Category: Food Security

The Farmer of Myddfai

Posted on by janet.crompton

Above the village of Myddfai, Escairllaethdy Farm stretches over 150 acres. The farm, which lies on the western edge of the Brecon Beacons at the foot of the Black Mountains, has been in Hywel Morgan’s family since his grandfather bought it after the Second World War. It’s an upland livestock farm, and Hywel also has grazing rights on the common land on Mynydd Myddfai for his sheep, horses, and, more recently, cattle. He describes himself as a hill farmer, and one who is especially passionate about the hills.

For the past five years Hywel has been gradually reducing the impact of his farming methods on the land. In an interview in March 2022, he told me more about how this came about. In the wake of Brexit, Hywel met with a Welsh civil servant and asked him what was really required of farmers in this new political context. The reply was that what the Government wanted was for farmers to farm “with nature”. This set Hywel on a journey of discovery that included a study-tour with the Farming Connect Management and Exchange scheme, investigating low-impact farming in Britain and continental Europe, as well as a visit to the Food and Farming conference in Aberystwyth, where he found disappointingly few farmers but did discover a stand for the Nature Friendly Farming Network. He decided to get involved.

Hywel’s move into lower-impact, nature-friendly farming has had a number of practical results. One is in the amount of hedgerow now on the farm. He explained: “I’ve put in about a thousand metres of double fencing every year for the past five years for hedgerow restoration, whether that is planting new hedges, coppicing hedges, or hedge-laying”. He has also been letting the hedges grow taller, sometimes leaving them for three years before cutting them. He says with a sense of pride, “All of a sudden I saw all these birds around in later winter”.  The beneficial effects of the hedges are visible in the summer too, reflected in the behaviour of the livestock. Hywel has noticed that on hot summer days his sheep and cows hide in the shade of the hedges, “and when the sun moves they move with the shade”. He adds, “Watching your animals tells you a lot”. He has also given up using artificial fertiliser and cut down on pharmaceuticals. Where he used to spray off a field of grass with Roundup and drill swedes for the sheep, he now conserves the grass for winter feed.

Farming in a nature-friendly way has involved some changes in the kind of livestock Hywel keeps on the land. He has introduced Highland cattle to his herd, and practises conservation grazing with all of his cattle. The Highlands live up on the hill and Hywel can already see how this stimulates greater biodiversity. In this respect cattle do better than sheep, “because sheep will nibble the short sweet grass right down. The cattle will just trample it for a start, and by trampling it they’re putting organic matter back into the soil and regenerating it a bit”. The hoof impact helps to create habitat for invertebrates and the browsing methods of the cattle “will leave a bit more over for nature”.

How much to leave for nature is a potentially difficult question given that farms are businesses and need to be run as such. Hywel admits that “production-wise it isn’t fantastic because you’re producing less meat per acre or per hectare”, but he argues with great conviction that “we have to have this balance of food production and nature – biodiversity and wildlife – and finding the sweet spot between biodiversity and productivity is key”.

Hywel’s relationship with this landscape is steeped in its history as well as invested in its future. Myddfai is a kind of hallowed ground, the ancient home of the legendary Lady of the Lake and the Physicians of Myddfai, The story of the mysterious Lady and her children, who began a tradition of healers in the village that continued for hundreds of years, was included in The Red Book of Hergest which dates from the late 14th century. Among other tales, the manuscript tells the story of the son of a famer killed fighting to preserve the independence of Wales, who while wandering along the edge of Llyn y Fan Fach, saw a beautiful woman sitting on the surface of the lake. He fell in love with her and wooed her with gifts of bread. On the third occasion, with the bread cooked exactly to her liking, the woman agreed to marry him and stay with him “until she received from him three blows, without any cause”.[i] It was a long time before the man landed the third blow on his wife, but true to her word, she left him and returned to the Lake. The story might be read as a stark warning against domestic violence. But there is a more positive kind of sequel. The couple had three sons and the mother sometimes appeared to them, teaching them about the medicinal qualities of the plants to be found in the area. The boys grew up to become skilful physicians who then recorded their knowledge in writing, “for the benefit of mankind throughout all the ages”.

In a quiet and modest way, Hywel thinks of himself as the inheritor this tradition of herbal knowledge. He has begun planting herbal leys in preference to rye grass because, as he says, “if I can’t grow them, who should?” As a society, we are probably only just beginning to discover how much can be learnt from the herbal medicines of the past. In part this is because the awareness of such sophisticated knowledge and wisdom has been obscured by more dominant, often urban-centric narratives. While the Enlightenment represented a huge advance in knowledge in some areas of the British Isles, the historian David Gange has written of how it benefited the big cities of the British Isles but actually heralded an age of darkness for other areas of the archipelago. In Wales it contributed to the suppression of the histories of the Age of the Saints, a period of intense Christian activity linked with learning and with the emergence of a deeply rooted Welsh culture.

Hywel takes inspiration from this ancient past as well as trying to draw on the practices of his own more recent ancestors. In some respects, regenerative farming means remembering agricultural methods from before the industrialisation of farming – which took place most significantly in the wake of the Second World War and the Agriculture Act of 1947. Farmers involved in nature-friendly farming often look back not to their fathers’ generation for wisdom but to that of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, who were farming before the intensification of agriculture really took hold. In some ways, those generations modelled a way of life that seems preferable to the pressured lives of contemporary farmers. Hywel admits: “But hearing my father repeating stories about my grandad, his dad, I thought how fantastic life sounded. Hard, but just going up on a hill on horseback and chatting to a fellow grazier for hours and hours on end”. Now, in contrast, he says: “I feel like we’re just working. Like we’re running faster to stand still at the moment, because even at 15 I had my own sheep, and I pretty much had the same money then as I’m having now. It hasn’t changed. The price of fertiliser and feed and fuel and everything’s gone up crazy, but what we get for the end product hasn’t”.

The stories from the past, both ancient and more modern are significant. They speak of a tradition of farming on the Welsh uplands that has been in place for millennia. This tradition reflects a particularly deep relationship with the landscape built through hard toil and a commitment to learning the character of the land itself. Hywel’s story is an important counter to some of the current rewilding narratives that, at their most extreme, seem to suggest that the uplands would be better left untouched by farming of any kind. It is because of his careful stewardship that his land is flourishing.

Part of this process involves learning to see how the landscape might begin to heal itself. In a sense, Hywel is continuing in the tradition of the Physicians of Myddfai. Farmers like him are physicians of the land: wise practitioners who don’t impose a range of chemically based industrial-style remedies on the earth, but as the medieval Physicans of Myddfai were reputed to do, find ways of helping the patient through small interventions. This means moving away from the big-ag big pharma model in which agriculture is dominated by pharmaceutical companies and their agrochemicals, and thinking about what the land itself can do.

But regenerative farming does not just mean looking back in time. What struck me most when I first visited Esgairllaethdy was the way in which the wisdom of the past was being combined with some extraordinary contemporary technology. The Highland cattle on the hill wear collars fitted with GPS equipment. The collars enable Hywel to monitor where the cattle are and control their movement by setting up virtual fences using an app on his phone. When the cattle cross the boundary of the virtual field that Hywel maps out for them, the collars emit a high-pitched sound that causes them to step back into their allocated area. He tells me: “I think, in time, I’ll be able to manage without the collars, because the cattle will get used to the place”.

