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CAWR Newsletter
November 2023
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 equitable, sustainable and 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.
Financing Agroecological Transformations for Climate Repair
Prepared for the UN Climate Change Conference which begins today (30th November) this Policy Brief focuses on Financing Agroecological Transformations for Climate Repair.
The brief is authored by Professor Michel Pimbert and calls on governments to mobilise finance for the large-scale transitions needed towards climate-friendly food and farming. With agri-food systems responsible for close to 40 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions, food and farming need priority attention in government negotiations at COP 28. There is growing consensus that agroecological approaches offer huge potential – not only to cut emissions, but also to create many more active carbon sinks.
The latest in CAWR’s Policy Brief Series, this paper calls on governments to: switch funding and subsidy support from fossil-fuel intensive, long-distance supply chains to re-localised agri-food systems; fund transitions to low-meat diets and agroecological livestock production; tax financial speculations and the windfall profits of agri-food corporations; reduce the gross inequalities associated with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in and between countries; and finance democracy for climate repair.
CAWR MSc Graduate Wins Community and Voluntary Action Award
Phil (centre) and his colleagues receiving their award from Andrew Gabbitas of Warwickshire Community and Voluntary Action
Phil Bates, a recent graduate from CAWR's MSc programme, has been honoured for his key role in developing a project supporting asylum seekers in Warwickshire to grow their own food.
Phil helped to initiate the Locke House Gardening Group for Asylum Seekers. This is a small urban agriculture project at a refugee transition site in Rugby. The project has supported adults and children from different cultural backgrounds to grow vegetables which are then used by the site's kitchen.
On 10th October the project was recognised by Warwickshire and Solihull Community and Voluntary Action (CAVA) as winner of the 'health and wellbeing' category at an awards event to celebrate the contributions made by individual and group volunteers making a difference to communities in Rugby Borough.
CAWR Success in Latest Round of the Research Excellence Development Fund
Several successes have been reported by CAWR researchers who applied to the latest round of Coventry University's Research Excellence Development Fund.
Charley Hill-Butler and Mike Kennedy in collaboration with Jon Dale (University of Reading) have won funding to assess the impact of grazing on saltmarshes. This work will build on a report they submitted to Natural England this year.
Ivan Kourtchev was awarded funding for pump priming work. The project entitled 'Emerging contaminants from wastewater treatment plants: an under-recognised threat to air quality and human health’ is aimed to quantify the emission factors of toxic “forever chemicals” and other pathogenic air constituents released by wastewater treatment (WWT) processes which can impact on the health of workers and nearby populations. The funding will be used to support a weeklong field campaign at large-scale WWT research facilities.
Meanwhile, Iain MacKinnon was awarded funding to conduct scoping interviews for a project on a sense of place in contexts of linguistic and cultural alienation in the north of Scotland.
CAWR Successfully launches New Project on the Gender, Land and Climate Nexus in Africa
Representatives in northern Tanzania at the launch of the new action research project
Priscilla Claeys (CAWR, Coventry University, UK) and Stefanie Lemke (IDR, BOKU Vienna) met with representatives of four rural organizations (from Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea and Mali) for a two week international knowledge exchange in northern Tanzania.
Together, the project team developed an innovative collaborative research agenda on gender, land and climate. Ensuring the right to land for women and youth is key to achieving sustainable livelihoods, especially for people who depend on farming and pastoralism. It is also essential to address the climate crisis. Women with secured land are more prone to use agroecology, agroforestry or soil conservation techniques. They will also have more voice to shape the climate response in their community. Recognition and protection of communal land ownership is one of the most efficient climate strategies, but this cannot happen without democratizing land governance to avoid exclusionary dynamics.
Living Lab Workshop
Activities from the Coventry Agroecological Living Lab
At a recent workshop run by ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs), CAWR researcher Judith Conroy represented the AE4EU project and the Coventry Agroecological Living Lab (CALL). The workshop primarily explored sustainable business models of living labs and the Coventry example was interesting as it is set primarily in an urban location.
Digitising agriculture?
A new report 'Remote Control and Peasant Intelligence – On Automating Decisions, Suppressing Knowledges and Transforming Ways of Knowing', published by FIAN International, Friends of the Earth Europe and Coventry University's Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, examines the implications of digital technologies taking hold in European agriculture.
