Newsletter: November 2022 

|      News      |

Application of Science to Realise the Potential of the Agricultural Transition

Michael Winter is one of the co-authors of a recent report launched at a House of Lords event on the 23^rd November, in which they called for more investment in agricultural research, innovation and knowledge exchange. And not just to boost the farming industry but, rather, to equip it to face up to the challenges of food security and the climate and biodiversity emergencies. There has been a decline in investment in innovation in agriculture resulting in falling productivity.  With a land resource facing multiple pressures and competing demands, our food production methods need to be efficient and regenerative with knowledge and adaptive thinking at the heart. Hopefully this report will stimulate further debate on how best to achieve that in Government, the agro-food industries and civil society.  The report is available here.

Age-related differences in reasoning about the acceptability of eating animals - Click here to read the paper. 

Event write-up - On the 10^th November Linda Henderson and Paul Young organised a screening of the AHRC funded film Unsweetened: Ode to Biscuits at the Phoenix Cinema in Exeter as a networking event for PhD and MA students.  The event was generously funded by the South West Doctoral Training Partnership and the University of Exeter’s Food Network and Department of English. We were also grateful to have received support from Reading Museum, the Museum of English Rural Life, and the University of Reading.

The film tells the story of Reading’s Huntley and Palmer’s biscuit factory, which began life as a small baker’s shop in 1822. Within 40 years, the company that created Nice biscuits, the Gingernut and Bath Olivers was exporting its goods across the globe; Reading subsequently became known as Biscuit Town, home to the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world with cakes and biscuits still known today.

About forty students attended to watch the film which was followed by a Q & A session with the two filmmakers, Professor Teresa Murjas and Dr James Rattee, who had kindly travelled from London and Reading to lead a lively discussion with Paul.  Questions covered how Huntley and Palmer’s biscuit empire was caught up in the processes and ideologies of British imperialism, as well as reflecting on the links to be drawn between the global growth of Victorian Britain’s food system and industrialized food production and consumption today.  Teresa and James also talked about how they made the film, the archives and collections that inspired them, and using food as archival and material culture sources.

Afterwards everyone enjoyed the opportunity to network over a glass of wine and of course, some very special Huntley and Palmers biscuits!

Local Food Policies in Big Cities Talk - Dr David Monciardini along with Dr Tiago de Melo Cartaxo and Amanda Goodwin met with MPs in the Houses of Parliament in London this week to give a talk about local food policies in big cities, particularly related to the supply of food for the most vulnerable households during the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of the effective cross-sector food partnerships. In their Policy@Exeter research, they explore the impact policy implemented at a local level can have in protecting against potential food shortages. https://senseaboutscience.org/evidence-week/institution/university-of-exeter/

You can read more here. 

Policy@Exeter was established in 2020 as a cross-disciplinary community of practice, which improves and increases real-world impact through policy engagement. Its researchers work with ministerial and non-ministerial departments, government agencies and public bodies, local authorities, third sector and advocacy organisations to enhance decision-making. As a result of this, Policy@Exeter work has shaped and improved public policy, organizational process and procedure, public debate and elite understanding.

Report: The Impact of Covid on the UK Food Systems - The report published recently looks at the impact of the Covid on the UK food system:  Covid-19 and the UK Food System: Learning Lessons and Building Back Better.   The report was a separate piece of work from our similarly focussed ESRC project, and was commissioned by the BBSRC /Transforming UK Food Systems Strategic Priorities Fund Programme.

The £2 Meal Challenge - Our PHSS students taking the ESS2512 Nutrition Science module we challenged to create £2 meal for university students (quick , easy, nutritious). Here is a padlet with what they produced. We are planning to work alongside the catering team to feedback these ideas hoping we can contribute to the £2 meal campaign currently running at uni, to provide meals that are both affordable AND nutritious.

Reflections from COP27 by Fatma Sabet - One of the three core foci of COP27, across many panel discussions and negotiations, along with water and energy, was food. From technology as the answer and promoting cultured meat to nature-based solutions, there was a unanimous agreement on the urgency to transform the food system. Rachel Bezner Kerr, Chapter 5 lead author of the 6^th IPCC report said:

‘Local and indigenous people must be empowered to be at the heart of the solution.’