While Lyn y Fan Fach, the lake from which the legendary Lady emerged is two miles from Hywel’s farm, up on the mountain that adjoins his land, Hywel does now have a mini-lake of his own. He had always wanted a pond on his farm and two year’s into his membership of Glastir Advanced (a whole-farm sustainable land management scheme), he decided to build one. While some construction issues meant that the pond sometimes dries out, when the rain comes it creates a pool. After four days of heavy rain last Autumn, Hywel says, “the pond was full to overflowing”. He has witnessed how the pond has brought new species to the farm: “There was a duck there yesterday, there’s a heron, there’ll be Canadian geese, there’s all sorts of insects, dragonflies, around there”.

When I first visited Esgairllaethy in October 2021, I was at a low ebb: like everyone else, I was reeling from the practical and emotional effects of eighteen months of the pandemic, and from environmental fears prompted by the findings of the 2021 IPCC report and the figures for bioversity decline that came out before COP2021. But walking in the drizzling rain on the Open Farm Day walk, I felt buoyed up by an unexpected sense of hope. Here we were, in the midst of a vibrant landscape nurtured by a farmer whose deep love for the place and growing knowledge of its needs inform his farming practices. Species declining elsewhere are still present here and increasing in number – the hare, the curlew, and the skylark – and species new to the farm are arriving. With a newfound optimism, I thought of how the pond is providing a haven for passing waterfowl; how the Highland cattle on the hill are disturbing the ground, making new habitats for invertebrates and encouraging the growth of rare plants; and how the restored hedges are providing shelter for overwintering birds and shade for the livestock in summer. There’s a strong sense here of how the land is gradually recovering its health and how we in turn might heal our relationship with it.

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Pippa Marland

Excerpts from the interview with Hywel Morgan are quoted here with his kind consent.

This blog is written by Pen and Plough researcher Dr Pippa Marland and is based on her interview with Hywel Morgan (https://thepenandtheplough.wordpress.com/2022/05/17/an-interview-with-nature-friendly-farmer-hywel-morgan-pippa-marland/) and published with his permission. Illustrations by Katie Marland. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Pippa Marland. View the original blog.

Katie Marland is an artist and illustrator based between Bristol and London, where she recently completed her masters at the Royal Drawing School. Her practice is research-led, working from esoteric texts, medical history, museum collections and from close observation of the natural world. Her work can be found on her website, on instagram @kmarlandart, and on twitter @kmarlandart.

[i] Additional information about the stories of the Lady of Lake and the Physcians of Myddfai is drawn from Terry Breverton’s (2012) The Physicians of Myddfai: Cures and Remedies of the Mediaeval World (Carmarthenshire: Cambrian Books).

IPCC blog series – Working Group 3 – Mitigation of climate change

Posted on by janet.crompton

This blog is part of a series on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent 6th Assessment Report, with this post covering the output of Working Group III and the proposed solutions and mitigations for the climate crisis. This article also features a chat with IPCC Lead Author Dr Jo House and contributor Viola Heinrich, researchers at the University of Bristol and Cabot Institute for the Environment. 

Of the three Working Groups, the third makes for the most positive reading. As the title suggests, this one is all about the mitigation of climate change and preventing the disastrous climate futures explained by Working Groups I and II. Whilst remaining focussed on the impending nature of the climate crisis, this report spells out that we have the solutions.

As discussed in the previous posts, massive behavioural changes are needed at government and societal levels. When I spoke to academics, they were positive that we were well past the point of whether climate change is real or has an impact on humanity and that economically minded leaders are starting to see the benefits of sustainable practice and the economic security it brings. Governments and states are listening and looking at policy to mitigate the crisis.

Let’s look at some of the solutions and mitigations proposed:

The quicker we act, the less economic impact

This follows on nicely from previous reports that stated the effects of warming increase with each incremental global average temperature increase. That is to say, a +1.5 degrees C future will see less devastation than a +2 degrees C or even a +1.7 degrees C rise in temperature. Such disasters (drought, extreme weather, flooding) require huge amounts of money resources to sort out. From an economic security point of view, it makes complete sense to act with great urgency. The climate crisis is already here, and therefore already having an economic impact. Action immediately will mitigate against the future potential costs of a climate disaster.

Relative to the economic impact of climate disaster in the future, the investment of reducing the impact of the crisis and securing a liveable planet is small.

The immediate reduction of fossil fuel production and limitation of greenhouse gases in the pursuit of Net Zero

As discussed before, the greatest culprit of the climate crisis is unequivocally greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuels. Therefore, in an ideal world, the immediate halt of fossil fuel extraction, production and consumption would be enough to prevent an overshoot +1.5 degrees C (as discussed in the first report, there is a lag between emissions and warming). Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world, so significant policy to pursue a Net-Zero will be needed.

Going further, carbon must also be removed from the atmosphere somehow, to allow the planet to return to preindustrial atmospheric carbon levels.

Carbon removal, naturally and technologically

A key aspect to the third Working Group is its arguments for carbon capture. This could be either through natural carbon removal through plants and trees, or by using carbon removal technology through direct air capture.

Carbon capture will be essential to solving the climate crisis, as carbon needs to be removed in order to return to the pre-industrial levels of atmospheric carbon. As well as this, proposed tech allows for carbon to be captured at the source of emissions. The issue is that carbon capture could lead to a dependence on the technology.

Companies, understandably, are drawn to the idea of “planting trees” to offset their emissions. It’s visible, tangible, and easy for the public to grasp. However, it’s not always the most efficient use of land and resources, and some worry that these methods will be exploited as a crutch to not reduce emissions output. While an extremely important step in mitigating climate change, some worry that there may be a resultant reliance on carbon removal over carbon emission reduction, allowing the world’s most prolific polluters to continue maintain their carbon output.

One of the most cost-effective mitigation techniques is simply the protection of existing forests and natural sites. The IPCC also stresses that decisions of protection like these must involve the input of the indigenous communities living there.

From the policy level to the personal level

It’s brilliant to be making the personal decisions to limit your own carbon impact, but individuals have limited impact on the climate system. What these reports suggest is wide reaching policy at state level to incentivise populations to make better climate conscious choices, by making things easier through improved infrastructure and methods of “demand management”, reducing the consumption of resource intensive products like meat and dairy. Diet changes at a population scale will be needed to combat the emissions of methane (another greenhouse gas) in particular.

In urban environments, investment in public transportation and cycling infrastructure would go a long way to reduce emissions. As would policy that makes retrofitting buildings to be more energy efficient and building new infrastructure with energy efficiency in mind.

For a great bit of further reading, the IPCC Special report on Climate Change and Land goes into much further detail about the impact of changing diets and consumption habits at scale.

Read the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land

As previously discussed in the blog post on the WGII report, the impacts of climate change are not equal or in proportion to climate impact of the nation affected. Therefore, much of the mitigation will need to take the form of humanitarian aid, improving infrastructure for nations without the resources to do so themselves.

