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CAWR Newsletter

April 2017 

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 resilent food and water systems.'

 
 
 
 
 

Call for participants to a workshop on: Innovative designs of sustainable agro-hydro-health systems

July 31 - August 4 2017, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Are you interested to engage with ‘off-grid’ communities and make a difference with your research? These are communities that reside in remote areas and, due to their location, are deprived of direct access to municipal water supply, electricity, wastewater or other utility services.

Come to Malaysia and join a group of UK and Malaysian researchers from various disciplines to explore and improve their situation through innovative solutions. This opportunity could help boost your career, build new networks and contribute to better outcomes for society in Malaysia and other parts of the world.

We are now inviting early-mid career researchers (within 10 years of PhD) from the UK and Malaysia to apply to attend this workshop. All travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by the Newton Researcher Links programme.

 
 

News 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Ecodry project wrap up 

CAWR hosted the Final Workshop of its three year, EU-funded project “Ecodry - Sharing Best Agroecological Practice for Resilient Production Systems in Dryland and Drought Conditions."  Partners from the Universities of Stellenbosch - South Africa, Yucatan - Mexico, and Extremadura - Spain, shared their achievements, discussed lessons learned, and planned for continued collaboration. Over one hundred research exchanges have taken place during the life of this project, resulting in teaching exchanges, curriculum development, numerous peer-reviewed papers, a doctoral training programme, student field work, and much more. 

 
 

A buzzing time with Richard Comont

On 31st March, the Blooms for Bees project team were joined by Richard Comont from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust  who delivered a bumblebee identification workshop to staff and students. Activities included looking into bumblebee ecology and learning how to identify the different species. Attendees also practised their identification skills around the campus which is home to a diverse range of invertebrates!

In total eight bee species were spotted. The highlight of the session was a Forest Cuckoo Bee (Bombus sylvestris).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dr Warne presents on protecting the Great Barrier Reef

 
 
 

Dr Michael Warne was invited to deliver a presentation to the 2nd Joint FRAM and SOLUTIONS in Gothenberg, Sweden. The workshop aimed to explore options for integrating assessments of mixture toxicity and cumulative risks of chemicals in the aquatic environment into prioritisation procedures under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD).

 Michael gave a presentation entitled “Protecting Australian aquatic ecosystems from individual chemicals and mixtures: Application to protecting the Great Barrier Reef”.

In addition he participated in one of three workgroups which addressed the question of “How to set environmental quality standards (EQS) for priority mixtures”. The discussions of this workgroup are currently being written up with the aim of publishing it in an ecotoxicology journal.

 
 

People's Knowledge Book Launch

CAWR hosted the launch of the book People’s Knowledge and Participatory Action Research: Escaping the White-Walled Labyrinth,  in both English and Spanish. Thirty people from a wide range of backgrounds joined members of the Editorial Collective and some of the authors to discuss issues raised by the book and how it applied to their own lives.

There were also memorable performances by Ma’at a fourteen year-old rapper and CAWR’s new Artist in Residence, poet ChriS - JaM - Nelson.  One idea that has emerged is for People’s Knowledge to convene an advisory group to guide university-based researchers at CAWR and elsewhere on how they can work better with community organisations and initiatives.

If you are interested in being involved in such an initiative, please get in touch.  Several of those involved in the book and the launch will be tutors on the training course on Power Relations and Participatory Research.

 
 
 
 
 

The Blooms for Bees App Launch

 
 
 
 

 The Blooms for Bees app is now available for download from the App Store and Google Play!

The app features a Bee Guide which contains images, descriptions and distribution maps for all UK bumblebee species.

 You can also use the app to survey the flowering plants in your garden or allotment. The records will help the team to develop a better understanding of which flowers are bumblebee favourites. 

 
 

Blog links

 

Blogs are a great way to update and share information in a conversational style. Our staff and students are keen to share their updates below!

Katie Whiddon

Katie is currently undertaking her PhD field work in Kathmandu. The title of Katie's project is 'Food Sovereignty ‘from Above?’: Interrogating the Impacts of Global Governance on Natural Resource Tenure in Nepal'. 

Katie is investigating the impact of global governance instruments on struggles for access to natural resources for food security and food sovereignty in Nepal. She focuses on the implementation efforts of the UN Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT). As part of data collection, Katie is interviewing a number of groups; national NGO and INGO staff, peasant leaders, women politicians, federations of indigenous peoples, of Dalits, and of forest user groups, Right to Food lawyers, community leaders from national park buffer zones and government staff.  

 

Chiara Tornaghi

Chiara's work on urban agriculture and food sovereignty has been featured in the Canadian blog in piece written by Wayne Roberts (activist, retired scholar and former manager of the Toronto Food Policy Council). The blog has quickly been re-published by City Farmer News and the major US blog 'Resilience'.

