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International Development Advisors

Building training and research standards for innovation and sustainable outcomes

Text Box: Welcome to the NAKHLATEC website run by Professor Sinclair H. Mantell and his associates. Sinclair is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture of the UK and formerly Head of UAPS (Unit for Advanced Propagation Systems, Agriculture, Horticulture and The Environment, University of London, Wye College). With research colleagues and students, he pioneered applications of plant tissue and cell culture to tropical crops. After 45 years in this field he is now a senior technical consultant to international agencies and commercial micropropagation companies. Recent initiatives have been based in the UK, Sweden, Kenya, Malaysia and Morocco. NAKHLATEC was established in 2003 to provide advisory and research training services in: Raising practical standards of horticulture and related applied plant science research to stimulate wealth creation though innovation; Biotechnology and uses of plant tissue and cell culture for field and protected crops so as to assist the breeding of a new generations of crops to mitigate adverse climate changes; Developing food resilience strategies to address unpredictable global environmental changes and catastrophic degradation of biodiversity; and Scientific capacity building and technology enhancement to improve research outputs for problem solving and sustainable management challenges. Current NAKHLATEC targets for “making things happen” are: Increasing effective stakeholder participation in research projects so as to foster and support sustained interactions between stakeholders and early to mid-career scientists who are members of cross-disciplinary research teams investigating relevant issues related to the sustainable use and management of important water and biological resources. Extending the use and effectiveness of hydroponic and aquaponic techniques applied to producing food in cities and homes of the future, for which the term Urbanoponics covers soilless plant growing and fish culture in towns and cities. NAKHLATEC has recently been a member of a consortium designing a commercial urban plant production facility to be located in four urban centres in Southern Sweden using new opportunities provided by the availability of residual heat sources close to industrial and research facilities that until now disposed of their waste heat as warm water into local streams and rivers. These heat resources are now being exploited for producing food in cities. Not only are cities targets for this type of approach, but also rural populations through the use of redundant farm buildings to house fresh leafy green production systems in a form of peri-urban horticulture. NAKHLATEC is currently a member of an EU-funded Digitised Farm project led by Sensative AB Sweden which supports a farm-based data collection, monitoring and response testbed for outdoor and indoor growing (fresh greens and herbs). Nakhlatec is a member of the Nordic Testbed network and a joint leader of the Barngreens project based in Southern Sweden in partnership with Alovivum AB, Lund. NAKHLATEC technical know-how assists private enterprises, governmental research and in-service training departments, universities and international development agencies in rural development, biotechnology and higher education covering: Climate change resilience management; Rural development project formulation and implementation; Natural Resource Management; Food security: value chains and up-scale/down-scale production issues; Biodiversity conservation and management. Listings of scientific publications and scientific conference proceedings are presented under Publications and Presentations, respectively. Updated material on Urbanoponics in the temperate home garden and kitchen is available as well as information on innovations such as the Planetary Rotogro and RecycFlo hydroponic systems for peri-urban and urban horticulture.

If you are interested in any of the Nakhlatec services, please contact us at:

Email: info@nakhlatec.eu

Copyright Nakhlatec 2020^®

18 November 2020

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The Barngreens Project

Malaysian garden concepts

Urbanoponics (Home and Garden)

Urbanoponics (Cities)