The IPCC reports end on a poignant note: “International cooperation is a critical enabler for achieving ambitious climate change mitigation goals”.

Insight from IPCC Lead Author Dr Jo House and contributor Viola Heinrich

Dr Jo House

Dr Jo House is Reader in Environmental Science and Policy, Research Lead of Cabot Institute for the Environment’s Environmental Change theme and a Lead Author on the IPCC’s AR6 Working Group III report.

Viola Heinrich is a Physical Geography PhD Candidate at the University of Bristol, studying the emissions and climate mitigation potential within the land use sector in the tropics, especially the Brazilian Amazon. Viola assisted Dr House in her AR6 work, producing figures for WG III.

How did you get involved with the IPCC and WGIII?

Dr Jo House – “I have been working on IPCC reports for 20 years. I was first employed as a chapter scientist to support the chapter team for working group I, 3rd assessment report carbon cycle chapter. I was then made a lead author for the synthesis report for AR3. Since then, I have been a lead author or contributing author on all three Working Groups, as well a lead author for the Special Report on Climate Change and Land. I am also a lead author twice for the IPCC Task Force on Inventories, who provide methodological guidance to countries on how to produce their greenhouse gas inventories, for reporting to the UNFCCC, as well as accounting under the Kyoto Protocol.

Viola Heinrich

Despite the long hours and the many thousands of comments we must respond to, I do IPCC because I care about climate change, and IPCC gets the science into the hands of people who can do something about it.”

Viola Heinrich – “I’m a PhD student working on understanding the emissions and climate mitigation potential within the land use sector in the tropics, especially the Brazilian Amazon. Jo, as my supervisor, approached me in 2019 to help produce some figures for her work on AR6 and WGIII.

It was a great learning experience seeing how these report cycles work and one bonus was that the work I produced for the IPCC reports was able used in the introduction to my PhD thesis”

What’s one key message you’d like to highlight from WGIII?

Dr Jo House – “We are nearly already too late to stay within 2 degrees, so we need to reduce fossil fuels usage drastically and rapidly to avoid even worse impacts.

Also specifically from a land perspective: The land has potential for mitigation, but it cannot do it all, planting trees is not a get out of jail free card for continuing to burn fossil fuels.”

Viola Heinrich – “This report has followed nicely on form previous cycles in that it has reaffirmed what we know about the land use component and the mitigation potential of the land use sector (20% to 30% by 2050). The big caveat of course is that the land can’t do it all and we need to be actively reducing emissions rather than relying in capture methods from trees for example.

Another interesting factor about the report is that it stresses the importance of considering the local communities in places where solutions and mitigations take place, seeking their expertise in protection, and understanding how these actions will affect them.”

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As always, we recommend taking a look at the IPCC’s full reports and report summaries for yourself if you seek to further understand the evidence and reasoning behind their headline statements.

That wraps up the blog series, I hope that it was enjoyable and informative.

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This blog series was written by Cabot Communications Assistant Andy Lyford, an MScR Student studying Paleoclimates and Climate modelling on the Cabot Institute’s Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at the University of Bristol.

Andy Lyford

 

 

Foodie for thought

Posted on by janet.crompton

Have you ever wondered how the food you eat impacts climate change? There are all sorts of discussions around energy, transport, green tech, that famous 1.5 ℃, the IPCC… but there is a significantly unspoken polluter that is part of our daily lives, and without which, ironically, we could not live: the food industry. The food industry is one of the biggest contributors to climate change and biodiversity loss, yet food systems have not been given much thought until recently, somehow it was always thought that food “just happens”.

How many of us, when shopping at the supermarket, really think about where everything that is there, nicely placed on the shelves and aisles, comes from? Who packaged your apples? Who flew your avocados from Brazil? Who harvested those avocados from Brazil and how much were they paid? How old was that cow that some factory milked, and who bottled the milk? What is the footprint of that bottle? How much space do cows take? How much soya do they need to grow? How much do cows emit? We could go on forever, but the reality is that not many people really ask those questions at the supermarket, for some, as I said, food happens.

And I feel obliged here to open a short bracket to say that, of course, in reality there will be people who are not even able to ask those questions because it is not their priority. There are often bigger problems in our lives we have to deal with, and it would be unreasonable to ask people who, for example, are struggling to make ends meet to think about what they buy. But on the other hand that is also the point. We have made it incredibly difficult and almost a privilege for people to be able to reflect on their food. So returning to my initial point, how could we blame anyone for not asking all those questions, when we have become so detached from those very people who produce our food, and those places where food is grown?

With food systems becoming ever more complex and globalised, individuals started to lose touch with the reality behind the curtains. We no longer ask the farmer; we ask the label, but how much can a label tell us about what we are buying? Unfortunately, big corporations can often hide behind labels, something that we now call “green-washing”, a fancy word for misleading (and often false) advertising that creates nothing but confusion among consumers, making them believe that they are making a conscious and environmentally friendly choice, when they are not.

One of the biggest controversies in the past few years was around the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) “Certified Sustainable Seafood” label (that blue tick on tuna cans and other fish sold in supermarkets), which was criticised for setting a very low bar for fisheries to be certified as sustainable, and for its lack of on-site controls and checks. So not only the label allegedly does not guarantee that all efforts have been made to avoid bycatch and seabed damage, but also the fact that fisheries buy the certification from the MSC is for many something that undermines its credibility.

So how can consumers navigate all this information? It would be impossible for people to be able to assess the credibility of every label, stamp, tick on their food, but also unreasonable. The lack of transparency in the food system we are locked-in is a massive flaw, and labels, the way they are handed out now, are not a solution.

There has been much talk about reconnecting with our producers through smaller supply chains, and the idea of buying from their local farmers is something that many probably dream of. How nice would it be to just go to the local market, like the good old days, and buy fresh fruit, vegetables, fresh meat, fresh eggs… all sorts of delicious, good food? It would be great, yes, but probably a utopia for a long time still. Just think of Bristol, a great city with plenty of good food and farmers, a city that has been recognised for its efforts towards a better food system, yet in 2021 about 6.5% of the local population suffered from hunger and 12% struggled to access food. How is this happening in a city so rich of diverse cuisines?

There are many factors that contribute to the rise of food insecurity in Bristol. Covid-19 and the rise in cost of living are maybe the most obvious and recent factors, but generally any inequality can be linked back to poverty and lack of accessibility (which shockingly is a big problem in Bristol). But aside from all of these, something that has an impact on food systems (much more than what many would think) is culture. Systems are ultimately the result of our own ways of doing, ingrained in practice and often locked in, and our ways of doing are inevitably linked to our culture. Now I will not spend time telling you about the history of our food systems and British food culture, because, as a matter of fact, my point is somewhere else. However, in the past few years we have seen the so-called “foodie culture” emerge.