My personal highlight was congratulating Nicola Sturgeon on the Good Food Nation Act. Join us in the next talk by Mary Brannen on 14^th December to find out how Scotland is leading the way.

Ticklemore Cheese Dairy - Good news from Ben Harris, one of our partner-members. Ticklemore Cheese Dairy won a Super Gold for their Devon Blue at The World Cheese awards, and were also 8th on the list of Super Golds! Ben has partnered with us in tutored tastings in various contexts, from the Theory and Methods of Food Preservation module on the MA Food Studies to the Food on Film series that we co-organise with Exeter Phoenix. We’ve long known how fabulous these cheeses are, and are delighted to see them achieve more accolades!

|       Events       |

Mary Brannen 14 Dec 2022 

• Join Exeter Food Network and Mary Brennan as Mary discusses what food systems transformation is, why it is needed and how it can be achieved.  Click here for more details. 

Exeter Food - Term Two Pechakucha Seminar

• 25 Jan 2023 10:45 - 12:15 via Teams - These events are designed to allow us to familiarise ourselves with what colleagues across the university are working on, to offer them valuable input, and to spark ideas for future collaborations.  The speakers will be; Natalia Lawrence, Associate Professor in Translational Medicine, Jess Fagin, PhD Researcher in Anthropology, Toby Pennington, Professor of Tropical Plant Diversity and Biogeography and Kate Ellacott, Associate Professor, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences.  Please contact Harry West to register.  

Sustain Annual Conference 2022 - 8th Dec 14:00-17:00 

• With high levels of pre-existing poverty and a cost of living crisis driven by war, inflation, rising food prices and political uncertainty, Sustain's annual conference will provide an opportunity to discuss policy solutions.

  What are the roles for politicians and government, but also civil society, retailers and the private sector to support people through what is set to be a very difficult winter?
  What are the foundations we want to lay now that give us a solid base to build on for the future?
  The conference will involve a cross-sector line up of speakers to explore these questions in detail, including MPs, food journalists and SFP members. Register here.

Oxford Real Farming Conference - Jan 4th - 6th 2023

• After two years online, ORFC 2023 will host the fourteenth annual gathering in Oxford this January, reuniting the food and farming movement across the UK and beyond.
  This years conference will bring speakers from around the world together with the larger ORFC community to discuss issues around food and farming policy, land justice, the economic emergency, the financialisation of nature, community wellbeing, and the critical role farming plays in solving our ecological crises. Click here to register. 

Upcoming seminar dates for the Food Forum for the SOAS Food Studies Centre:

• 2 Dec – online Carina Millstone (Feedback Global)  ‘Moving towards a socially just, ecologically sustainable, post-corporate food economy’
• 9 Dec – online Jyoti Fernandes (La Via Campesina & Landworkers Alliance) ‘The work of La Via Campesina in creating a regenerative food system as part of an equitable society’
• 16 Dec Room 201 - Dr. Edmée Ballif (Thomas Coram Research Unit, University College London) ‘Child nutrition and reproductive imaginaries: the case of child veganism’ 

For further info contact SOAS here. 

London Group of Historical Geographers - Spring Seminar Programme: 

• 17 Jan 23 - David Nally - The Political ecology of the potato in Ireland
• 31 Jan 23 - Miranda Brown - Why wasn't there cheese in the Chinese diet?
• 14 Feb 23 - Ashok Malhotra - 'Hunza' as Shangri-La in North American travelogues and fil in the 1950s and 1960s
• 28 Feb 23 - Judith Carney - Cultivating subsistence, planting resistance: Africa's food legacy in the Atlantic World
• 14 March 23 - Rebecca Earle - The Potato: emblem of modernity

For further details please visit the LGHG homepage or the seminar listing on the IRH website.

Exeter Seed Swap - Organised by Exeter Seed Bank - Maketank, Paris Street, Exeter 

• 26 Feb 2023 - The event brings together community growers to swap vegetables, fruits, herbs and flower seeds; and network and share skills around seed saving and growing. There will also be stalls and displays relevant to the theme of the event.  If you are interested in collaborating by presenting a talk, short workshop or something else on the day please contact Johanna Korndorfer at exeterseedbank@gmail.com for more information.

