No images? Click here CAWR Newsletter January 2021 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. Reflecting on ORFC 2021: Blinking into the Light – Galvanising Food Movements in Troubling TimesCAWR researchers joined 500 other speakers – farmers, foresters and fishers, women and youths, and activists and researchers – from 78 countries across 18 time zones to share their work and passion for food and farming at this year's online Oxford Real Farming conference. With over 150 presentation and workshops over 7 days, there was a lot to choose from this year. Many sessions reflected on the very real challenges faced by food system actors, not least due to the ratcheting climate crisis and biodiversity crises, COVID-19, BREXIT and the colonising technologies that dominate our global food system. While many others focused on movement building for food & climate justice, supporting/financing agroecology, and learning about indigenous cosmologies and seed systems, and farming practices and innovations for protecting biodiversity above and below ground. In case you missed it, AgroecologyNow! has put together a brief reflection piece, along with links and information on how you can (re)visit sessions that might be of interest as these are made freely available by ORFC online. Click here to view the reflection piece. 2021 Research HootenannyWe are delighted by the strong representation by our PGRs at the 2021 Research Hootenanny hosted by the Doctoral College. Our students, Claire Lyons, Leonardo Faedo, Rovier Verdi, Joseph Acquaah, Ali Parsa and Dalrene James, from across the different stages of PhD, participated in the 3 Minute Thesis event. Rovier Verdi took the first prize for his presentation on his research which is entitled, 'Solving the challenges of sustainable rice production for family farmers in Brazil and Worldwide'. Rovier was also CAWR's Nominee for the PGR of the Year award for which he gave a strong and moving presentation. Chlorophytum ComosumCAWR is now the registered base of a UK National Plant Collection, of Chlorophytum Comosum, Spider Plants. The awarding body is the charity 'Plant Heritage' whose aim is conservation and research of garden plants. This is a living collection of spider plants shared for research, health and cultural value, such as enjoyment of staff and visitors (when the time comes), use in experiments (being trialled in experimental waste water treatment stillages onsite) and use in offices as ornamental houseplants with air cleaning properties. Spider plants are native to West tropical Africa to Cameroon, and Ethiopia to South Africa. Many uses of spider plants have been listed, from bank stabilisation to air purification to medicinal uses. If you wish to share information, plants or your spider plant experiences please contact Samantha Green. Caribbean AgroecologyThe mission of the Caribbean Agroecology Institute is to catalyse knowledge exchange, build capacity, and support transitions to resilient agroecological systems that provide for sustainable livelihoods rooted in justice and equality in the Caribbean. This NGO is based at Vermont, USA and is currently organizing a multisession virtual conference series titled “Resilience and Resistance: Responses to the Climate Crisis from Cuba and Puerto Rico.” Dr. Georges Félix (CAWR – Stabilisation Agriculture Programme) was invited to the “Agrifood Systems” panel where voices from Cuba and Puerto Rico were gathered to discuss how farmers, communities, researchers, and governments are building local, just and resilient agriculture and food systems through social processes, on farm innovations, and policies that support agroecology and food sovereignty. Panel recording available on Facebook in Spanish only. Episode 3: Organic Food from The Changing Room podcast series now availableEnvironmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and the climate crisis have urged many of us to think more about our diets and consider food systems that are kinder to the planet. What role does 'organic' play in this? CAWR's Dr Ulrich Schmutz and Organic-PLUS Project Manager Judith Conroy discuss their experiences of growing, researching, purchasing and consuming organic food. Click here to listen to the podcast episode or to catch up on previous episodes. This was recorded in a covid secure setting. Queensland Premier's Awards for ExcellenceProfessor Michael Warne is a member of the Paddock to Reef Program and Reef Report Card team, which has just been nominated and short-listed as a finalist for the Queensland Premier's Awards for Excellence in the section: Protecting the Great Barrier Reef. The team is one of four finalists for the award. The winners in each section will be announced on February 3, 2021. Below is the text supporting the team: "The world-leading Paddock to Reef Integrated Monitoring, Modelling and Reporting Program promotes land management practices to improve water quality flowing to the Reef. This innovative program brings together approximately 20 organisations and hundreds of people. Led by the Department of Environment and Science, it involves Australian and Queensland government agencies, industry bodies, regional Natural Resource Management bodies, landholders and research organisations. The long-term monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement program, based on the best available scientific evidence, has expanded and improved over 10 years. The program integrates monitoring and modelling from the farm paddock to the Reef. It evaluates management practice adoption and effectiveness, catchment condition, pollutant run-off and marine condition. The program tracks progress towards the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan. Results help determine the success of actions and guide investment priorities and future measures by identifying cost-effective approaches to improving water quality." Perceptions of organicBuilding on field trials to phase out contentious inputs from organic systems, the CAWR-led Organic-PLUS project is also exploring public awareness and perceptions of organic horticulture and agriculture. Through November and December, Adrian Evans and Rosa van Kesteren, with contributions form other CAWR colleagues, held 6 online sessions with a mixed group of consumers and farmers. Originally intended to be a face-to-face activity, it was an interesting experience to adapt the research and move the sessions to an online format, using video-conferencing and virtual whiteboard tools. Findings from the sessions can be found here. Farm Hack UK - Research brief now publishedTool ‘show and tell’ at Farm Hack Leeds (2020) Farm Hack is a diverse network of collaborators set up to share knowledge and skills for a more just and sustainable food system in the UK. Their principal