CAWR Newsletter

September 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.

Peace-pilgrim, life-long activist and former monk visits CAWR

CAWR was honoured to welcome the activist and teacher Satish Kumar, co-founder of Schumacher College and former editor of Resurgence Magazine, on Friday 15th September.

On a beautiful morning in the gardens at the Ryton campus he delivered a lecture arguing for ‘Soil, Soul and Society’ as a new trinity for the age of ecology.

Satish related how everything comes from soil and returns to soil. If we look after the soil, he said, soil will look after everything else. Soul is the inner dimension of his trinity. Caring for soul means developing compassion, gratitude and generosity in our hearts. Society is the dimension of human relationships. We need to learn to live with each other peacefully and harmoniously and celebrate our national, religious and cultural diversities.

CAWR Researcher Contributes to Newly Approved Invasive Alien Species Assessment

The tenth session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) negotiated and approved the summary for policy makers of the Assessment of Invasive Alien Species and their Control.

This summary is the result of a four year global working group of 86 scientists, including CAWR researcher Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz. The team identified 37,00 alien species of which 3,500 are currently posing major global threats to nature, economies, food security and human health. Invasive species are one of the five main drivers of biodiversity decline, involved in sixty per cent of global plant and animal extinctions. The impact on nature’s benefits to people and human wellbeing have been estimated at >$423 billion annually.

CAWR researcher to assess how new Welsh landscape policies may impact Cambrian Mountain residents and other stakeholders

Donna Udall has won a British Academy grant for a project called 'Beautiful Places as Contested Spaces' which will examine the potential impact of the incoming sustainable farming scheme on the Cambrian Mountain Range (CMR) in Wales.

The CMR includes one of the last remote wilderness areas left in southern Britain. However, in the 1950s the Forestry Commission bought land to plant forests for timber resulting in the loss of many farms and farming communities.  With the Welsh Government’s Sustainable Farming Scheme and the recently stated intention to plant 86 million trees, the spectre of an accelerated loss of families, farms and Welsh speaking communities’ looms again.

Understanding the views of residents in the CMR will be critical for policy development, implementation and for the acceptance and success of incoming schemes. This project will be unique in attempting to canvass all sectors of the community and stakeholders within the CMR for their views on local landscape and its economic, environmental (including biodiversity) and cultural value and their thoughts on planned schemes.

New Book Published on Peasant Resistance & Alterity in an Age of Politico-Ecological Crisis

A new book by Mark Tilzey (CAWR) and Fraser Sugden – Peasants, Capitalism, and Imperialism in an Age of Politico-Ecological Crisis – is published this month by Routledge.

In this companion volume to Peasants, Capitalism, and the Work of Eric R. Wolf, the authors further develop their thinking on agrarian transitions to capitalism, the development of imperialism, and the place of the peasantry in these dynamics, with special reference to the global South in an era of politico-ecological crisis. Focusing on the political role of the peasantry in contested transitions to capitalism and to modes of production outside of, and beyond, capitalism, the book contends that an understanding of these dynamics requires an analysis of class struggle and of the resources, material and discursive, that different classes can bring to bear on this struggle. The book focuses on the rise of capitalism in the global South within the context of imperial subordination to the global North, and the place of the peasantry in shaping and resisting these dynamics.

Spider Plants Research Grows Links between CAWR and Warwick University

Left to right: Jiayi Chu, of Warwick University, Professor Isabelle Carre, of Warwick University and Sam Green, research assistant at CAWR with Chlorophytum comosum collection at CAWR (Photo by Jiayi Chu)

The Plant Heritage National Collection of Chlorophytum comosum - aka Spider plants - which is based at CAWR, was studied for a characterisation project phenotyping the cultivars as part of a joint investigation with Warwick University.

Professor Isabelle Carré of Warwick University, Samantha Green, research assistant at CAWR and Warwick student Jiayi Chu collaborated in this study for Jiayi Chu’s MSc in Environmental Bioscience in a Changing Climate.

