CAWR Newsletter

January 2019

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.'

Winners of the 2019 Outstanding Practices in Agroecology

Dr Angela Hilmi and her team, Aksel Naerstad from the More and Better Network, and Renaldo Chingore from UNAC, put Coventry University (CAWR), on the world map.

Winners of the 2019 Outstanding Practices in Agroecology (OPA), announced on Thursday 17 January 2019, their pilot project, a new investment model to transition to agroecology, tested in Mozambique, performed excellently in the criteria set out based on the seven Future Justice principles of the World Future Council complemented by the ten Elements of Agroecology developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The project, Inclusive Investment for Agroecology, spearheaded by seed money from the Coventry University Innovation Fund, the More and Better Network, and the Heidehof Foundation, brings forward a new model to invest in a transition to sustainable peasant farming, that benefits both local communities and the environment, and holds an enormous potential for wide impact on people and the planet.

Click here to find out more information about this recognition.

Food Justice Resource List

This database of resources shares a selection of material related to Food Justice. It covers a range of different topics (e.g. racism, feminism, decoloniality, poverty, and food sovereignty) presented through different mediums (writing, video, etc.). This resource is based on a collaboration between Community Centred Knowledge and the People's Knowledge group at CAWR. It is an outcome of ongoing work to advance dialogue and action on food justice in the UK. Click here for more details. 

“Statement of Equity” by the Sustainable Agriculture Education Association

The People’s Knowledge group will be teaching a module on Power, Participation and People’s Knowledge in CAWR’s new MSc. One item we will be discussing is this strong statement from SAEA expresses a commitment to confronting race, class, gender, ethnic, and other social inequalities in learning and education. This is a really useful concise tool to think about learning, pedagogical practice, power and equity. Click here for more details.

Studentships available! Calling for expressions of interest for May 2019 

Please contact Dr Ulrich Schmutz at Ulrich.Schmutz@coventry.ac.uk for more information. 

Please contact Dr Francis Rayns at Francis.Rayns@coventry.ac.uk for more information. 

CAWR Workshop on Agroecology Transitions at FAO in Rome

On November 1, 2018 the AgroecologyNow! group at the CAWR convened 5 expert peer reviewers and 14 FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) staff to discuss a FAO-commissioned study on the role of agroecology in transitions towards sustainable food systems. Follow www.agroecologynow.com for updates on derivative publications from the 160-page FAO research report including policy briefs, journal articles and a forthcoming monograph.

The Dark Side of Innovation for Family Farmers: Reflections on an International Symposium on Innovation

Chris Maughan comments in this blog post on the use of ‘Innovation’ as a framework for debates on agricultural sustainability and in relation to agroecology and presents five reasons why it is an inadequate framework to address the deep injustices in contemporary food systems. He describes Innovation as: 1) a Trojan Horse; 2) scattering debates; 3) a tool of capture; 4) a tool of containment; 5) a tool to ‘weaponise the youth’. Click here to read.

One Year Anniversary of Book - Everyday Experts: How People’s Knowledge Can Transform the Food System

Produced by CAWR’s People’s Knowledge working group, this Open Access e-book includes 28 chapters written by researchers, activists, farmers, video-makers and share reflections, stories and analysis on struggles to mobilise knowledge for a more just and sustainable food system. Click here to download (at no cost) individual chapters or the entire book as a PDF.

Art of Collaboration

Launch of on-line films

Art of Collaboration at CST in October 2018 being filmed by Gys Loubser

In 2018, Art of Collaboration emerged as a long-term global south-north alliance between: Touchstones arts practice (co-founded by Miche Fabre Lewin and Flora Gathorne-Hardy, Research Associates at CAWR); CAWR; the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) at Stellenbosch University; and the Sustainability Institute, Lynedoch, South Africa.

The films below show two encounters of participatory forums at CAWR and CST, which have been the foundation for the development of Art of Collaboration as a five-year research programme between Alliance partners. We would like to thank Ben Cook of CAWR and Gys Loubser of CST for skillfully recording these forums.

Click here to view the CAWR Art of Collaboration Seminar or here to view the CST Art of Collaboration Seminar.

Articles in the media 

Blog post on Uneven Earth by Sergio Ruiz Cayuela: Time for the subaltern to speak - The movement against waste incineration in Can Sant Joan, Catalonia.

Lopa Saxena's work on the rise of austerity retail in the UK was part of an article in The Guardian which looked into the first community-run 'food pantry' open in Scotland.

Professor Michel Pimbert and and Colin Anderson wrote an article for The Conversation entilted The battle for the future of farming: what you need to know.

Project awarded 

Professor Michael Warne was awarded a $140 000 (80 000 GBP) project entitled “Development of a pesticide decision support tool”. This was funded by the Office of the Great Barrier Reef.

Conference attendance 

Jonathan Eden represented CAWR at the Climate Impacts and Risk Assessment National Meeting in Bristol. The meeting, the first of its kind in the UK, is intended to provide a platform for the climate impacts community to gather and share the latest research developments in response to the 3rd UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3) and the forthcoming 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Talks and panel sessions covered a range of sectors, including agriculture, hydrology, health, extreme weather, energy and economy.

Professor Michael Warne has been invited to give a keynote presentation to the 9th International Conference of Marine Pollution and Ecotoxicology to be held in Hong Kong in June, 2019.

Lopa Saxena attended an International workshop/conference on 5-6 Nov 2018 'Charitable food provision as an emergency response: sharing evidence from Canada, the USA and the UK' in Birmingham, which brought together 45 people from academia, charities and third sector (or non-profit) organisations, people with lived experience of hunger and poverty, activists, and grassroots organisations from Canada, USA and the UK. My presentation was A shifting discourse and practice away from emergency food provision: Insights from social supermarkets in Britain.

