Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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New Food and Environment Research Agency launched
A new national research centre for food and the environment will strengthen Defra's ground-breaking food, farming and environmental research programme, Farming Minister Jane Kennedy announced today.
The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) will bring together Defra's Central Science Laboratory, Plant Health Division, Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate and the Plant Variety Rights Office and Seeds Division as one agency. This will significantly strengthen Defra's work in plant and crop protection, food chain safety, environmental risk assessment and crises response and promote better integration between policy development, scientific evidence and inspection services.
The merger will also enable a more rapid response to protect the public interest, and remove delays for businesses involved in both national and international trade.
Professor Bob Watson, chief scientific advisor at Defra
said:
"We have positioned excellence in science at the
top of Defra's agenda to make sure we are producing the best
evidence to develop appropriate solutions for problems occurring
in ecosystems, water supplies, the climate and food. The creation
of Fera is a landmark step in taking the best research forward and
making our systems as streamlined as possible."
Adrian Belton, chief executive of The Food and Environment
Research Agency, said:
"The Food and Environment Research
Agency puts Defra at the heart of the debate on food security and
the science behind environmental issues. By combining policy
development, scientific evidence and risk assessment Fera can play
a full role in addressing challenges in the natural environment."
There will be an official launch of the new Agency in spring.
Notes to editors
1. Fera comes into being officially on 1 April 09. This is to denote the legal creation of the agency as announced to Parliament in a written ministerial statement laid by Jane Kennedy. The agency has been operating in shadow form since April 2008.
2. Fera will be formed by merging Defra's Plant Health Division (PHD), which includes bee health and the Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate (PHSI), the Plant Variety Rights Office and Seeds Division (PVS) and the Central Science Laboratory.
3. The Agency's main science laboratories will be located at Sand Hutton near York (currently CSL), with seed offices in Cambridge, a wildlife study centre in Gloucestershire and around 40 other small shared office facilities for its plant health inspectorate around the UK.
4. Please see the CSL website for information about what CSL currently does: http://www.csl.gov.uk
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