Learning about telling one variety from another helps our understanding about what’s important and why, depending on context and reasons. For cultivated plants telling one variety from another can be useful for culinary, medical, aesthetic, research and cultivation reasons and to appreciate diversity in all the characteristics of species.

If you would be interested in using the collection for further research and enjoyment please contact samantha.green@coventry.ac.uk

CAWR Postgraduate Wins Award at International Engineering Design Conference

Peter receiving a trophy and certificate from conference chairs Prof. Darryl Newport (left) and Prof. Chris Gorse (right)

CAWR Post-Graduate Researcher Peter Hollings attended the International SEEDS (Sustainable Ecological Engineering Design for Society) Conference 2023, held at the University of Suffolk- in Ipswich- at the end of August. At the conference he gave a short 10-minute presentation on his paper “An examination of Nature-Based Solutions’ ability to retain New and Emerging Pollutants – Preliminary results from a UK field test”. Peter’s paper was awarded best paper in its theme “Water Quality and Air Quality” at the conference social and awards evening.

Researchers Present Work on 'Forever Chemicals' to Mass Spectrometry Society

The delegation from Pakistan and their hosts at the CAWR offices at Ryton Gardens

Jishnu Pandamkulangara Kizhakkethil and Ivan Kourtchev presented their research projects on 'forever chemicals' to the British Mass Spectrometry Society. These chemicals are shown stay in human bodies up to five years leading to serious health problems.

Jishnu and Ivan's work focussed on understanding the mechanisms by which the chemicals transfer from wastewater treatment systems and on observations of these toxic pollutants in unexpected environments.

The BMSS meeting was attended by a number of experienced mass spectrometrists from diverse scientific backgrounds from academia to industry, reflecting on current state of the arts in analytical chemistry and instrument development across the world. Ivan was able to discuss the ongoing challenges with instruments (e.g. gas chromatography mass spectrometry) available at CAWR with other leading experts in mass spectrometry and instrument manufacturers who provided useful ideas on how to overcome these challenges. 

Diana’s Journey across Southern Africa: Highlights from Namibia

Diana giving a guest lecture at the Namibian University of Science and Technology

Diana Rodríguez Cala’s PhD research about the role of the ornamental horticulture sector in plant invasions across southern Africa got her to Namibia, where she gave a guest lecture to the honours students of Natural Resource Management from the Namibian University of Science and Technology, and a talk to the Namibian Botanical Society members.

Diana took advantage of the opportunities to conduct fieldwork and network with stakeholders there. In addition, she assessed honours students’ final practical work at the conservation station in Etosha Heights Nature Reserve. What a marvellous experience in Namibia!

Diana assessing student work at Etosha Heights Nature Reserve

CAWR Postgraduate Presents Research into Future Wildfire Risks in Pakistan

Zarmina Zahoor, a third year PhD student under Jonathan Eden's supervision, presented her research work on wildfire risk in Pakistan at an international conference entitled 'Creating Effective Warnings for All'. The conference was hosted by University College London's Warning Research Centre between 11th and 13th September.

Zarmina commented: "The platform provided a venue for academics and practitioners to present their work, build connections, and discuss how to deal with the interactions between diverse risks and cascading effects. It was a great experience sharing my research work and getting an insight from the attendees."

Review of 'Sugar Rush' Book

Lucy Aphramor has recently reviewed the new work by sociologist Karen Throsby entitled 'Sugar Rush: Science, Politics and the Demonisation of Fatness' for The Sociological Review.

Lucy highly recommends the book for anyone whose work is broadly concerned with public health. They argue that the book exceeds the biomedical perimeters that typically fence in sugar such that "Throsby unequivocally articulates the historic, enduring and neglected relevance of enslavement …These sugar-related atrocities and harms have huge health implications, yet, as the text underscores, are redacted in the contemporary public health imaginary".

Mobilising Economic Co-operation in the Irish Sea Space, with Europe and Beyond.

Farmland biodiversity in Wales

Donna Udall has won a project funded by Welsh Government (through the Agile Wales scheme) to investigate payment-by-results agri-environment schemes and share that learning in a Europe-wide workshop which will take place in Wales next year.

