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CAWR Newsletter
January 2026
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.
Oxford Real Farming Conference 2026:
CAWR’s wide-ranging contributions
CAWR researchers and doctoral students were active across a range of sessions at the ORFC, 8-9 Jan 2026, The team also had an exhibition stand in the Catholic Chaplaincy where they shared details of the recently launched SCALE-it and WINN ORGANIC projects.
On the Friday morning, Julia Wright chaired a session on Subtle Technologies for Agroecological Farms of the Future, with panel speakers Patrick MacManaway, Henk Kieft, Aranya Austin and Simon Charter. This session presented and discussed a range of non-harmful, post-material technologies based on sound and electromagnetic frequencies and forces.
Also on Friday morning, Chiara Tornaghi and her research team ran a session titled "Cooking up justice and joy in the Landed Community Kitchen", with Maddy Longhurst (UAC), Jade Bashford (Real Farming Trust), Suzy Russell (CSA Network), Jenny Slaughter (Calderdale Ecological Land Trust), Ellen Pearce (LESS), Bex Derry (Ecoworks), and Chiara herself as speakers. The Landed Community Kitchen is an emerging novel infrastructure for food system transformation, that brings together local agroecological producers and food sovereignty-oriented kitchens addressing food justice, poverty and social exclusion. The vision is to have a kitchen in every neighbourhood, run by community groups experimenting with a range of economic models, including commoning. After presenting the work and illustrating 3 of the 8 kitchen pilots, the 70 participants were organised in regional groups to discuss how the concept and experience of this work can inspire further transformation and experimentation in their communities.
Completing the work agenda on Friday, Leonardo Faedo and Charlotte Southall, joined Lawrence Woodward OBE and Innovative Farmer Pat Aherne in the panel - How Homeopathy Can Improve Health and Resilience in Agriculture.This session was organised in collaboration between Whole Health Agriculture (WHAg) and the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry University. The session focused on agroecosystem health and the management of the agricultural organism with the use of homeopathic preparations. CAWR researchers explored the integration of ecology, homeopathy, and systemic thinking in crop health, alongside current agronomic research on dynamized high dilutions.
Claire Lyons and Charlotte Southall also organised the first ever session on viticulture at the ORFC entitled Resilient Vineyards: Practice, Viability, Market Strategy which Claire chaired. The speakers were Justin Howard-Sneyd (Hive Wine & Regenerativeviticulture.org), Will Davenport (Davenport vineyards), Matt Robson (Harrow & Hope vineyard), Robin Snowden (Limeburn Hill vineyard) and Abby Rose (Farmarama & vidacycle) who explored how vineyards can remain viable while working with organic, biodynamic and regenerative low input systems in the current context, this session was recorded and will be available on the ORFC website.
Barbara Smith and Ffion Thomas participated in British Ecological Society Conference
Ffion Thomas presenting her poster
In December, Barbara Smith and Ffion Thomas headed up to Edinburgh for the British Ecological Society Annual Conference. With nearly 1,500 delegates attending, it was a great opportunity to share their research with a wide audience from over 50 countries. Barbara gave a presentation on the need for collaboration between arts and science for ecological restoration and the importance of moving beyond traditional boundaries between disciplines to create communities of practice. Ffion presented a poster on the interactions between soil related-factors and ash dieback disease based on her recent PhD research.
Barbara Smith presenting at the BES conference
CAWR researchers attend productive OneSTOP Project Annual Meeting in Almería, Spain
Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, Alex Lowther-Harris and Helen Bayliss in Spain
CAWR Researchers Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, Helen Bayliss and Alex Lowther-Harris attended the OneSTOP Project Annual Meeting in Almería, Spain on 19th-22nd January. The meeting featured a range of productive plenary and break-out sessions, an excellent field trip looking at invasive and endemic species in the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, and many opportunities for informal exchange with the wider project consortium and local experts.
Impact News - 'working for change'
Care-full-courses – engagement methods to spark transformative change for biodiversity
Led by team members from Coventry University (Claire Lyons, Barbara Smith, Alex Franklin and Lindy Binder) and TEHRA, the free Care-full Courses and Resources platform from PLANET4B is designed to bring nature and society closer.
Whether you choose to navigate through an introduction to biodiversity, or delve straight into the catalogue of creative, well-tested methods for transforming mindsets, or learn how to set up Learning Communities (spaces for deeper engagement and higher potential for transformation) - with five hours, or just five minutes, we are confident you will find an innovative icebreaker or a more complex method to promote systematic change. Discover clear guidelines for businesses, NGOs and policymakers looking to engage their employees or audiences in pro-biodiversity, inclusive thinking, decision-making and action.
Our thoroughly developed, credible, evidence-based educational materials for school teachers and those in extra-curricular settings recently won one of the EC’s Education for Climate 2025 Green Education Projects: Citizenship Education awards.
Subtle Agroecologies - Award and seed funding
Subtle Agroecologies on field action in the Netherlands and Romania
CAWR researcher Leonardo Faedo has received an award and seed funding (€ 2000) from FIAMO to host two workshops in 2026, one in Groningen in the Netherlands and the second in Bucharest in Romania.
The workshops are part of the Subtle Agroecologies research line lead by Dr Faedo and Dr Julia Wright and will focus on the collaborating with farmers and gardeners from both countries on the use of homeopathic and biodynamic preparations in agriculture.
Events
March 5th - SEMINAR - Blocking media – is there a peat-free solution? with Francis Rayns, Judith Conroy, Leonardo Faedo, Ulrich Schmutz, Margi Lennartsson.