 
 

Projects

 
 
 

Recently awarded project

Project: Foliar feeds: can they improve nectar and pollen provision for pollinators?

Team: Gemma Foster, Barbara Smith and Judith Conroy.

Timescale: April - September 2017

Funder: Hozelock

 

The Blooms for Bees team are conducting a field trial in partnership with Hozelock, to determine whether foliar feeding container grown plants can increase the abundance and nutritional value of flowers, and whether this affects bee visitation rates. To find out more about the trial visit the Blooms for Bees website and follow updates on Twitter every Tuesday  #HozelockBlooms  #BizziBee.

 
 
 

MSc in Agroecology and Food Security is of critical concern globally, and the development of food systems that provide food of high quality and quantity in a sustainable way, is now a research and policy priority. The MSc in Agroecology and Food Security is designed to equip professionals and graduates with the knowledge to critically analyse and assess the relationships between agroecological food production and management, farming systems, climate change economics and the environment.

Former CAWR MSc student Ismail Rilwan has secured the post of Food Security and Livelihoods Officer with Action Against Hunger, Nigeria. He will be based in Borno State north eastern Nigeria, working as a part of the emergency response to the Boko Haram crisis.

 
 

Study with us

Looking for financial help? NFU Mutual Charitable Trust are offering a centenary award for postgraduate courses in agriculture starting in Autumn 2017. 

To find out more about the course or the centre: 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Events

 

Course: Power Relations and Participatory Research

May 16-18  Lincolns Inn Fields Building, LSE, London, WE2A 2AE

In this 3 day course, participants will use practical exercises and case studies to examine power relations within participatory research. Participants will develop their own existing participatory research project(s), or a proposal for the future. They will have the opportunity to learn how to address unequal power relations to ensure the research is both high quality and is produced inclusively and can be jointly translated into positive change in communities –  locally, globally or both.

The fee per teaching day is:
• £30 per day for UK/EU registered students
• £60 per day for staff at UK/EU academic institutions, UK/EU Research Councils researchers, UK/EU public sector staff and staff at UK/EU registered charity organisations and recognised UK/EU research institutions. 
• £220 per day for all other participants

 

Workshop: QUANTUM-Based AGRICULTURE for FARMERS

-where science and traditional practices meet - balancing the energies of land, field and farm

June 20-23         The Field Centre, Nailsworth, Glos., GL6 0QE

The aim of the workshop is to provide an understanding of the principles of subtle energies, and to explore the impact of energy fields on our health and our behaviour, and on our management of and relationship with our land, our animals and our environment. Amongst other impacts, this can lead to restored livestock health, increased crop production, reduced pest and disease incidence and improved quality of your produce.

Dr Patrick MacManaway is a geo-biologist and second generation practitioner of the healing arts, including earth acupuncture and geopathic stress remediation. Training first with his parents at their Healing and Teaching Centre in rural Fife, Scotland, Patrick studied Medicine at Edinburgh University before taking apprenticeships in both Western and Eastern approaches to landscape energy and traditional Geomancy.  Past-President of the British Society of Dowsers, and Founding Member of Circles for Peace, he is the author of several books and CDs. In practice since 1994, Patrick consults and teaches on farms worldwide with regular visits to the UK, USA and Australia.

Cost: £295 (including biodynamic lunch)

For full details and bookings please contact: J Wright j.wright@coventry.ac.uk  Tel. 07557425257

 
 

 8th Annual Conference of the AESOP ‘SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING’ group, 2017

November 14-15       Coventry University, Coventry, UK, CV1 5FB 

Re-imagining sustainable food planning, building resourcefulness: Food movements, insurgent planning and heterodox economics

In this conference we look for contributions that valorise and bring to the fore the multiplicity of marginal, residual, heterodox or unheard experiences, policies, concepts and practices that are already creating new worlds in innovative and socially just ways, and/or bear the potential of becoming building blocks of sustainable food planning for a resourceful, agroecological, urbanism.

We are also interested in critical contributions that reflect on how current mainstream approaches to food production, food strategies and urban agriculture can be/are being radically transformed into tools for resourcefulness.

We particularly look for critical contributions that address one or more of the following five sub-themes:

  • theoretical re-conceptualisations of urbanism
  • political processes and strategies
  • resourceful land management
  • urban agroecological practices
  • post-capitalist economics
 
 

Investing in Agroecology

The Ecological Land Co-operative (ELC) has launched a public share offer to raise funds for the creation of two new clusters of small farms.  The ELC is the only organisation in England working to create affordable, smallholdings for new entrants to ecological agriculture. The ELC is looking to raise between £120,000 to £340,000 for two more new sites and is inviting people to invest.

 CAWR has supported the work of the ELC providing evidence for the planning appeal of their first project in Devon as well as for their current planning application in East Sussex. The work of CAWR and the ELC is closely aligned, as they both work to make the case of ecological agriculture.