Being a foodie in the simplest terms means that you care about food and are interested about what you eat and where it comes from, which, don’t get me wrong, it is great! Because these people are probably asking those questions that I mentioned at the beginning. However, the problem is that foodie culture has become a very much elitist trend, and with food becoming more and more trendy and catered for foodies, it has now become acceptable to charge stratospheric prices for a burger and chips because the potatoes are organic. Satire aside, it is true, the quality of products should be valued more, and of course products that are produced more sustainably cost more; but this also means that we are telling people who cannot afford to spend more than a certain amount on a good burger with chips that they cannot eat good food.

The fundamental issue of foodie culture is that it has become a trend to eat “fancy” food, which gives businesses the power to price things up, in a way that it becomes exclusionary for people who do not have the privilege of being able to “treat themselves”, and this creates more division. Unfortunately, foodie culture goes hand in hand with a very much criticised characteristic of environmentalism and sustainable living, which is that it is predominantly a (white) middle-class prerogative. Being able to afford to think about sustainability is a privilege, and of course those who are in such fortunate position have the responsibility to act upon it, but what we should not forget is that indeed we are in a position that many could only envy.

There is no way we can create a better and more transparent food system, where people are connected and aware, if all these inequalities still exist. We cannot have a better food system when we live in a cultural setting that leaves half of the population behind, which is perhaps the main message I want to convey. If you have read this far, I hope you will give more thought to what your standpoint and your privileges are. I do wish I had the answers to all these problems I laid out, but there is only so much one can do in a one-year research programme!

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Sonia Pighini, currently researching people-centred sustainable food system transitions on the Cabot Institute’s Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at the University of Bristol.

How ancient plants ‘learnt’ to use water when they moved on to land – new research

Posted on by janet.crompton
Focal point/Shutterstock

“Plants, whether they are enormous, or microscopic, are the basis of all life including ourselves.” This was David Attenborough’s introduction to The Green Planet, the latest BBC natural history series.

Over the last 500 million years, plants have become interwoven into every aspect of our lives. Plants support all other life on Earth today. They provide the oxygen people breathe, as well as cleaning the air and cooling the Earth’s temperature. But without water, plants would not survive. Originally found in aquatic environments, there are estimated to be around 500,000 land plant species that emerged from a single ancestor that floated through the water.

In our recent paper, published in New Phytologist, we investigate, at the genetic level, how plants have learnt to use and manipulate water – from the first tiny moss-like plants to live on land in the Cambrian period (around 500 million years ago) through to the giant trees forming complex forest ecosystems of today.

How plants evolved

By comparing more than 500 genomes (an organism’s DNA), our results show that different parts of plant anatomies involved in the transport of water – pores (stomata), vascular tissue, roots – were linked to different methods of gene evolution. This is important because it tells us how and why plants have evolved at distinct moments in their history.

Plants’ relationship with water has changed dramatically over the last 500 million years. Ancestors of land plants had a very limited ability to regulate water but descendants of land plants have adapted to live in drier environments. When plants first colonised land, they needed a new way to access nutrients and water without being immersed in it. The next challenge was to increase in size and stature. Eventually, plants evolved to live in arid environments such as deserts. The evolution of these genes was crucial for enabling plants to survive, but how did they help plants first adapt and then thrive on land?

Stomata, the minute pores in the surface of leaves and stems, open to allow the uptake of carbon dioxide and close to minimise water loss. Our study found that the genes involved in the development of stomata were in the first land plants. This indicates that the first land plants had the genetic tools to build stomata, a key adaptation for life on land.

The speed in which stomata respond varies between species. For example, the stomata of a daisy close more quickly than those of a fern. Our study suggests that the stomata of the first land plants did close but this ability speeded up over time thanks to gene duplication as species reproduced. Gene duplication leads to two copies of a gene, allowing one of these to carry out its original function and the other to evolve a new function. With these new genes, the stomata of plants that grow from seeds (rather reproducing via spores) were able to close and open faster, enabling them to be more adaptable to environmental conditions.

Images of a plant's stomata, open and closed.
Shutterstock

Old genes and new tricks

Vascular tissue is a plant’s plumbing system, enabling it to transport water internally and grow in size and stature. If you have ever seen the rings of a chopped tree, this is the remnants of the growth of vascular tissue.

We found that rather than evolving by new genes, vascular tissue emerged through a process of genetic tinkering. Here, old genes were repurposed to gain new functions. This shows that evolution does not always occur with new genes but that old genes can learn new tricks.

Before the move to land, plants were found in freshwater and marine habitats, such as the algal group Spirogyra. They floated and absorbed the water around them. The evolution of roots enabled plants to access water from deeper in the soil as well as providing anchorage. We found that a few key new genes emerged in the ancestor of plants that live on land and plants with seeds, corresponding to the development of root hairs and roots. This shows the importance of a complex rooting system, allowing ancient plants to access previously unavailable water.

A dam floor cracked by lack of water.
Hot weather and climate changes left this Bulgarian dam almost empty in 2021.
Minko Peev/Shutterstock

The development of these features at every major step in the history of plants highlights the importance of water as a driver of plant evolution. Our analyses shed new light on the genetic basis of the greening of the planet, highlighting the different methods of gene evolution in the diversification of the plant kingdom.

Planting for the future

As well as helping us make sense of the past, this work is important for the future. By understanding how plants have evolved, we can begin to understand the limiting factors for their growth. If researchers can identify the function of these key genes, they can begin to improve water use and drought resilience in crop species. This has particular importance for food security.

Plants may also hold the key to solving some of the most pressing questions facing humanity, such as reducing our reliance on chemical fertilisers, improving the sustainability of our food and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

By identifying the mechanisms controlling plant growth, researchers can begin to develop more resilient, efficient crop species. These crops would require less space, water and nutrients and would be more sustainable and reliable. With nature in decline, it is vital to find ways to live more harmoniously in our green planet.The Conversation

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This blog has been written by Alexander Bowles, research associate, University of Bristol.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Alexander Bowles

 

 

#CabotNext10 Spotlight on Food Security

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Dr Taro Takahashi and Dr Vicky Jones

In conversation with Dr Taro Takahashi, Theme Leader, and Dr Vicky Jones, Development Associate at the Cabot Institute

Why did you choose to become a theme leader at Cabot Institute?

T.T: While working for Cabot in my previous role (Director for the Cabot Master’s programme), I saw first-hand the breadth of food-related research across the university. This made me wonder — wouldn’t it be rewarding to work more with these talented colleagues and help develop a research community that can transform the agri-food landscape in Bristol and beyond?

In your opinion, what is one of the biggest global challenges associated with your theme?

V.J: The biggest and very broad challenge is how to feed a growing population sustainably. We know that the food system is a major driver of climate change through changes in land use and production of greenhouse gases – as well as the depletion of freshwater resources and pollution of ecosystems. To meet the targets set in the Paris Agreement it is simply not possible to continue as we are. Yet our population is growing, with some estimates that we will need to produce more food in the next 35 years that we have ever produced in human history.

In addition, environmental degradation such as soil degradation, freshwater availability and biodiversity loss seriously threaten our ability to produce the food we require. And increased levels of CO2 reduce the nutritional content of some food products. Whilst extreme weather conditions, worsened by climate change, such as heatwaves and floods can significantly impact food availability.

And finally, there are extreme inequalities in the food system, both within the UK and globally. One in three people across the world currently suffer from malnutrition of some form whilst more than half the population are either overweight or obese.