March 26th - SEMINAR - SCALE-it: empowering farmers to improve organic systems with Leonardo Faedo, Ulrich Schmutz, Adrian Evans and Judith Conroy
Catch up on our events and seminars by visiting our YouTube channel
Publications
Verdi, R., Faedo, L.F., Scherr, C., Wright, J., Rayns, F. and Boff, P. (2025) Bioassay of rice (Oryza sativa L.) seedlings in response to dynamized high dilutions of Calcarea carbonica and Silicea terra. Int J High Dilution Res. 2025; 25(CF): 402-416. http://doi.org/10.51910/ijhdr.v25icf.1719
Kelley, D. et al. (inc. Eden, J.M.) (2025) State of Wildfires 2024-25, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 5377-5488. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-483
Gallo, C., Dieppois, D., Quilcaille, Y., Chiriacò, M.V., Drobyshev, I., Fulé, P.Z., San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Blackett, M. and Eden, J.M. (2025) Future impacts of climate change on global fire weather: Insight from weighted CMIP6 multi-model ensembles, J. Climate, 38, 6445–6462. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-24-0540.1
Viera-Arroyo, W.; Binego, L.; Rayns, F.; López, D.; Moya, M.; Vera, L.; Caicedo, C. (2025). Systematic Review of Integrating Technology for Sustainable Agricultural Transitions: Ecuador, a Country with Agroecological Potential. Sustainability 2025, 17, 6053. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17136053
Mariki SB and Binego L (2025). Conflicting interests over natural resource use: the case of interactions among livestock keepers, farmers, and wildlife at Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. Front. Sustain. Resour. Manag. 4:1650915. Doi: 10.3389/fsrma.2025.1650915 [URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsrma.2025.1650915 ]
Worsdell, L. S., Maughan, C., Wright, J., Hill-Butler, C., & Félix, G. F. (2025). Has agroecology lost the plot? The fracture between science, movement, and practice in the Insular Caribbean. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2025.2584306
Gallo Granizo, G., Bacciu, V., Eden, J.M., Hernández Paredes, E., García Feced, C., Bedhiaf, S., Oom, D., Goldammer, J.G., Dieppois, B., Belen, İ., Mitri, G., Turhan, Ü., Ascoli, D., Alfonso, L. and San-Miguel-Ayanz, J. (2025) Fire Management in the Mediterranean Region, In: The status of the Mediterranean forests 2025, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 156pp. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6921en
Giannitsopoulos, M.L., Burgess, P.J., Graves, A.R., Olave, R., Eden, J.M. and Herzog, F. (2025). Predicted yield and soil organic carbon changes in grassland, arable, woodland, and agroforestry systems under climate change in a cool temperate Atlantic climate, Agron. Sustain. Dev. 45, 26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-025-01020-7
Smith Khanna, P. (2025). Buen Vivir as fertile soil for ecological masculinities: learning from gardening men in Cali, Colombia. NORMA, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2025.2576329
Dehnen-Schmutz, K, Adekola, OE, Jones, TS (2025): Testing the feasibility of citizen science to record impacts of invasive alien plants. Ecological Solutions and Evidence 6(3): e70121. https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.70121
Pathania D., Venkatesan S., Kourtchev I., McKenzie M., Bogush A., Mackay G., Lampugnani E., Ristovski Z., Zare A., Stevanovic S. Pollen hydration and its induced effects on human bronchial epithelial cells: a comparative analysis of three species. Science of the Total Environment 2025 1002, 180665 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.180665
Berger, I., Pannure, A., Harris, A., Basu, P., Smith, B. and Dicks, L.V., (2025) Agroecological Cashew Cultivation Increases Pollinator Abundance, Diversity and Flower Visitation Rates, with Potential Yield Benefits. Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2025.110006
Berger, I., Kamble, A., Morton, O., Raj, V., Nair, S.R., Edwards, D.P., Wauchope, H.S., Joshi, V., Basu, P., Smith, B. and Dicks, L.V., 2025. India’s agroecology programme,‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’, delivers biodiversity and economic benefits without lowering yields. Nature Ecology & Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02849-7
Wood, T.J., Patiny, S., Dutta, A., Laha, S., Smith, B., Basu, P. and Roberts, S.P., 2025. Camptopoeum paruii sp. n., the first species of Camptopoeum described from India (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae). Journal of Natural History, 59(33-36), pp.2143-2154.
Bacher S, Ryan-Colton E, Coiro M, Cassey P, Galil BS, Nuñez MA, Ansong M, Dehnen-Schmutz K, Fayvush G, Fernandez RD, Hiremath AJ et al. (2025): Global Impacts Dataset of Invasive Alien Species (GIDIAS). Scientific data12:832. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05184-5
Eluri, A., Gates, W., Callahan, D., Charlesworth, S. M. and Kourtchev, I., Pyrolysis gas chromatography high resolution mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) method for analysis of phthalic acid esters and its application for screening e-waste materials. Anal. Methods, 2025, DOI: 10.1039/D5AY00987A
Kourtchev, I., McGillen, M. R., Wenger, J., Donahue, N. M. Rethinking environmental boundaries for contaminants of emerging concern. Atmos. Environ. 2025, 361, 121492. DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2025.121492
Diop, S. B., Ekolu, J., Tramblay, Y., Dieppois, B., Grimaldi, S., Bodian, A., Blanchet, J., Rameshwaran, P., Salamon, P., and Sultan, B. (2025) Climate change impacts on floods in West Africa: New insight from two large-scale hydrological models. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. In-press. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-130
Peña-Angulo, D., Tramblay, Y., Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Ekolu, J., Dieppois, B., El Kenawy, A. (2025) Multidecadal changes in hydrological droughts across Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 60, 102595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2025.102595
