This month has seen the most significant event for my country, the United Kingdom, since the end of the Second World War in 1945. On 23 June the UK voted by 52% to 48% to leave the European Union. That decision has plunged not only the UK and the rest of European Union into chaos and uncertainly but has brought uncertainty to global financial markets, knocked billions of dollars from stock markets and is the first reversal of a global trend of greater regional economic integration.  It has split the country by age; the majority of young people voted to stay in the EU and are they are angry that older people most of whom voted to leave made a decisions that will affect them long after the older generation has gone. It has split it by geography; Scotland, Northern Ireland and London voted to remain while Wales and the rest to England voted to leave.

It is a stark reminder that evidence is not necessarily an important consideration in political decision making – every independent study has shown that the UK would be better off economically in the EU. However people vote on the basis of their own (often very local) experience rather then what ‘experts’ say. We would do well to remember this when as scientists we bring our evidence to policy makers thinking that we will be able to influence their decisions. At a workshop on the science-policy interface I attended 15 years ago, one presenter showed a slide with a list of things that influence policy decisions and evidence was only one of 23 items on that list.

I spent a week in Montpellier, France, at the Consortium Office at a meeting of CRP Directors and DDGs (a group known as the CGIAR Science Leaders). It was an opportunity to discuss a number of matters including how the Integrative CRPs can work closely with the Agri-Food CRPs, site integration, assessment of science quality in the CGIAR etc. We also participated in a meeting on Big Data, focused on the new Platform.

On 22-24 June I was in Addis Ababa at a conference of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy. The Academy is a global research network in agriculture and food systems for improved nutrition and health to serve as a platform for learning and sharing. While great strides have been made in improving agricultural productivity in many part of the world it is now very clear that improved agricultural productivity is not sufficient for improved nutrition and health. This was brought home to me very clearly when I was working in India, a country which has made great strides in increasing food production but has some of the worst nutrition indicators in the world.

Although we still do not understand the complex interaction between agriculture, nutrition and health, it was encouraging to see the resources that are now being devoted to trying to understand the very complex relationships between these three traditionally separate topics and the progress that has been made in the past 2-3 years.  It was also gratifying to see that the role of livestock and animal source foods is well appreciated, at least by the researchers at the conference.