Healthy Plants, Healthy People, Healthy Planet

purple tomatoes

A vision to deliver solutions to global challenges, securing a safer, healthier and more sustainable future through the power of plant and microbial science.

Healthy Plants, Healthy People, Healthy Planet (HP³) is a collaborative call to action to provide the solutions needed in a world with a rapidly changing climate, facing massive losses in biodiversity, a growing global population to feed and the urgent need to decarbonise agricultural practices. All of these challenges require science to play a critical role in delivering solutions. HP3 addresses three critical challenges facing the planet which must be addressed in a rapidly closing window of time.

These are:

  • Feeding the world – We must create a new and better food future, using our knowledge to sustainably produce enough healthy, nutritious food to feed a growing population.
  • Climate change – As we decarbonize our economy, we need to support the agricultural transformation needed to reduce the impact of food production on climate, soil and environment. To reach net zero, agriculture will require plant breeding and genetics to reduce reliance on fertilisers and chemicals, and secure the future of agriculture in a changing climate.
  • Improving global health – We must harness the remarkable capabilities of plants and microbes to secure the supply of sufficient, nutritious, and sustainably produced food, and to make and discover valuable new molecules to improve human health.

In 2023 the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory’s Next Generation Infrastructure programme received essential funding from the UKRI Infrastructure Fund, which invests in the facilities, equipment and resources that are essential for researchers and innovators to do ground-breaking work.