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CAWR Newsletter
November 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 resilient food and water systems.'
AESOP Conference 2017
On 13th-15th November, CAWR hosted the 8th Annual Conference of the AESOP Sustainable Food Planning group, which this year was titled: “Re-imagining sustainable food planning, building resourcefulness: Food movements, insurgent planning and heterodox economics”. The conference had 3 keynote speeches, over 120 presentations with national and international speakers, scheduled over 38 sessions, and a number of workshops (cookery, performances, sensory experiences, film screenings). The conference proceedings and a short film will be available on the website shortly: https://aesopsfp.wordpress.com/
"Thanks everyone who contributed to the make this event a success, particularly the operations team who did wonderful organising work!"
Chiara Tornaghi (conference and AESOP SFP group chair)
Blooms for Bees
On Monday 6th November Steven Falk and Judith Conroy attended a ceremony at Kew Gardens where they received a Defra Bees' Needs Champions Award for the Blooms for Bees project. The award recognised the citizen science project created by CAWR researcher Gemma Foster, and its role in encouraging awareness of pollinating insects and producing robust biological records.
Newton Collaborative Award, Brazil (Zika)
Dates: 6 – 17 November 2017
Attended: Professor Sue Charlesworth (UK PI): CAWR, Dr Frank Warwick and Dr Matthew Blackett: Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Environment.
Brazilian partners: Professor Debora Kligerman (Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro), Professor Clarice Melamed (Fiocruz, Brasilia)
Visited: Brasilia, Fortaleza, Rio de Janiero.
The visit to Brazil was to investigate two areas of concern in favelas which have the potential to provide breeding sites for the Zika-carrying mosquito. These were firstly to access data on sanitation, water rationing, health and drainage and secondly to observe drainage and greywater streams in the favelas to assess the potential for standing water in the street to host mosquito breeding sites. In the attached, A.) shows a puddle of mixed grey and storm water contained many mosquito larvae and B.) shows an open wastewater stream flowing between dwellings.
Food, Justice and Food Justice for All
A new report entitled, Food, Justice and Food Justice for All is now available online contributing new ideas and provocations to the food movement in the UK. This webpage hosts the report and also other creative and reflective outcomes that arose from a workshop held on 30th June 2017 in Birmingham. We have also compiled a select food justice resource database, which you can find by clicking here, which includes online resources, books, videos and academic articles. A short video of some of the discussions during the Food, Justice and Food Justice for All workshop can also be found on the website A related grassroots journal will be shared on this site soon. This work is based on a collaboration between Community Centred Knowledge and People’s Knowledge at CAWR.
Mark Tilzey's New Book
Mark Tilzey’s book Political Ecology, Food Regimes, and Food Sovereignty: Crisis, Resistance, and Resilience is now published as an e-book and in hardcover by Palgrave Macmillan. Full details here.
Mark Tilzey also attended the Historical Materialism 2017 Conference at SOAS, University of London, 9-12 November, and presented a paper entitled The Agrarian Question and Revolutions against Capitalism: How 'Green' are the New 'Peasant Wars'? The theme of the conference was: Revolutions Against Capital, Capital Against Revolutions?
19th IFOAM Organic World Congress
Julia Wright, Ulrich Schmutz and Janus Bojesen Jensen also attended the 19th IFOAM Organic World Congress in Delhi, India. They presented two posters and a workshop at the conference.
The congress was very large with over 1000 participants in farming, science, marketing and policy track over several days and in a trade show of all Indian states showcasing plant diversity across the worlds largest democratic country.
Agroecology and Participatory Guarantee Schemes for small scale farmers featured high on the agenda, and so were holistic organic food systems (coined organic 3.0). The final keynote speech was given by the first minister of Sikkim state which in 2015 converted all land to 100% organic and is now setting up a research station for the state.
International Conference Workshops in India
Julia Wright and PhD student Janus Jensen spent the majority of November on field work in India. They firstly delivered a workshop at the 19th Conference of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM) in New Delhi. The workshop was titled “Recognition and inclusion of ‘invisible’: spiritual and sacred practices in organic farming” and initiated a lively discussion amongst organic, biodynamic and indigenous farmer practitioners. [photo below]. Julia and Janus then travelled to the Himalayan foothills for a workshop and farm visit hosted by the Indian Organic and Biodynamic Research Group, where they joined many of the international biodynamic community. [photo to follow] A 30 hour train journey then took them to Mount Abu, Rajasthan, to learn from and initiate collaboration with the Sustainable Yogic Agriculture research programme of the Brahma Kumaris community. Finally Julia participated in the 13th International Permaculture Conference in Hyderabad where she facilitated another workshop on the same topic. Indian farming has, like most traditional cultures, a strong spiritual tradition, and many excellent contacts and potential partnerships were made.
- Are you a researcher focusing on Agroecology, food justice, the right to food or food sovereignty?
