Future Biogas forms agricultural board of experts

Future Biogas has formed an agricultural board made up of leading academics and industry experts to provide farming, scientific and market expertise to help deliver the UK’s first subsidy-free renewable energy from sustainable and regenerative agriculture.The endeavour is entitled Project Carbon Harvest.

The company said the board will provide independent expertise, critique and corroboration for the project, focusing on a broad range of subjects including sustainable farming, scientific research and policy.

This will ensure a wide spectrum of perspectives and specialisms are considered in the scrutiny applied to the project’s methodology, underlying science and practical application, according to Future Biogas.

The board has several objectives - including to support bioenergy crop production as part of diverse crop rotations, and to engage with authorities to ensure progression and delivery of the project.

It will also advise Future Biogas on specific subjects, translate and filter high-level theory into tangible outputs and provide a forum for knowledge transger that it expects to bridge R&D and practical application.

The chair of the board is Professor Tina Barsby OBE, having previously been a non-executive Director. She is internationally recognised for scientific achievements in crop science and is Honorary Professor of Agricultural Botany at the University of Cambridge.

Following 18 years with the plant breeder Limagrain, in 2008 she became the first female CEO of NIAB, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, from which she retired in 2021.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, and a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.

Tina was awarded the OBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to agricultural science and biotechnology.