in the UKRI funded H3 project (www.h3.ac.uk) and is co-Chair of the health and wellbeing pillar of the Leeds Food Strategy for Leeds City Council. She also co-leads the SFI/DAERA/UKRI funded Co-Centre for Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems on the Island of Ireland.

Holly Croft

Leveraging Novel Technologies to Increase the Resilience of Agricultural Systems to Abiotic Stress – Holly Croft, PhD, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Abstract: The complex link between climate change, soil quality and food insecurity presents a global challenge that manifests at local scales. Crops can face a range of abiotic stressors, including drought, high temperatures, soil nutrient limitation and soil salinity which can reduce crop productivity and limit yields. In this talk, I discuss both the development and selection of crop varieties displaying a resilience to abiotic stress, and the potential of emerging novel technologies, including drones and satellites, in helping to sustainably manage agricultural systems and enhance food production under a changing climate.

Dr. Holly Croft is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and proleptic Associate Professor at the University of Sheffield, UK, specialising in ecological remote sensing of terrestrial ecosystems. She received her PhD in the remote sensing of soil surface structure from the University of Exeter, UK and has worked at the University of Basel, Switzerland and the University of Toronto, Canada, focussing on modelling vegetation traits from satellite data at scales ranging from the leaf to the globe. Her research is focused on how plants interact with their environment, including within a climate change framework. She uses remote sensing data, acquired from a range of platforms from UAVs to satellites, ground-based field experiments and novel analytical methods to improve our understanding of vegetated systems for research and management applications.

Koen Willekens

Smart Soil Management for Soil Revitalization Resulting in Healthy and Climate-resilient Cropping Systems – Koen Willekens, Dr. ir., PhD, Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Belgium

Abstract: A soil can be considered as a living organism. A healthy plant production is related to multiple interactions between the soil inhabiting organisms and plants. Their symbiotic relationship builds soil fertility and results in multiple ecosystem services, inclusive the production of nutritious food. Farmers make choices daily regarding soil management practices. What are the dos and don’ts for achieving all possible benefits of a healthy soil? How can farmers be supported in reaching this goal?

Dr. ir. Koen Willekens is a senior scientist specialized in soil management with respect to its effect on crop performance, soil quality, nutrient dynamics, and carbon sequestration at Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO). He graduated as agricultural engineer at Ghent University (1989). His PhD study dealt with the topic of N dynamics in field vegetable cropping systems (2016). Nowadays, his work mainly focuses on small-scale composting and agroecological and organic cropping systems design.