- Do you work with social movements or want to in the future?
- Do you use participatory, transdisciplinary or activist approaches to research?
- Do you want to work with others to transform the food system?
- Are you thinking through how your research praxis fits into a transformative theory of change for social justice and sustainability?
We are organising a summer school for researchers working with social movements on food system transformation.
If you're interested please fill out this scoping survey that we are using to gauge interest and receive input to consider when constructing the course.
A new book from CAWR, Everyday Experts, available for free download, explains how knowledge built up through first-hand experience can help solve these and other crises in our food system – at home and abroad.
"This is a recipe book for change. It is an amazing cornucopia of knowledge that is held, produced and passed on by experts of experience, diverse global communities and stewards of traditions. It is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand our food cultures and food system from different lenses. It is also a call to action for those seeking to change the global food system."
-Dee Woods, Co-Founder and Coordinator of Granville Community Kitchen and food advisor to the Mayor of London, UK.
Everyday Experts: How People’s Knowledge Can Transform the Food System - New CAWR Book Launched!
Brexit and Protected Geographical Indications Project – Funding Awarded
Dr. Luke Owen, Donna Udall, Dr. Alex Franklin and Prof. Moya Kneafsey have recently been awarded £9,755 by Coventry University's Early Career Pump Prime Funding Initiative. The research explores the potential impacts and opportunities associated with ‘Brexit’ for the Welsh beef and lamb sector. The team will examine the current relationship the sector has with the EU Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) scheme, and investigate the possible role this certification may have for farming in Wales once the process of exiting the EU is completed. For more information, click on the link below.
Jonathan Eden at University of Sheffield
Jonathan Eden was invited to give a talk about his on-going work in attributing extreme rainfall events to global warming at the Geography Seminar Series at the University of Sheffield. Jonathan presented a conceptual overview with accompanying case studies, including the Colorado floods of 2013, leading to good discussion with staff and students alike.
George McAllister - Zimbabwe's Road to Transformation Denied?
For any interested - a quick blog piece I was asked to do for CURB about recent events in Zimbabwe. It's a fast moving story - with much confusion about possible pathways - but at tomorrows march people's voices might finally be heard.
The UK govt seems typically in some confusion about accepting the replacement of one strong-man with perhaps an even worse one. I thought this piece also summed it up nicely.
Immo Fiebrig attends Project Summit
London, 15 Sept 2017. CAWR at the Opening Session of The Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S): Summit 2017
The Summit brought together global CFOs and other leaders from the finance and accounting community to explore how to achieve a sustainable economy. The underlying idea seems simple: if companies disclosed the risks related to climate change scenarios they would tend to invest in climate friendly technologies and get other enterprises to pull along. Immo, who was present at the opening event concluded that one of the main issues of the industries however is that they have difficulties in quantifying and thus 'accounting' for sustainability with sufficient reliability - obviously no CFO would feel confident to make any such disclosure based on 'guesstimates'.
Roscoe Blevins introduces MYHarvest
MYHarvest (Measure Your Harvest) is an on-going citizen-science project investigating how much food is being produced by members of the public on their allotments across the country. Own-growers need to measure the area they grow each crop in (25 crop types can be measured), weigh how much they harvest and then submit this on our website. Since launching in March 2017, over 600 people have taken part and submitted data on over 80 tonnes of own-grown fruit and veg.
Ulrich Schmutz on BBC Radio 4
With thanks again to everyone who helped, a great result from this – Ulrich commented for BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme, and his remarks were put to MP Rebecca Pow. Listen here (from 09:12). CAWR gets a mention in the introductory text to the programme if you click ‘show more’. We’ve been building some good links with Farming Today lately, and this positions CAWR really well for future comment opportunities.
New release of RUAF: Urban Agriculture Magazine
The new RUAF Urban Agriculture Magazine (No. 33) on the topic of "Urban Agroecology" has just been released. This was co-funded by CAWR and RUAF and co-edited by Chiara Tornaghi (CAWR) and Femke Hoekstra (RUAF). This is the first substantial international debate on Urban Agroecology and includes 78 pages of interesting articles, a number of which authored by CAWR staff. Please follow the link below and have a read!
Josh Brem-Wilson presents at conference
Between November 17 and 18, CAWR Research Fellow Josh Brem-Wilson attended as an invited participant at a conference at the University of Tübingen, South Germany, focusing on “Empowering the Most Affected: A New Paradigm in Global Governance and International Law?” Josh presented on his work in the United Nations Committee on World Food Security. The title of his paper was ‘Locating Democratic Agency in the Participation of Affected Publics in Global Governance’.
Patrick Mulvany's Published Chapter
Patrick Mulvany has written the final chapter in the Agricultural Biodiversity Handbook, which has recently been published.