Join us on 4th December for the launch of the report. Geneviève Savigny (European Coordination La Via Campesina) and Michel Pimbert (RISE-CAWR) will reflect on some of the frictions between new digital technologies and peasant autonomy, agroecology and food sovereignty. Register here.
CAWR Contributions to Festival of Science
Coventry University organised a number of events as part of the Economic and Social Research Council funded Festival of Science, including two workshops facilitated by dietitian Lucy Aphramor from CAWR. These were called ‘Doing Anti-Colonial Food Justice’ and ‘Finding Queer Joy through Food’. Both workshops were held at Coventry’s community café Common Ground and were well received with interest in future similar events.
Online platform to enable ongoing dissemination of COACH project outcomes
After three years, the COACH project has come to an end, but its legacy continues… not only through the producers, policymakers, public procurers, activists, academics and consumers that continue to spearhead and support collaborative short food supply chains (SFSCs)... but also through the COACH project’s Communications, Learning & Innovation Platform, which holds all the COACH materials and resources including:
· A Living Library of 34 good practice beacons
· A Legal guide to sustainable public food procurement
· 5 policy briefs
· An App for the qualitative assessment of economic, social and environmental costs & benefits your SFSC initiative generates compared to a benchmark long supply chain
· A huge range of other tools and resources
Not sure where to start? The COACH map can be your companion as you navigate your SFSC journey.
Canal and Rivers Trust to Plant Heritage Apples from Growing Connections Project
Photo of Canal and Rivers Trust staff and Growing Connections’ Liz Trenchard and Gabriele Warwick. Photo by Sam Green
Canal and Rivers Trust (CRT) ecologists and volunteer group leaders visited Growing Connections pilot community tree nursery at CAWR to see our stock of local provenance apple trees. All trees in the nursery have been grafted by volunteers using scions collected from Charterhouse abandoned allotments. The CRT representatives have chosen apple trees that will be planted along Coventry Canal at Hawksbury Junction, to be grown for community enjoyment and autumn snacking for passing walkers and boaters.
Emphasis on agroforestry across Europe
Policy changes are required to encourage more climate resilient farming systems
The European Union is increasing emphasis on sustainable farming methods such as agroforestry to reach its climate goals. In search of broader perspectives on this movement, the CAWR-led AGROMIX project recently brought together farmers, researchers and other stakeholders in Serbia, as the country works on aligning its own framework with the bloc. Find out more about this development here.
CAWR PhD Researcher Delivers Presentation on New Histories from Southern Africa
CAWR PhD researcher, Diana Rodríguez Cala, participated in the work-in-progress workshop 'Past Futures: New Histories from Southern Africa', hosted by the Global History & Culture Centre from the University of Warwick. This event brought together several researchers from universities in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Diana presented part of her PhD research where she shows that the role of the ornamental horticulture industry in plant invasions in southern Africa is highly influenced by the injustices derived from the colonial processes and Apartheid, highlighting the need for considering matters of environmental and social justice in the management of plant invasions.
Powers of Amazonian Forest Gardens
Community-led participatory video in action
In October, CAWR researcher Nina Moeller, with co-investigators Fredy Grefa (University San Francisco of Quito, Ecuador) and Emanuele Fabiano (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru), collaborated with filmmaker Maja Tillmann and a team of Indigenous community-based researchers to launch their research on traditional Amazonian forest gardens, or "chakras."
Using participatory video methods, the community-led project will explore the role that chakras play in cultural resilience and resistance, as well as the challenges that indigenous ancestral practices and foodways are facing in a rapidly changing world. The work has been made possible through funding from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council.
CAWR Staff Raise Concerns over EU Proposals on New Genomic Techniques
The European Commission has launched a proposal for the (de-)regulation of new genetically modified organisms in Europe. Several CAWR staff were among the first 100 signatories of an open letter to express their concerns about the quality and possible impacts of this legislative proposal, should it be adopted.
New Video about Peat Phase-out Research
Francis Rayns explaining analysis of bulk ingredients to project partners'.
Following the recent announcement of CAWR’s involvement in a project to develop organic peat-free blocking media, work has begun to analyse ingredients and create new mixes. A new video about the research has been produced by Riverford Organic Farmers, and all project partners recently met at Ryton Organic Gardens to see the progress of the practical trials.
