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CAWR Newsletter
January 2022
Our monthly newsletters are an easy way to keep up-to-date with new developments at our research centre. From successful project bids to upcoming events, our newsletter informs you on how we are 'driving innovative transdisciplinary research on resilient food and water systems.'
The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the contributors at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Coventry University.
REWILDING OUR CEREAL FIELDS: restorative continuous cropping using genetically diverse heritage grain populations
Two inspirational sessions on John Letts’ heritage grain at the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) focused on his biodiversity-enhancing cropping system for an economically-viable, localised, heritage grain chain. They were facilitated by CAWR’s Marina Chang and HRF Patrick Mulvany.
As Colin Tudge, co-founder of ORFC, said “The extent to which this is revolutionary can hardly be overstated… heritage grains with population breeding could be the most important component of agroecology of all.”
Available on the ORFC YouTube Channel.
1. ‘Restorative Continuous Cropping using Heritage Cereals: how to produce all the grain we need without destroying the Planet‘ linked here
2. ‘[Overcoming] Obstacles to Building a Heritage Grain Production and Supply System in the UK‘ linked here
WOMEN ARE PEASANTS TOO: Gender equality and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants
The 2018 UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) is an important achievement for rural people as it explicitly recognises the human rights to land, seeds and food sovereignty. However, it fails to directly include key gender equality provisions, such as women’s right to inherit land. In this policy brief, Claeys and Bourke Martignoni discuss the various pressures that led to agrarian women’s demands being excluded from the final version of the declaration. It recommends steps that governments, civil society and international organisations can take to ensure that UNDROP is implemented in a way that promotes gender equality and women’s rights effectively.
Read more here
Women’s rights to communal land
An increasing number of states are recognizing customary land tenure in their legal and policy frameworks. Key actors in the Global Food Sovereignty movement are also advocating for the legal recognition of communal land rights as secure access to land is key to sustainable food systems. Yet, there is an important research gap in relation to women and communal land.
This Research Topic co-edited by Claeys, Lemke and Camacho critically analyzes efforts, by a range of actors, to advance communal land rights in different spaces and at different levels, and what this means for women and youth. It presents 5 groundbreaking countributions analyzing gender dynamics in Mexico, Cambodia and various countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Read more here
Why TV decluttering shows need to clean up their act
Amber Martin-Woodhead has had an article published in the Conversation and re-published in the i newspaper.
The article discusses how popular decluttering shows don’t always mention where objects go to and others celebrate throwing items away. It argues that if shows do not highlight disposing of things sustainably, or not continuing to acquire objects in the future, this raises environmental waste issues.
Click here to read.
Reconfiguring Food Systems Governance: The UNFSS and the Battle Over Authority and Legitimacy
The UN Food Systems Summit held in September 2021 was an ambitious and hotly contested event that brought competing approaches to global food governance into relief. In this article, Canfield, Duncan and Claeys unpack the rival visions that circulate around how food systems should be governed, focusing on two issues that we feel are at the heart of these divergences: authority and legitimacy. They illustrate how both corporate-philanthropic and food sovereignty networks are struggling to establish epistemic authority of food systems as well as produce legitimacy through very different approaches to participation and accountability.
Read more here
Webinar on peat-free growing media
On 23rd February, researchers working on the Organic-PLUS project will be panellists for the Organic Growers Alliance’s webinar on ‘DIY peat-free growing media’ as part of the Farming the Future series. The session will run from 7 – 8.30pm. Find out more and register here.
Promoting the participation of affected communities in global climate agreements
Credits: La Via Campesina
Transnational peasant and Indigenous Peoples’ movements strive to represent and advocate for communities most affected by climate change.
Yet they face numerous challenges to participate meaningfully in global climate agreements. In this policy brief, Claeys and Delgado Pugley compare the involvement of La Via Campesina and the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) in global climate discussions between 2007 and 2015, and makes 4 key policy recommendations.
Read more here
Events
Catch up on our events and seminars from this month by visiting our YouTube channel
'City of Horticulture' Autumn Harvest Open Day at Ryton Organic Gardens
Unlocking the Nature and the Outdoors communities, race, gender and class
Studentships
Chemical analysis and bioaccumulation of ‘forever chemicals’ in aquatic organisms - This opportunity will remain open until a suitable candidate is identified
Publications
Canfield, M.C., Duncan, J. & Claeys, P. Reconfiguring Food Systems Governance: The UNFSS and the Battle Over Authority and Legitimacy. Development 64, 181–191 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-021-00312-1
Pimbert, M.P. 2021. Citizens’ Juries. In: Patricia Leavy (Ed). Popularizing Scholarly Research: Working with Non-academic Stakeholders, Teams, and Communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pimbert, M.P., 2021. Regenerating Kurdish Ecologies through Food Sovereignty, Agroecology and Economies of Care. In: Stephen Hunt (Ed). Ecological Solidarity in the Kurdish Freedom Movement. Lexington Books.
Mahdad, F., A. R. Bakhtiari, M. Moeinaddini and S. Charlesworth (2021) Seasonal occurrence, source apportionment, and cancer risk assessment of PAHs in the second largest international holy metropolitan: Mashhad, Iran. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16336-6
