7 July 2025

When poet William Wordsworth wrote his ode to a daffodil “I wandered lonely as a cloud” way back in 1804, little did he realise that, more than 220 years later, the object of his words would be playing a vital role in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

In a novel partnership between Professor Xianmin Chang from the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) and Kevin Stephens from Welsh bioresearch company Agroceutical Products Ltd (APL), daffodils are grown in the Black Mountains in Powys to produce galantamine which is used to slow down the progress of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s.

And now the pair will be sharing their knowledge in a special, free of charge, lecture to celebrate the 180th anniversary of the RAU.

The lecture - Dancing with Daffodils – will relate the development journey from a “crazy idea” through to a practical, scalable, and cost-effective, methodology for the production of an ingredient for an Alzheimer’s drug made from daffodils grown on the top of Welsh mountains.

Kevin Stephens, Managing Director of APL, explained: “At a time when UK agriculture is facing generational changes in both the demographics of the industry, as well as the economics and farm support environment, I am proud to be able to share the lessons we have learnt in developing a new system from scratch and hope that it will help many others build a bright future for our industry.

“The learning curve on this journey has been so steep as to be nearly vertical at times! We’ve had to develop skills and knowledge ranging from bio-informatics through to pharmacokinetics, including Agronomy, agricultural engineering and bio-refining along the way.

“We did not start from square one - in fact we had to take several steps backwards and ‘un-learn’ a lot of established agricultural industry standard received wisdom - so we could start to build the system based on evidence, rather than what we expected to happen.”

The lecture will also look at possible future developments for the daffodil project and draw parallels between the APL story and other potential non-food crops in UK agriculture.

Professor Chang, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor (China Programmes) at the RAU, explained: “This development journey has been long and complex and has challenged us with many unexpected twists and turns, but, importantly, this journey has given us a lot of insights that can help inform and guide the next generation of entrepreneurs in the agricultural industry.”

The free ‘Dancing with Daffodils’ lecture will take place in the University’s Kenneth Russell Room, at its Cirencester campus, from 6pm to 8pm (doors open at 6pm with the lecture starting at 6.30pm) on Wednesday 16th July and is open to all. Please visit https://dancing-with-daffodils.eventbrite.co.uk to reserve your free tickets.

Originally established in 1845 as the Royal Agricultural College, the first agricultural college in the English-speaking world and with just 25 students, the Royal Agricultural University gained its university status in 2013.

To celebrate its 180th anniversary, the institution - which now has around 1,100 students at its Cirencester campus as well as more than 3,000 studying worldwide with its many international partners - has a calendar of events taking place throughout the year including a series of special free  public lectures.

Other events include the unveiling of a new sculpture made especially for the anniversary, and the opening of the University’s new £5.8m land laboratories, as well as a Community Open Day and a global online party for the University to celebrate with its international partners.

Professor Peter McCaffery, who became Vice-Chancellor of the RAU in 2021, said: “As we celebrate our 180th anniversary this year, we can reflect that our University is as relevant today as it always has been.

“Founded in 1845 to help meet a national emergency – how to feed the country at a time of burgeoning urbanisation and industrialisation – we are immensely proud of the contribution our world-wide family of 17,000+ alumni have made as leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators in agriculture and the land-based sector.

“Today we seek to equip a new generation of graduates to help address the global challenges that face us – climate change, food security, sustainable land use, biodiversity loss and heritage management.

“Building on our historic purpose – to care for the land and all who depend on it – we are now driving new frontiers as the leading specialist university in England for research, ‘top-of-the-class’ in our cluster of STEM universities for knowledge exchange, and sponsor of our £140M Innovation Village project to develop sustainable solutions for food production that will be ‘a first for the UK’.

“The RAU is also an exemplar of best practice in Trans-National Education, as recognised by UKRI and the British Council, and, in just the last three years, we have co-founded two brand-new universities – the International Agricultural University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and the University of Al Dhaid in Sharjah, UAE.

“Our influence and impact continue to be felt locally, nationally, and globally, and we fully intend to continue to punch above our weight in the future as we have done for the past 180 years.”

For more details of all the RAU’s 180th anniversary events, and to book a place at one of the 180th anniversary free public lectures, please visit https://www.rau.ac.uk/about-rau/why-rau/180-years.