"Biodiversity is given life by small-scale food providers: defending agricultural biodiversity and ecological food provision in the framework of food sovereignty" by Patrick Mulvany in the 'Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity'
Edited by Danny Hunter, Luigi Guarino, Charles Spillane and Peter C. McKeown. Published 2017, 692 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0415746922
EU-China Science and Technology Forum in Beijing - Olivier Sparagano
The Forum was led by ENRICH the European Network for Research and Innovation of Centres and Hubs. A delegation of circa 40-50 European representatives were taken to Chengdu, Beijing and Qingdao to meet local government representatives, universities and Chinese companies to develop Research and Innovation partnerships. Olivier was part of an expert panel in Beijing to discuss challenges for innovation incubators in China and how European and Chinese counterparts could work together.”
Carla Kay - Scholarship
Carla Sarrouy Kay was awarded a travel scholarship by the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, an institution supporting research in Belgium where Carla is doing her cotutelle PhD alongside CAWR.
This competitive scholarship of €3,400 will cover all travel and accommodation expenses of Carla's first PhD fieldwork trip to Senegal.
Permaculture Design and Agroecology movie
CAWR PhD student Jay Abrahams was asked to give a five minute 'Impulse' video for a talk led by Immo Fiebrig about agroecology and permaculture design at the Agroecology Forum this summer. The result was his first foray into movie making where he clearly outlines the permaculture principles used in the creation of the Brookside Farm combined waste water purification and rain water harvesting WET System.
Another PhD success for CAWR!
Congratulations to Muhammad Shahid who has graduated with a PhD in ‘Assessing social sustainability in the UK cheese supply chains’.
Postgraduate researcher of the year competition
This year, for the first time, the Doctoral College and Centre will be awarding one postgraduate researcher the title of 'Postgraduate Researcher of the Year'. One student from each faculty or URC will compete for the title. The students will be expected to present their research during the Research Hootenanny in January (15 – 19 January 2018). A panel of judges will mark their presentations, followed by an interview panel. The winner will be announced at the awards and pre-conference buffet on the 19th January.
CAWR’s nomination for this award was decided through an internal competition. I would like to thank all students who took the time and effort to enter this internal competition. All applications were of high standard, and the call for the top spots was very close. However, as usual in these instances, there can only be one winner – and in this case that winner is Morwenna Mckenzie.
Please allow us to congratulate Morwenna, who will now go on to represent CAWR at the upcoming University’s Postgraduate Researcher of the Year competition in January 2018. We would also like to thank the three judges and, once again, all students who entered the internal competition.
Publications
Ana Novoa, Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, Jana Fried, Giovanni Vimercati (2017). Does public awareness increase support for invasive species management? Promising evidence across taxa and landscape types. Biological Invasions, Vol.19(12), pp. 3691-3705. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-017-1592-0
Mirijam Gaertner, Ana Novoa, Jana Fried, David Mark Richardson (2017). Managing invasive species in cities: a decision support framework applied to Cape Town. Biological Invasions, Vol. 19(12), pp. 3707-3723. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-017-1587-x
These are both publications that have arisen from our ongoing collaboration with the Centre for Invasion Biology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Supported originally through the EcoDry project and related visits, we have been working over the last two and a half years on topics related to stakeholder involvement in the management of invasive species. Invasive alien species, particularly in South Africa but also in many other parts of the world, drastically reduce water availability and threaten food security; hence efforts to manage these species are of high relevance to address these fundamental global challenges.
Lavers, T. and S. Charlesworth (2017) Opportunity mapping of natural flood management measures: a case study from the headwaters of the Warwickshire-Avon.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-0418-z
Tom is in the 2nd year of his PhD, this paper was as a result of a presentation at the Water Efficiency Conference held at Coventry University in September 2016.
Seminars
Expand your knowledge by attending one our fortnightly seminars with both national and international speakers.
The Centre's lunchtime seminars provide a lively discussion forum that is open to anyone to attend, including Coventry University staff and students, visiting associates and practioners.
All seminars are held at CAWR Ryton Organic Gardens (CV8 3LG) between 11.30am - 12.30pm. (unless specified otherwise).
A free shuttle bus service is available from Coventry University to Ryton Organic Gardens. Please contact CAWRoffice for more details. There is also free parking on site.
If you would like to attend, please register your interest with CAWRoffice who will provide you with further details.
To view our previous seminars, head to our Youtube channel!
The views and opinions expressed in this video are those of the presenter and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR).
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8th December 2017 14:00-16:00
Peter Andree
Is this Food Sovereignty? Civil Society Engagement in Food Policy-Making in Canada
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12th December 2017 11:30-13:30
Lewis Williams
Sustainable Futures through Indigenous Resurgence and Intergenerational Resilience: Generating Collective Impact in Difficult Times
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14th December 2017 12:00-13:00
Sophie Barron-West
KTP Project – Green On Top
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11th January 2018 11:45-12:45
Liliane Binego
Exploring the Potentials of Wild Harvest:
The case of Edible Hoppers in Niger and Uganda
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