T.T: 100% agree with Vicky. We need to identify the best way to make this transition happen while impacting on people’s livelihood and happiness as little as possible.

As we are looking into the future, what longer term projects are there in your theme?

T.T: We would like to make a better use of the University of Bristol campus — a community of 30,000 people — as a testbed for interventions. We cover both the most upstream points (Fenswood and Wyndhurst Farms) and the most downstream points (Source Cafes, Source Bars and residence canteens) of agri-food supply on campus so there are hundreds of strategies we can try to make the system more sustainable. As an additional bonus, quantifying these improvements may also make us prouder to be part of the University of Bristol family, including those who don’t directly work in this area. To realise these goals, we are now trying to work much more closely with the operational departments in the university, and in particular Catering, Sustainability and Estates. And the level of commitment they show to agri-food sustainability has just been amazing.

V.J: Here are long-term activities and projects that might be of interest: Living Laboratory, High Yield Farming, Working for ‘five a day’, and CONNECTED.

Across the portfolio of projects in your theme, what type of institutions are you working with?

T.T: Upstream we mainly work with local farmers, National Farmers’ Union, Defra as well as seed and agrochemical companies. Downstream we primarily work with retailers and consumer groups, both directly and through the Bristol Food Network. In addition, the Bristol City Council is an extremely important partner whose advice on our theme has been invaluable.

What disciplines are currently represented within your theme?

V.J: There are 135 people that are currently members of the Food theme from the following disciplines:

Geography, Civil Engineering, Policy Studies, Chemistry, Sociology, politics and international studies, Earth sciences, History, Biological sciences, English, Vet School, Physics, Management, Psychology, Anthropology, Law… but this number is always growing!

In your opinion, why is it important to highlight interdisciplinary research both in general and here at Bristol?

T.T: In the context of food research, my top answer would be because otherwise ‘solutions’ to agri-food sustainability are often infeasible. For example, I often speak with livestock producers, who as you know are associated with a large amount of greenhouse emissions, and one of the remarks I most frequently hear from them is that they don’t know what to do with the definition of ‘new sustainable diets’ that are reported in the media. I mean, you are a grassland farmer in a high rainfall area who is now told that lentils are better — but it’s not like you can strip off the grass and grow lentils profitably overnight. So any new proposal made downstream must be accompanied by technologies upstream, including both the farm and food processors. Equally, any new proposal made upstream must be accompanied by consumer demand; otherwise, the market price would not support the transition. This cannot be done unless you have an interdisciplinary team that is committed to real-world solutions.

Are there any projects which are currently underway in your theme which are interdisciplinary that you believe should be highlighted in this campaign?

V.J: An interesting project that is currently running is titled “Could disappearing glaciers threaten regional food security?”. This is combining history with glaciology and social science. Another is a partnership with Bristol based start-up LettUs Grow which is focused on vertical farming.

For more information, visit our theme web page – Food Security.

Who’s at the table? Priorities after a year of food justice dialogue

Posted on by janet.crompton

Defining ‘Food Justice’ is not easy. When it comes to ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’ in relation to our food system, should we be concerned with questions of individual citizens’ access to sustainable sources of subsistence, or issues of production, labour and the practices of agri-business? Do people have clear rights to food? And should such rights focus on quantity alone, or take account of the quality and nature of food? Furthermore, when defining ‘food justice’ should we be primarily concerned with human rights, or are we dealing with complex systems that oblige us to think about non-human persons and actors, including animals and the environment? Whatever our responses to these questions might be, it seems clear that thinking about climate change cannot ignore either food or justice.

An artistic collaboration is stimulating discussion about who is at the table in (un)just food systems.

Over the last year, we have established the Bristol Researchers Food Justice Network. Primarily, this has been through setting up a regular fortnightly seminar series, a workshop exploring the core purpose, values and potential for the Network, and an artistic collaboration to experiment with interactive ways of thinking about the food system and food justice. As it moves into its second year, we reflect on some of the key themes discussed so far. Recent models suggest that policy decisions that focus on climate alone will likely result in rapid growth in social inequalities, including and especially in the global food system. As we focus on questions of environmental sustainability and climate change in the light of the Cop-26 conference, some key food justice issues come to mind:

1. The way that we see food justice is systemic, equally as environmental as it is social

Every part of the food system is connected. Problems with diet are not disconnected to labour force, or price of food, or access to land, or environmentally sustainable farming. It is possible to have a food justice perspective towards understanding food systems. This involves seeing and considering people and other beings everywhere in the system and their being recognised as having an inherent value, with such value not being cheapened in the name of economic cost.

What clearly emerged from the network workshop, which involved researchers from vets to social scientists, historians and lawyers, was that we valued word and concept of ‘justice’ because it captures the common understanding that we are committed to change where we see injustice. While many network members understand food interactions as part of a ‘food system’, the concept of justice helps us maintain a critical and action-led approach where we see problems in those food systems.

2. Justice in food systems is bound up with structures of trade and foreign policy agendas

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Britain has largely relied on food imports, a model which has today become normalised. For many, changing this model is fundamental to building a more sustainable food system. But this cannot be a choice between either climate or society Recent government initiatives promise radical new directions in agriculture policy but keep this trade-centred model intact. Thus, the UK is determined to get farmers away from food subsidies, having committed to end direct payments by 2027. This would turn farmers into environmental stewards whilst offshoring the production of food elsewhere. Moreover, trade deals can increasingly be seen to trade away local and national food production in favour of other priorities, something that the network held a ‘policy hack’ discussion about following the approval of the UK-Australian Free Trade deal in June 2021.

Lauren explores how the table at the heart of the artistic collaboration is supported and wired together.

3. The Dutch model alone cannot save the world

Many models for the future of farming, food supply and food consumption, focus on technical solutions. Accounts of the ‘miracle’ of Dutch agriculture, for example, cite the emphasis on the investment in research and innovation that have underpinned the country’s apparent success in agricultural research and development. But what are the social implications of technological solutions – and what if we end up sacrificing quality for efficiency?

Will research led by agri-food corporations underpin a genuine revolution in global food production, or create intellectual property that marginalises small-scale and community-centred farming enterprises in ecologically-vulnerable territories in the Global South? Some agri-tech policies pioneered by countries such as the Netherlands – such as responsible antibiotic use – are to be lauded, but if these are pursued in the service of intensive agriculture, real problems remain.

4. Consumers are key to change – but we need to do more than blame and shame

As individual consumers, we all have a role to play in transforming the food system; but individualising systemic problems simply places the onus on the consumer in ways that often inhibit radical action. Moreover, as recent polling suggests, individuals are reluctant to embrace environmental actions – such as reducing meat consumption – that have the greatest impact on their own lives.

The choices we make certainly matter, but the notion of ‘choice’ is in many cases an illusory, erroneous and pernicious concept. In effect, consumers  are presented as ‘both the cause and the solution to potential health problems and thus are made to be accountable for their own health.’ This is especially true when we consider questions of poverty and its relation with obesity and other diet-based non-communicable disease. The idea that consumers, by choosing to consume ‘ethically’, ‘sustainably’ or ‘healthily’ can on their own resolve social and environmental deep-seated problems. Policies that place the responsibility for making healthy, ethical and sustainable food choices on individuals fail to address the contexts in which individuals and families live and work.