 Institut Paul Bocuse Research Center - Research Seminar Dec 15th 2022

• Please click here for the programme for this online seminar

LEAP 2022 Conference - 25th January 2023

• Current worldwide food consumption practices are unsustainable. In particular, the food system is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, while unhealthy diets and excess body weight are among the greatest contributors to premature mortality.

  The LEAP conference, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust Our Planet Our Health initiative, will bring together researchers working on multiple aspects of meat and dairy production and consumption to consider its effects on population health, the economy, society and the environment and aims to build a community of researchers in this field to share evidence and tools to inform action.

  For full details please click here. 

|       Opportunities       |

Parliamentary briefing on diet-related inequalities: The UK Parliament’s Research Arm, POST, is working on a policy brief around diet-related inequalities, their impacts and the policy options to tackle them. You can find more details here: https://post.parliament.uk/approved-work-diet-related-inequalities/.  As an academic, you can contribute expertise and literature to these briefings, which then get distributed amongst parliamentarians to inform their debates and voting. It’s a great, low-effort way of putting your research in front of policymakers. You can find a how-to guide on how to work with POST here.

Imminent Call Opening : Co-Centres: Collaboration for Transformative Research and Innovation - Climate - Sustainable, Resilient Food Systems - £64 Million - should anyone be interested in applying, please get in touch with Harry West to discuss how we can support the proposal.  The aim is to bring together leading academic and industrial researchers as well as policy makers across Ireland and the UK, the duration is expected to be 72 months. 

Knowledge Exchange opportunity with UK Parliament - Diet-related Inequalities

The UK Parliament is seeking expertise and literature for a POSTnote on diet-related inequalities.  Diet-related inequalities are differences in foods consumed, food security and diet-related health outcomes. This POSTnote will explain the impacts of these issues and the policy options to tackle them. Diet is a leading cause of avoidable harm to health. Tackling health inequalities, including diet-related inequalities, is a key feature of the Government Food Strategy and is expected to feature in a White Paper on Health Disparities in England later in 2022. This briefing will summarise the latest data on the health impacts of poor diet, the evidence on the effectiveness of a range of interventions and summarise stakeholder responses to policy options. For more information on this POSTnote click here. 

Papers are invited for the symposium "Europe’s Food and Its Urban Digital Ecologies", which will be held at Birkbeck College, London on 10-11 May 2023.  Read the full call for proposals here.  The closing date is December 19^th 2022. 

Thomas Aubry - I am a new lecturer in geophysics working at the boundary of volcanology and climate sciences on the Penryn campus. My research programme mostly has two components. First, I investigate the dispersion of volcanic ash and gas and implication for volcanic hazards. Second, I investigate climate-volcano interactions, i.e. how volcanic eruption affect climate (and how climate change could affect volcanoes). Both aspects have potential implications for food security at local-global scale.  Volcanic winters have caused widespread famines in the past and have been linked to societal unrest, and such scenario could be exacerbated in a globalized world. My research could also be relevant to any colleague working e.g. on risk management and communication beyond food security aspects. More details on myself and my work can be found on my personal website: https://sites.google.com/view/thomasjaubry/. Please don’t hesitate to contact me (t.aubry@exeter.ac.uk) to discuss any potential interdisciplinary research synergy. I will be on the Streatham campus early January for a few days if you’d like to meet in person, and am applying for internal funds to be embedded on the Streatham campus for a few weeks in February and March. 

|       Resources       |

Local bakeries on the rise but facing multiple threats:

New OU study finds that the number of small bakery businesses in the UK has increased over recent years but they are threatened by rising costs and a skills shortage.

Sustaining small bakery businesses: Looking to the future in challenging times is based on a survey of 202 small bakery business owners in the UK, interviews and other research. The study was conducted between May and July 2022 by The Open University, with support from the Real Bread Campaign and Craft Bakers Association.  It can be downloaded from: www.realbreadcampaign.org or business-school.open.ac.uk/news/future-small-bakery-risk