Christopher John Pollock CBE DSc FSB FRAgS FLSW is a British research scientist.
Chris Pollock was born in 1947 in Handsworth, Birmingham. He studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Pollock graduated from Birmingham University with a PhD degree in microbiology in 1971, and with a DSc degree in 1993 for a thesis on ‘Temperature, growth and carbohydrate metabolism in plants’. [1]
In 2003 Pollock was appointed Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), the United Kingdom government's main advisory committee on risks to human health and the environment from the release and marketing of GM crops and other genetically modified organisms. [2] [1] [3] Pollock was Chief Scientific Adviser to the First Minister of the Welsh Assembly Government from 2007 to 2008. Pollock is Independent Co-Chair of the Science Advisory Council for Wales. [4] [3] Pollock was Director of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth from 1993 to 2007. [5]
Pollock resigned from the Welsh Government’s Bovine TB Eradication Programme Board in 2012, over the Welsh government's reversal of a planned badger cull. [6] [7] [8] In 2012 at the Farmers' Union of Wales’ annual conference held at Aberystwyth Pollock stated, regarding the Welsh Government's bovine TB policy, that in areas of high disease incidence vaccination would not prevent infected badgers from infecting cattle. [3] Pollock also stated, at the Farmers’ Union of Wales’ annual conference held at Aberystwyth in 2012, that there was no scientific evidence that GM crop technology was inherently unsafe and that GM crops had a twenty-year history of safe use worldwide. [3]
Chris Pollock was chairman of the independent Scientific Steering Committee for the programme of farm-scale evaluations of GM crops. He was chairman of the Research Priorities Group for Sustainable Farming and Food. He was chairman of Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Plants and Microbial Sciences Committee and Review Group on Sustainable Agriculture and Land Use. [9] He is an Honorary Professor at Aberystwyth University and the University of Nottingham. [10]
Pollock was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2002 Birthday Honours, for services to the environment. He is a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Societies (FRAgS) and a Fellow of the Institute of Biology. Pollock is a former winner of the British Grassland Society Award. [9] He was awarded the honorary degree of DUniv by Birmingham University in 2011. [11] In 2014, Pollock was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. [12]
The National Farmers' Union (NFU) is an employer association representing farming and growing businesses within England and Wales.
Mycobacterium bovis is a slow-growing aerobic bacterium and the causative agent of tuberculosis in cattle. It is related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium which causes tuberculosis in humans. M. bovis can jump the species barrier and cause tuberculosis-like infection in humans and other mammals.
Sir Glanmor Williams was a Welsh historian.
The Royal Welsh Show is an agricultural show, organised by the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, and first held in 1904. It takes place in July of each year, at Llanelwedd, near Builth Wells, in Powys, Mid Wales.
Shambo was a black Friesian bull living in the interfaith Skanda Vale Temple near Llanpumsaint in Wales who had been adopted by the local Hindu community as a sacred animal. He came to public attention in April 2007, when a routine skin test for bovine tuberculosis tested positive, indicating he may have been in contact with the bacterium that causes the disease. As a result, the Welsh Government required that the bull be slaughtered. Skanda Vale disputed this and campaigned for a reprieve, expressing their belief that the sanctity of all life is the cornerstone of Hinduism. They were backed in this stance by the Hindu religious community at large. Farmers supported the Welsh Government's policy that cattle which tested positive to the skin test be destroyed in the interests of other local cattle.
Thomas Hugh Pennington, CBE, FRCPath, FRCP (Edin), FMedSci, FRSE is emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Outside academia, he is best known as the chair of the Pennington Group inquiry into the Scottish Escherichia coli outbreak of 1996 and as Chairman of the Public Inquiry into the 2005 Outbreak of E. coli O157 in South Wales.
Martyn Thomas CBE FREng FIET FRSA is a British independent consultant and software engineer.
Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 69% of the country's land area, employs 1% of its workforce and contributes 0.5% of its gross value added. The UK currently produces about 54% of its domestic food consumption.
Walter Idris Jones CBE was a Welsh industrial chemist and international rugby union player. He captained the Wales national rugby union team on one occasion in 1925. Jones played his club rugby for Llanelli RFC.
Dame Olive Annie Wheeler, DBE was a Welsh educationist and psychologist, and Professor of Education at University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, now Cardiff University.
The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW), known as the Undeb Amaethwyr Cymru (UAC) in Welsh, is a member organisation that was formed in 1955 to represent farmers in Wales.
Dame Elan Closs Stephens is a Welsh academic who has been a non-executive director of the BBC Board since 2017, and Chair of the BBC between 27 June 2023 and 4 March 2024. She is Electoral Commissioner for Wales and Pro-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University. She chairs the UNESCO International Prize for the Creative Economy panel.
Badger culling in the United Kingdom is permitted under licence, within a set area and timescale, as a way to reduce badger numbers in the hope of controlling the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB). Humans can catch bTB, but public health control measures, including milk pasteurisation and the BCG vaccine, mean it is not a significant risk to human health. The disease affects cattle and other farm animals, some species of wildlife including badgers and deer, and some domestic pets such as cats. Geographically, bTB has spread from isolated pockets in the late 1980s to cover large areas of the west and south-west of England and Wales in the 2010s. Some people believe this correlates with the lack of badger control.
Sir Cadwaladr Bryner Jones was a leading figure in Welsh agricultural education and an eminent civil servant. He was educated at Dolgellau Grammar School, Aspatria Agricultural College and Durham University, where he received his MSc degree.
Badger Trust, formerly the National Federation of Badger Groups (NFBG), is an animal welfare charity operating in England and Wales. It represents around fifty local badger groups dedicated to the conservation and protection of the European badger. It states that it is the leading voice for badgers and that its charitable aim is to promote and enhance the welfare, conservation and protection of badgers, their setts and their habitats.
George Mackenzie Dunnet CBE FRSE FIN FRSA was a Scottish ornithologist and ecologist. He acted as an official advisor to the British government on ecological issues relating to the North Sea oil industry, salmon farming and the link between badgers and bovine tuberculosis. The latter resulted in a government report generally called the Dunnet Report.
Agriculture in Wales has in the past been a major part of the economy of Wales, a largely rural country which is part of the United Kingdom. Wales is mountainous and has a mild, wet climate. This results in only a small proportion of the land area being suitable for arable cropping, but grass for the grazing of livestock is present in abundance. As a proportion of the national economy, agriculture is now much less important; a high proportion of the population now live in the towns and cities in the south of the country and tourism has become an important form of income in the countryside and on the coast. Arable cropping is limited to the flatter parts and elsewhere dairying and livestock farming predominate.
Noel Lloyd, FLSW was a Welsh academic, who served as Vice-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University from 2004 to his retirement in 2011.
William James Wright (1903-1994) was a Scottish farmer and agriculturalist. He was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1955 New Year Honours for Services to Agriculture in Scotland.
The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs is a member of the cabinet in the Welsh Government. The current officeholder is Huw Irranca-Davies since March 2024.