5. Agriculture and the people within it are being consistently undervalued, around the world

The current food system involves at least 1.1 billion people working in agriculture, who are often among the world’s poorest people. Peasant and self-sufficient farming practices, which often involve very low carbon emitting practices are routinely undermined by large infrastructure and deforestation practices, perpetuating a cycle of the mobility of people away from the agricultural sector that does not compensate them well (including through low international prices for primary agricultural products) towards more intensive practices in the same sector, or into other types of work.

Intensive agriculture relies on a waged labour force of 300-500 million, including many who depend on jobs in plantation work, which is degrading and, in some cases, involves forced labour and modern slavery, having emerged from systems of production developed under conditions of colonial slavery, such as in sugar plantations. Meanwhile, migrant workers make up a large proportion of seasonal and harvest workers in many rich countries because they are in a weak position in the labour force and are therefore, overall, are paid lower wages and offered poorer conditions than their national counterparts. Small producers across the world attempting to live in low-impact lifestyles are usually excluded from subsidies, but often even wealthy farmers, find their land crops and livestock are undervalued. To stay in the sector people working within it are frequently pushed into other activities to diversify and supplement their livelihoods through ecotourism or other specialised initiatives drawing income from the service sector. Why isn’t there inherent value to producing food?

6. The combined challenges of climate and biodiversity crisis for agriculture must be addressed as issues of food justice

A (contested) narrative is emerging that suggests it is possible to divide the world into areas which protect nature and areas which intensively produce food but have negative environmental consequences. We are thus presented with ‘difficult choices’ premised on the belief that farming is inherently incompatible with conservation and climate change mitigation.

This is an off-setting approach which uses a logic of ecological destruction in one place to be compensated for by nature promotion/restoration in another place. However, such ‘land sparing’ approaches simply maintain the status quo and distract our attention from the root causes of a problematic food system. We should be wary of policies that further outsource food production (and environmental damage) to prioritise environmental conservation/restoration in the UK and elsewhere.

Lead artist and ceramicist, Amy Rose, considers the dynamics present at the table. The collaboration is supported by the Brigstow Institute of the University of Bristol.

These represent some of the central issues we have begun to tackle in the Food Justice Network. As researchers, we also recognise that to fully address concerns around our contemporary food system, we need processes that expand our conversation, allow everyone to tell their stories and to fully engage all our senses. Working with artists and creative practitioners has started to help us broaden and clarify our definitions of food justice and will give us opportunities to engage and interact between and beyond the boundaries of research, public knowledge, and practice.

Creative practice and public engagement can become critical tools as we address the twin challenges of climate emergency and social inequality and their radical impact on our food systems – at local, national, and global scales. Above all, an  emphasis on food justice will be imperative if we wish to develop food policies that sustain both our environmental and human futures. Our current food system embodies historical systemic inequalities that reflect the diverse legacies of colonialism, industrialization, and globalization; these must be addressed rather than amplified in our responses to the climate emergency.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute members Dr Lauren Blake, Dr Lydia Medland, and Dr Rob Skinner from “Who’s in our food?”. This blog has been reposted from the Bristow Institute blog with kind permission from the Brigstow Institute. View the original blog.

Regenerative agriculture: lessons learnt at Groundswell

Posted on by janet.crompton

Do people realise the extent to which they rely upon farming? In many other professions, such as medicine, those who enjoy good health can have years between visits to healthcare professionals. In contrast, it is hard to imagine how we could live without UK farmers. For instance, UK farmers produce 60% of all food eaten in the UK (Contributions of UK Agriculture, 2017). Despite the importance of UK farmers for our national infrastructure, there is little understanding of the web of issues facing farmers today. Drawing from our recent experiences at Groundswell, we hope to highlight some of the surprises that we discovered during our conversations with farmers, agronomists, charities, and even film producers!

Our first surprise was appreciating the complexities between agronomists and farmers. We knew from our interviews that farmers are often cautious of the advice from agronomists because some receive commission for the chemical companies they represent. In one sense, the polarisation between agronomists and farmers was exacerbated at Groundswell because many farmers who have adopted the principles of regenerative agriculture (Regen Ag) on their farms either have background expertise as agronomists themselves, or have needed to learn much of the expert of knowledge of soil and arable health required for agronomy. In this sense, many farmers invested in the principles of Regen Ag are expanding their knowledge and reducing their need to appeal to agronomists. In contrast, the majority of  farmers outside of the Regen Ag movement still depend on the knowledge and guidance of agronomists.

The problem is that the legacy of the relationship between agronomists and farmers has itself become a barrier against behaviour change. Without complete trust between agronomists and farmers agronomists are hesitant to suggest innovative changes to farming practices which may result in short term losses in yields and profits for farmers. The concern is that farmers will cease the contracts with their agronomists if their advice results in a loss in profits or even yields. We listened to many anecdotes about farmers who are worried about how the judgment from local farmers if their yields look smaller from the roadside.  The message that is difficult to convey is if you reduce your input, maintenance, and labour costs, then profitability can increase despite the reduction in yields. In short, “yields are for vanity, profits are for sanity!”

The five principles of Regen Ag are diversity, livestock integration, minimise soil disturbance, maintain living roots, and protect soil surface. Regen Ag provides simple accessible guidelines for farmers who want to adopt more sustainable practices. It offers an alternative approach to the binary division between conventional and organic farmer by encouraging farmers to make changes where possible, whilst understanding that chemical inputs on farms remain a last resort for managing soil health.

Establishing effective pathways to increase the number of farmers integrating the principles of Regen Ag is far from simple. It is not merely about increasing knowledge between farmers and agronomists, without building robust networks of trust between agronomists and farmers there is very little possibility for change. One suggestion from agronomists to help build these networks of trust was for agronomists to invest in profit shares so that there are incentives in place for both agronomists and farmers to increase the overall profitability of farms. We must recognise that any strategies for behaviour change need to account for the underlying caution toward the industry of agronomy by significant numbers of the farming community. Some agronomists consider this fundamentally as a psychological issue. Building from this perspective it seems obvious there is a space for psychologists to develop therapeutic techniques to develop and consolidate trust between farmers and agronomists. Currently many farmers and agronomists are stuck in status quo where it seems easier not to “rock the boat” on either side. The problem is that long-term this is not sustainable for various reasons.

The sustained use of chemicals alongside conventional farming practices (such as tilling) is a significant factor for reductions in soil health and soil biodiversity. In turn it creates a feedback cycle whereby larger quantities of chemical input is required to sustain yield levels, but these chemicals inadvertently create the conditions for increased antimicrobial resistance. One way to reduce chemical inputs is to adopt practices such as intercropping and crop rotation. These practices can have a number of immediate benefits including planting crops that deter pests, improving soil health, creating resilience by encouraging selective pressures between crops.