CAWR Researcher Presents at Conference on Caribbean Enslavement Economy
CAWR researcher Iain MacKinnon was invited to address a conference focussing on Sandbach Tinne, a major trading partnership exploiting the Caribbean enslavement economy from 1813 until the 1960s. Iain's presentation to the workshop, co-organised by Bristol University and Yesternight Productions, focussed on land purchases made by partners and associates of the firm in the first half of the nineteenth century.
CAWR Supports World Toilet Day
World Toilet Day was on Sunday 19th November. The UN Water Program, which promotes World Toilet Day day, estimates that nearly half of the world's population lives without safe toilet facilities and that every day a lack of sanitary facilities kills hundreds of children under the age of five. The hummingbird is the symbol of World Water Day and World Toilet Day, and CAWR recognised World Toilet Day day by adding paper nests to our hummingbird display from World Water Day, to represent good sanitisation for all. UN-Water shared our photo in their online gallery.
Events
Catch up on our events and seminars by visiting our YouTube channel
Publications
Bacher, S., Galil, B. S., Nuñez, M. A., Ansong, M., Cassey, P., Dehnen-Schmutz, K., Fayvush, G., Hiremath, A. J., Ikegami, M., Martinou, A. F., McDermott, S. M., Preda, C., Vilà, M., Weyl, O. L. F., Fernandez, R. D., and Ryan-Colton, E. (2023). Chapter 4: Impacts of invasive alien species on nature, nature's contributions to people, and good quality of life. In: Thematic Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Roy, H. E., Pauchard, A., Stoett, P., and Renard Truong, T. (eds.). IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7430731
Lokidor, P., Taka, M., Lashford, C. and Charlesworth, S. Nature-Based Solutions for Sustainable Flood Management in East Africa. Journal of Flood Risk Management. http://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.12954
Charlesworth, S.M., Kligerman, D., Warwick, F., Blackett, M. (2023) The suitability and acceptability of Sustainable Drainage Systems to address inadequate drainage and greywater management in favelas in Brazil. Institution of Civil Engineers, Infrastructure Asset Management [Special Issue: Sustainability of Built and Natural Environments]. https://doi.org/10.1680/jinam.23.00012
Baskoro M.L., Tjahjono B., Bogush A., Beltran M., Syaifullah D., Tjahjono M. (2024). The Influence of Ecolabel: Insights from the Indonesian Bioplastics Packaging Industry Stakeholders. In: Silva, F.J.G., Ferreira, L.P., Sá, J.C., Pereira, M.T., Pinto, C.M.A. (eds) Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing: Establishing Bridges for More Sustainable Manufacturing Systems. FAIM 2023. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38165-2_112
Baskoro M., Beltran M., Bogush A.A., Tjahjono B. (2023) The imperative of communication signals in boosting business strategies of the bioplastics packaging industry. Business Strategy and the Environment, https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3490
Bautista Quispe, JI. Campos, LC. Masek, O. and Bogush, A. (2023) Optimisation of biochar filter for handwashing wastewater treatment and potential treated water reuse for handwashing. Journal of Water Process Engineering, Vol. 54, 104001
Burnett, E. (2023). Coopetition outside the market economy: Oxfordshire’s community food initiatives as a case study. Local Economy, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/02690942231189821
Parsa A, Van De Wiel MJ, Schmutz U, Fried J, Black D, Roderick I (2023). Challenging the food waste hierarchy. Journal of Environmental Management 344, 118554.
Tornaghi C., McAllister G., Moeller N., Pedersen M. (2023), “Building Medicinal Agroecology: Conceptual grounding for healing of rifts”, Chapter 1, in Fiebrig I. N. (ed.), Medicinal Agroecology, CRC Press; pp3-16
McAllister, G., Bhatasara, S., Claeys, P., Howard, J., Lemke, S., MacKinnon, K., Moeller, N.I. (2023). Editorial: Participatory action research in a time of COVID and beyond. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. Volume 7.
Buratti-Donham J., Venn R., Schmutz U., & Migliorini P. (2023) Transforming food systems towards agroecology – a critical analysis of agroforestry and mixed farming policy in 19 European countries, Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 47:7, 1023-1051
Manuelian, C. L., Pozza, M., Franzoi, M., Righi, F., Schmutz, U., & De Marchi, M. (2023). Comparison of organic and conventional Italian cheeses chemical composition from parallel production. Journal of Dairy Science https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2022-22730