Payment-by-results schemes pay farmers for biodiversity results and have many other benefits. This workshop will enable Wales to learn from European partners as well as share that learning across a wide community.

Biodiversity recording at Ryton Gardens

In Spring this year CAWR set-up a project on the citizen science platform iNaturalist to document biodiversity at Ryton Gardens. We are very happy to report that over the summer we collected more than 500 records relating to more than 300 species. This is an ongoing initiative, and everyone is welcome to use the iNaturalist app to report further sightings. We recruited several new users to the app who find it very helpful to identify species and contributing to record biodiversity in Ryton and elsewhere. All the records including a map can be seen on the project webpage.

CAWR takes part at the first ever UK Agroforestry Show

Two days of farm walks, demos, dung beetle safaris, talks, food and music… The first ever UK Agroforestry Show was a great opportunity for CAWR to showcase all that we do when it comes to trees, soils and more.

Towards the end of the two days, we ran a participatory workshop to mop up participants’ ideas on the future needs of UK agroforestry research. Contact rosemary.venn@coventry.ac.uk for more info or check out the ‘Meet the Farmers’ podcast direct from the show.

CAWR Researcher's Edinburgh Fringe Festival Show Gets Rave Review

The Edinburgh Fringe is the world’s largest performance arts festival, currently surpassed only by the men’s World Cup and the Olympics for attendance at a ticketed event. CAWR researcher Lucy Aphramor, who has previously performed social action theatre at the Fringe, took their new show Packed House to this year's event and received this very positive review.

CAWR Researcher Issues Call for Papers

CAWR researcher Anna Bogush is part of a team which has issued a call for papers in the Special Collection “Advanced Oxidation/Reduction Processes for Removal of Organic Contaminants from Water” in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Chemistry.

Emerging contaminants, including halogenated persistent organic pollutants, BETX, pharmaceuticals/personal care products, and pesticides, in water environments are a significant global concern due to their health and ecological risks. Advanced oxidation or reduction processes (AOPs/ARPs) are currently employed during water treatment to generate hydroxyl radicals, sulphate radicals, singlet oxygen, chloride radicals, aqueous electrons, and hydrogen radicals in order to address this contamination. However, the effectiveness of these technologies in improving water quality is greatly influenced by variations in radical yield, mass transfer, and utilization efficiency that occur during the AOPs/ARPs. This research topic welcomes original research on advanced oxidation/reduction processes for removal of organic contaminants from water.

Editors: • Dr Anna Bogush, CAWR, Coventry University, UK • Dr Yixiang Bao, National Institute of Clean and Low-Carbon Energy, China • Dr Elisa I. García-López, University of Palermo, Italy • Dr Yanxin Gao, Fuzhou University, China • Dr Giovanni Cagnetta, Tsinghua University, China

Events

Upcoming Seminars

Catch up on our events and seminars by visiting our YouTube channel

Publications

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

Black, D.; Wei, T.; Eaton, E.; Hunt, A.; Carey, J.; Schmutz, U.; He, B.; Roderick, I. (2023). Testing Food Waste Reduction Targets: Integrating Transition Scenarios with Macro-Valuation in an Urban Living Lab. Sustainability, 15, 6004. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15076004

Rachel Wynberg, Michel Pimbert, Nina Moeller, Georgina McAllister, Rachel Bezner Kerr, Jasber Singh, Million Belay & Mvuselelo Ngcoya (2023) Nature-Based Solutions and Agroecology: Business as Usual or an Opportunity for Transformative Change?, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development,65:1, 15-22.

Félix, G.F. (2023). Agroecology and food sovereignty in the Caribbean: Insights from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Sint Maarten. Book chapter in Routledge Handbook of Latin America and the Environment. Routledge 

Bennett, J.E., Marandure, T., Hawkins, H-J., Mapiye, C., Palmer, A., Lemke, S., Wu, L. and Moradzadeh, M. (2023). A conceptual framework for understanding ecosystem trade-offs and synergies in communal rangeland systems. Ecosystem Services 61 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2023.101533