Tilling not only reduces biodiversity but it also compacts soils increasing risks associated with flooding. Public awareness has tended to focus on the increasing amount of concrete as one of the leading contributors of flash flooding. However, water retention differs significantly between different soil management systems. The rainfall simulator demonstrated how water runoff from even 2 inches of rain on cultivated soils were significantly higher than permanent pastures, no-till soils and herbal leys. Issues associated with cultivated soils such as compaction and lack of biodiversity significantly reduce water retention. The need for solutions to flash flooding are rapidly increasing given the rise in unstable and unpredictable weather system associated with climate change. The tendency to frame the solution to flash flooding solely as the need for more fields and less concrete overlooks the important relationship between soil health and water retention, which should be at the centre of flood prevention schemes. Although the number of fields is an important factor for flood prevention, we should be focusing on what’s happening in these fields – or more precisely underneath them. Encouraging robust and established root systems and soil biodiversity through co-cropping, crop rotations, and reduction in chemicals significantly increases soil retention. In this sense, there is clearly a role for farmers to adopt soil management practices that increase water retention within their farms, but these potential environmental protections from farmers need to translate into subsidies and incentives at the local and national levels.

The central message of Groundswell is that Regen Ag is providing the opportunity for farmers to build resilience both in their farms and in their communities. New technologies and avenues of funding are providing opportunities for farmers to exchange knowledge and increase their autonomy together by engaging in new collaborative ventures. Cluster farming initiatives have provided opportunities for farmers to build local support networks and identify longer-term goals and potential funding sources. The future development of resilience at these levels requires communities to support one another to encourage farmers to become indispensably rooted in communities. Some cluster farm leads are specialists offering support to farmers to help establish their long-term goals, secure funding opportunities, and increase the autonomy and security from the ground-up. In fact, there are a number of organisations seeking to support farmers by working with academics, policy makers, and industry. To name a handful of the organisations, we connected with representatives from Innovation for Agriculture, AHDB, FWAG, and Soil Heroes.

We have returned from Groundswell with a deeper appreciation of the complexity of issues that farmers are currently tackling. From navigating their complex relationships with agronomists to uncertainties about how government will account for their needs in the upcoming Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS). There is a clear sense in which farmers feel that ELMS current focus on agroforestry and rewilding creates potential obstacles to providing sufficient support for farmers in the economic and environmental uncertainties on the horizon. Regen Ag demonstrates the crucial role for farmers.

Find out more about our project on the use of fungicides in arable farming.

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This blog is written by Dr Andrew Jones, University of Exeter. Andrew works on a Cabot Institute funded project looking at understanding agricultural azole use, impacts on local water bodies and antimicrobial resistance.

Indian farmers’ strike continues in the shadow of COVID-19

Posted on by janet.crompton

In what is believed to be the biggest protest in history, in late November 2020 farmers from across India drove 200,000 trolleys and tractors towards Delhi’s borders in a mass protest against agricultural reforms. This was followed a few days later by a general strike involving 250 million people in both urban and rural areas of India as workers joined together to support the farmers.

The strike continues, despite the global public health crisis, which is hitting India harder than any other country in the world. Fear of COVID-19 has not deterred farmers, who have emphatically stated that regardless of whether they contract the virus, the “black laws” will kill them anyway.

The movement first began in the state of Punjab in June 2020, as farmers blocked freight railway lines in protest against these “black laws”, which increase corporate control over all aspects of the food chain from seed to sale. Farmers unions argue that the laws undermine state-controlled prices of key crops, by allowing sales outside of state mandis (markets).

The laws also enable corporations to control what contract farmers grow and how, thus reducing the bargaining power of small farmers. Corporations will be allowed to stockpile key produce and hence speculate with food, which was previously illegal. Finally, the laws provide legal immunity to corporations operating in “good faith”, thereby voiding the ability of citizens to hold agribusiness to account.

Braving tear gas and water cannons, thousands of farmers and their families descended on Delhi and transformed its busy roads into bustling camp cities, with communal “langhar” kitchens.

Undeterred by police violence, farmers fed these aggressors who beat them by day with free food by night. This act of community service not only underscored the peaceful intentions of the protests but also encapsulated one of the key ideas of the movement: “no farmers, no food”.

In the same spirit of solidarity, farmers at Delhi’s borders are responding to the rapidly escalating spread of COVID-19 in the city. They are distributing food packages and essential goods to hospitals, as well as in bus and railway stations for those leaving the capital.

Striking farmers have been supplying food to hospitals and other people in need during the COVID-19 emergency in India. Credit: EPA-EFE/STR. Source.

Farmers from numerous states, of all castes and religions, are coexisting and growing the protest movement from the soil upwards – literally, turning trenches into vegetable gardens. Many farmers refer to this movement as “andolan” – a revolution – where alliances are being forged between landless farm labourers and smallholder farmers. In a country deeply divided by caste and – increasingly – religion, this coming together around land, soil and food has powerful potential.

Women have also taken leading roles, as they push for recognition as farmers in their own right. They are exploring the intersections of caste oppression, gendered labour and sexual violence in person and in publications such as Karti Dharti – a women-led magazine sharing stories and voices from the movement.

Violent response

Despite the largely peaceful protests, farmers have been met with state repression and violence. At various points water supplies have been cut to the protest sites and internet services blocked. Undeterred, farmers have prepared the camp sites for the scorching summer heat that now envelops them.

Amnesty international has called on the Indian government to “stop escalating crackdown on protesters, farm leaders and journalists”. Eight media workers have been charged with sedition, while 100 people protesters have disappeared. In response, parliaments around the world have issued statements and debates on the right to peaceful protest in India, as well as a free and open press.

Women have been key players in the Indian farmers’ strike. EPA-EFE/Harish Tyagi. Source.

The heavy-handed government response and intransigence to the key demands of the movement adds grave doubt for farmers who are now being asked to disband protest sites in the interest of public health. It highlights the hypocrisy of being told to go home, while the ruling BJP was holding mass rallies in West Bengal.

The fear is that COVID-19 could derail the momentum of this movement, as with the protests around the Citizen Amendment Act, which were cleared in March 2020 due to enforced lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. Farmers repeat that they will leave as soon as the government repeals the laws and protects the minimum support price of key crops.

There has been a groundswell of support from around the globe, from peasant movements, the Indian diaspora community and celebrities – including Rihanna and climate activist Greta Thunberg. This movement is fighting for the principles of democracy on which the Indian state was founded and is part of a civil society movement filling in for the state, which has been found sorely wanting in its response to the calamitous consequences of COVID-19.

The “black laws” are but the latest in a long history of struggle faced by Indian farmers. India’s sprawling fields have been sites of “green revolution” experimentation since the 1960s. This has worsened water scarcity, reduced crop genetic diversity, damaged biodiversity, eroded and depleted soils, all of which has reduced soil fertility.

The financial burden of costly inputs and failing crops has fallen on farmers, leading to spiralling debts and farmer suicides. The impacts of climate change and ecologically destructive farming are primary reasons for this financial duress. However, the movement has yet to deeply address the challenges of transitioning towards socioeconomically just, climate-friendly agriculture.