Pimbert, M.P. 2018. Transforming research for diverse and sustainable food systems: a paradigm shift for multi-actor and transdisciplinary research. Plenary guest lecture at the final Congress of Diversifood: Cultivating diversity and food quality, 10-11 December 2018, in Rennes (France).

Seminars

7th February   11:30-12:30

Impact of climate change on the West African Monsoon: robust changes and uncertainties

Paul-Arthur Monerie

Recorded for our YouTube Channel

Register to attend here

14th February   11:30-12:30

Confronting the perfect storm. How a focus on intangible inputs in the Ugandan aquaculture industry could increase livelihood sustainability

Tim Messeder

Live streamed via Facebook and recorded for our YouTube Channel

Register to attend here

21st February   11:00-12:00

The question of work as a key to strengthen the socioeconomic ideal of agroecology

Antoinette Dumont

Live streamed via Facebook and recorded for our YouTube Channel

Register to attend here

Film Screening 

26th February    14:00-15:00

The Living Classroom  

Summary of film: In the Living Classroom series we focus on agroecological practice, reinforcing the value of local knowledge and mimicking natural patterns and processes to restore degraded landscapes. With the first of these films shot in Swaziland, each is presented by permaculture ‘graduates’ using a storytelling approach to embed key messages. The films are designed to be 40% information / 60% inspiration to get people excited about experimenting with available alternatives, sharing information, and feeling more confident about managing their own change. The films are intended to add value to the work of CBOs and NGOs transitioning to agroecology, providing visual and textural support while encouraging more participatory approaches to co-learning and experimentation. For this reason, each film comes with embedded pause-points to facilitate space for farmer-to-farmer discussion about different techniques and locally available resources.  In sharing a couple of these films, I’d be interested in your thoughts about the value of this hybrid approach to film-making and its value in stimulating change.

Register to attend here. 

Apply to join us on our MSc in September! 

Click here to find out more about the course and how to apply. 

Publications 

Claeys, P. (2018). The rise of new rights for peasants. From reliance on NGO intermediaries to direct representation. Transnational Legal Theory, 1-14

Claeys, P. & Duncan, J. (2018). Do we need to categorize it? Reflections on constituencies and quotas as tools for negotiating difference in the global food sovereignty convergence space. Journal of Peasant Studies.

Duncan, J., & Claeys, P. (2018). Politicizing food security governance through participation: opportunities and opposition. Food Security, 10(6), 1411-1424. 

García‐Girón, J., Wilkes, M., Fernández‐Aláez, M., & Fernández‐Aláez, C. Processes structuring macrophyte metacommunities in Mediterranean ponds: Combining novel methods to disentangle the role of dispersal limitation, species sorting and spatial scales. Journal of Biogeography.

Joshi, D., Platteeuw, J., Singh, J., & Teoh, J. (2018). Watered down? Civil society organizations and hydropower development in the Darjeeling and Sikkim regions, Eastern Himalaya: A comparative study. Climate Policy, 1-15.

Lashford, C., Rubinato, M., Cai, Y., Hou, J., Abolfathi, S., Coupe, S., ... Tait, S. (2019). SuDS & sponge cities: A comparative analysis of the implementation of pluvial flood management in the UK and China. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(1)

Maughan, C., & Ferrando, T. (2019). Land as a Commons: examples from the UK and Italy. In J. L. Vivero, T. Ferrando, & O. De Schutter (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Food as a Commons Routledge.

Ojo, P., & Ifelebuegu, A. (2019). Effect of Aluminium Salt Dosing on Activated Sludge Settleability Indicators: A New Settleability Model Development. Water (Switzerland), 11(1)

Pimbert, M. (2019). Food Sovereignty. In P. Ferranti, E. Berry, & A. Jock (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Food Security and Sustainability (1 ed., Vol. 3, pp. 181-189). Elsevier.

Pimbert, M.P. (2018) Food Sovereignty and the regeneration of terraced landscapes. Annales. Series Historia and Sociologia, 28(4):779-794.

This peer reviewed article is part of a special issue of Annales that focuses on the future of terraced landscapes in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. You will also find a paper by Timmi Tilmann and Maruja Salas who are Honorary Research Fellows at CAWR, - on Participatory Action Research and terraced landscapes.

Ruiz Cayuela, S. (2018) Subaltern Envrionmentalism in Can Sant Joan, Catalonia. In Cristiano, S. (ed) Through the Working Class, Ecology and Society Investigated Through the Lens of Labour. Culture del lavoro (8). Edizioni Ca'Foscari: Venice, Italy

Ruiz Cayuela, S. and Turhan, E. (2019) Wasting Democracy, Fueling Dissent: Refuse-Derived Fuels in Can Sant Joan (Catalonia). Frontiers in Energy Research 6:142.

Shackleton, R., Richardson, D. M., Shackleton, C. H. L., Bennett, B., Crowley, S. L., Dehnen-Schmutz, K., ... Larson, B. M. H. (2019). Explaining people’s perceptions of invasive alien species: A conceptual framework. Journal of Environmental Management, 229, 10-26. 

Wood, R.J., Mitrovic, S.M., Lim, R.P., Warne, M.StJ., Dunlop, J., Kefford, B.J. (2019) Benthic diatoms as indicators of herbicide toxicity in rivers - a new SPEcies At Risk (SPEARherbicides) index. Has been accepted for publication in Ecological Indicators.

Wright, J. (2019). A Call for the Biodynamic Movement to Come Out about Spiritual, Non-Material Farming Philosophy and Practice. Open Agriculture.

Wright, J., Bojesen Jensen, J., & Ramsay, T. (2019). A Case Study Investigation of Sustainable Yogic Agriculture and Reflections on its Relation to Biodynamic Agriculture. Manuscript submitted for publication.