focus is farm tool development according to the principles of ‘appropriate technology’ and horizontal knowledge exchange. As part of a wider study of the meaning and practice of innovation in the agroecological movement, Chris Maughan has co-lead a research project (along with researchers from Cardiff Uni and Landworkers Alliance) to assess the impacts of the network since its creation in 2015. Check out the report here which presents findings from a survey co-designed by Farm Hack members. Call for contributions for 'Spaces of Possibility', RECOMS Conference is now open until 15th FebruaryThe RECOMS international confex (conference and exhibition), Spaces of Possibility: communities and places in times of social and environmental uncertainty’ incorporating traditional paper sessions, storytelling, creative workshops, plenaries, a policy roundtable and an interactive public exhibition is to take place on 7th - 11th June 2021 in various locations in the heart of Brussels. The event will offer various sessions and formats to enable discussion and interaction in relevant themes for which the call for contribution is now open. Check out the themes and submit your session ideas at the RECOMS' Confex website here. The RECOMS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 765389. Voice connectionPoieticals are evocations tuning us into recognising that we are all artists and world-makers with the ability to live responsively and ethically within our Earthly ecosystem At Timberyard in Suffolk, Miche Fabre Lewin and Flora Gathorne-Hardy have renovated a former sawpit and workshop to become a shared Artist Studio. They are evolving a body of work, Poieticals, derived from harnessing the serendipity and chance encounters of a collage-making process. These image-text works call us to riff, resonate and reconnect with the concept of interdependence and participatory consciousness. Biologist Beth Dempster conceives the term, 'sympoiesis' to emphasise the linkages, co-operation and synergistic behaviours of ecosystems where sym means 'with' and poiesis is 'making'. As we are in and of nature, we humans are enmeshed in the co-creative making our planet with each other and the other-than-human world. The living processes of art and ritual, words rooted in the Sanskrit term ‘rta’ which defines the interconnected dynamic flow from which all arises, further tunes us into the entwining rhythms of the cosmos and a sentient planet. Poieticals seek to remind us of the benign, expansive and imaginal power of our thinking-feeling sensibilities, to unobscure the interconnectedness of our human nature, and to recognise art as a sense-making practice in consciousness. These collages created from the magazine advertisements of a consumer culture aim to disrupt, reimagine and transform capitalist, technocratic credos into poetic evocations which inspire a belonging-with and becoming-with each other and the animate Earth. With Poieticals they cultivate 'sympoiethics' and inhabiting responsibilities which enable them to participate convivially and ethically within the iterative, emergent 'making-with' principles of reciprocity. Sympoiethics entangles the embodied nature of living as an ethical matter of care in the everyday. Creating Poieticals in our Millwood Barn Studio at Timberyard, Suffolk Viva successRobert Logan passed his viva with no corrections. His thesis was entitled 'Evolving urban agroecology with deep food democracy - Action research in London, UK' Congratulations Robert! Yvette Brown passed her viva with minor corrections. Her thesis was entitled 'African Caribbean perspectives of mental health.' Congratulations Yvette! Draw me the agroecological transition!The GRAAP (Groupe de Recherche-Action sur l’Agroécologie Paysanne / Action-Research Group on Farmer-led Agroecology) has recently published a book on agroecological transition(s) in the Alps. This illustrated book offers fresh perspectives on the emergence of agroecological alternatives – women farmers’ groups, organic milk cooperatives, locally-sourced school canteens, small-scale farmer-led slaughterhouses… – and their role in the shaping of localized food and farming systems. Drawing on five years of action-research in the High-Alps, this book brings together insights, narratives, analyses and infographics about the transformation of farms, farmers’ organisations, marketing structures, consumer networks and power relations. Written by Carine Pionetti, an independent researcher in Political Ecology, Gender and Honorary Research Fellow at CAWR, the book is co-authored by four actors involved in agroecological transitions in the Alps. Available in French only, click here to find out more. Healthy Crops: A New Agricultural RevolutionThe Gaia Foundation and partners re-launched a forgotten classic of agroecological and organic science- Francis Chaboussou's Healthy Crops: A New Agricultural Revolution. First published in 1985, Healthy Crops offers a critical exploration of the plant science behind the success of organic, agroecological, biodynamic and other holistic agricultural approaches, as well as the catastrophic failure of chemically-intensive industrial agriculture. See the open access pdf of the book and landing page here. Doing research in a pandemic: Organic-PLUSOn 22nd January, CAWR researchers working on the Organic-PLUS project participated in Coventry University's Research Hootenanny, an annual showcase of research excellence at Coventry. Presenting how their research had to adapt in 2020, they discussed how they: 1) conducted the UK field trials with farmers and at Ryton 2) moved what should have been face-to-face consumer research to online platforms and 3) coordinated this pan-European project, ensuring that despite adjustments our research remained faithful to the original goals. The session was a useful opportunity to reflect on a difficult, but not impossible year and the team hope it was useful to other researchers and PhD candidates facing similar challenges. January seminar now available on our YouTube ChannelThis month we hosted the seminar 'Promoting agroecology and community water resources management in the tropics – lessons' with Rose Hogan from Trocaire. If you missed it, you can catch it on our YouTube channel by clicking here. Call for contributions to the International Conference on Biodynamic ResearchStudentships
Call for papers
SeminarEscape from Empire: Agroecological autonomy in European peripheries Join Simon Popay on 25th February 11:30-12:30 GMT to hear about how Simon explores the theoretical meaning of autonomy in agroecology and food sovereignty and explores farmers’ autonomy in Cornwall and Calabria. Click here to find out more and register your place. Publication
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