Peasant movements around the world highlight the importance of collective spaces and knowledge-sharing between small farmers. The campsites in Delhi provide a unique opportunity to link socioeconomic farming struggles to their deep ecological roots. These are indeed difficult discussions, but the kisaan (farmer) movement has provided spaces to challenge caste, religious and gender-based oppression.

The movement’s strength is its broad alliances and solidarity, but it remains unclear whether it will link palpable socioeconomic injustices to environmental injustices and rights. The ecological origins of COVID-19 make these connections ever more pressing the world over.The Conversation

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Jaskiran Kaur Chohan, at the University of Bristol Vet School. Jaskiran is a political ecologist with an interdisciplinary background in the Social Sciences.

Dr Jaskiran Kaur Chohan

 

The perfect storm: Environmentally and socially unsustainable seafood supply chains

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Seafood supply chains sustain three billion people nutritionally and also provide 10% of the world’s population with employment, the vast majority of whom are small-scale fisher-people. Seafood provides access to safe protein for many of the world’s most economically marginalised people but these supply chains are not sustainable in their current form. 90% of global fish stocks are either fully fished or overfished and numerous species are becoming endangered, for example: bluefin tuna.

 

 

Seafood supply chains are also blighted by many of the same problems explored in our previous blogs on terrestrial food production, such as inequality, waste and poor governance. They are also marred by illegal fishing, fraud and modern slavery, with international crime organisations being key players in the industry. It is estimated that there is a one in five chance that when we buy seafood it has been illegally caught. This robs local fishing communities of their livelihoods and their food. Fraud is a key strategy for moving this illegally caught seafood through the supply chain to the consumer. For example, Russian waters are drained by illegal fishing operations and the seafood is processed in China so its provenance is hidden. In the worst cases, illegal fishing is even mislabelled as being responsibly sourced.

 

As fish stocks become depleted, fishing vessels need to travel further from the coast in search of fish. This, combined with the high levels of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing within the industry create ideal conditions for modern slavery. Forced labour and human trafficking are well-documented in the tuna fisheries of the Pacific but despite this, only 4 of the 35 leading tuna brands conduct due diligence on modern slavery within their supply chains. Violence against fisher people working in the Pacific is similarly well documented, with human rights abuses including beatings and murder, with dead bodies being thrown into the ocean.

While it is tempting to believe that technofixes, like blockchain, will save the ocean and the people who depend upon it, more fundamental change is required. But as so often with our food supply chains, the answers are as elusive as they are obvious. We need to return to local, community-based supply chains if the ocean is to continue to sustain a growing world population. COVID-19’s impact on business as usual in this sector has provided a fertile ground for some community seafood systems to emerge in places like North America. Unfortunately however, the governance required to end IUU fishing, overfishing and destructive fishing practices, such as the use of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs), would require a level of international cooperation that appears beyond our world’s current leaders.

If we continue along our current path, more people globally will need alternatives to wild fish, such as farmed fish (aquaculture) and other potentially unsafe alternatives. Farmed fish is the fastest growing area of food production in the world and while it is presented as a sustainable alternative to wild fish, it is far from the panacea it may seem. Farmed fish are dependent on feed made from the very wild fish they are meant to replace and the poor conditions in which they are kept leave them vulnerable to disease and parasites, such as the sea lice infecting farmed salmon. Farmed seafood can have high levels of antibiotics, which may lead to antibiotic resistance, one of the greatest threats to human health today.

For the poorest people of the world that cannot afford farmed seafood, a glimpse of a possible future can be seen in West Africa. Subsidised large fishing vessels from the European Union have moved to the waters off West Africa and have depleted the fish stocks there. Seafood is the largest source of protein in West Africa and as fish stocks become depleted increased consumption of bushmeat is necessary. Eating certain wildlife is not only a driver of biodiversity loss but can be also be a source of zoonotic diseases, such as Ebola and coronavirus. More of us are starting to become aware that our own health depends on the health of the planet and that food supply chains can no longer be considered independently of planetary health.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Lucy McCarthy and Lee Matthews and Anne Touboulic from the University of Nottingham Future Food Beacon. This blog post first appeared on the University of Nottingham Future Food Beacon blog. View the original blog.

Dr Lucy McCarthy

Read the other blogs in this series:

Global trading: the good, the bad and the essential

Posted on by janet.crompton

In our last post, we began our journey considering food supply chains in times of pandemic and we touched upon their history. Here, we further consider some of the flaws in our globalised food systems and the historical trading patterns upon which they are based, which have remained largely unquestioned for centuries. Food is essential but the way consumer demands have shaped our food systems through overproduction and consumption is not.

We find ourselves dependent on socially unequitable and environmentally degrading global supply chains. Not all supply chains are created equal and there is no denying that in this crisis we need to pull together to meet ventilator demand and that staying global could be vital. Yet when it comes to food supply chains we need to think differently. How did we get to system where a banana costs 15p? And why do those who labour the most receive the least?

Source: Fairtrade Foundation 2014; Banana Link 2015

The figure below shows how small-scale farmers and workers have been squeezed within food value chains in the last 24 years

Source: Oxfam Ripe for Change report, 2018 p. 18
Despite this clear inequality, we often justify these practices and prices to ourselves by considering them outside their context, disregarding their very real costs. Economically, these inequalities are justified by ‘free trade’. Socially, we like to think that our consumption provides jobs. As Unilever describes it, by purchasing their products, they ‘feed the farmers that feed us’. We are creating jobs, but what do we say to the 8 year olds that are picking our cocoa? Environmentally, our consumption patterns in the global North are changing the landscape for food producers globally. For instance, coffee growers are finding it increasingly difficult to grow their crops as global temperatures fluctuate. Those who can, move to find the ‘right’ conditions, those who cannot experience the first wave of climate apartheid and poverty.

Poverty is both a macro-economic and a micro-economic problem. Poverty in ‘developing’ countries cannot be understood without reference to the global political economy that is controlled by ‘developed’ countries. The exploitative relationship between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries is a major driver of poverty and hazard for the people of the ‘developing’ countries. The global supply chains of multinational companies are often the mechanisms through which this exploitation is organised. Our quests for new foods and superfoods, such as quinoa, has priced these developing nations out of their own staples.

Surely though, it must be better for local food producers in the UK? But increasingly, only large-scale producers are able to compete. And despite Brexit, and the push for local people doing local jobs, we are lacking essential food workers. This pandemic has highlighted our shortage of ‘local’ people to do manual jobs and the likelihood is we will once again have to import workers to do this essential work – we are even having to turn to volunteers for this essential work. And this isn’t unique to the UK. The French government, for example, has officially called upon unemployed people to join the “army of agriculture” to feed the nation.

UK farmers are no strangers to exploitation either

Now, more than ever, is the time to reflect on our consumption patterns and think about what we are eating. We need to consider the real cost of food, and as food poverty spreads, we call for more inclusionary food systems for all, which we believe will help us to avoid future pandemics.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Lucy McCarthy and Lee Matthews and Anne Touboulic from the University of Nottingham Future Food Beacon. This blog post first appeared on the University of Nottingham Future Food Beacon blog. View the original blog.

Dr Lucy McCarthy

 

 

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