Every year farmers around the world grow £120 billion worth of wheat, a crop that provides the planet with a significant proportion of its calories. Big challenges and opportunities lie ahead. Climate change and the spread of plant diseases are impacting on farmers. On the other side of the equation, in the field of public health, the world needs better and more nutrient-rich food.

So what should the future of the world’s oldest domesticated cereal look and taste like? Food journalist and broadcaster Dan Saladino speaks to three experts working in different fields (in both senses of the word) who each have their own vision of our bread and wheat in the coming decades.

Organic cereal farmer, John Letts, is currently working on a radical approach to growing heritage wheat. He is joined by Dr Phil Howell, a former Syngenta plant breeder who now works at the plant research organisation NIAB; and Louise Bannon, a former pastry chef at Restaurant Noma, and now an organic baker and miller at the pioneering Tír Bakery in Denmark, where she bakes using slow sourdough fermentation with old varieties of grains, including Nordic Ølands and Rye.

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