Category: Food Security

Global food supply chains in times of pandemic

Posted on by janet.crompton

The public health crisis unfolding before us is unprecedented, unimaginable and catastrophic. It will profoundly impact our values and lifestyles as it exposes the implications of national austerity measures on public services and the precariousness of our globalised production and consumption systems. Food supply chains are no exception. Public awareness of the interconnectedness our food supply chains has soared in recent weeks; despite being largely disregarded throughout Brexit debates. It is imperative we interrogate the global connections that our food supply chains rely upon and create, especially as the current global pandemic is but one of the threats to humanity as we know it.

The “globalisation” of food is not a new phenomenon and our global food supply chains have their roots in historical trading patterns. These trading patterns and our organisation of global food chains can be understood from the perspective of traditional (and flawed) economic models that underpin capitalism and are a product of colonial history.

Whilst this legacy must be challenged, one must recognise that the mass availability of food and spread of food culture emerged from this global food system and the advent of the supermarket model in the 20th Century. In fact, we take for granted that we can consume anything, anytime and cheaply. The average consumer has little to no sense of seasonality or the real value of food. The socio-environmental costs – but also the economic ones to the least powerful players (e.g. growers/small-scale producers) – are seldom considered as our choices and lifestyles seem resolute.

Yet as COVID-19 spreads and supermarket shelves are left empty, the fragility and unsustainability of global food chains is exposed. We depend on complex and extended networks to provide goods to our table. As a result of the pandemic, one can expect global freight to decrease, especially for less essential goods, leading to the slow disappearance of tropical or out-of-season fruits on UK shelves but also to impact the import of key ingredients for our manufactured food products (for instance stock cubes and soups). We must question how to transform our food system into a resilient and equitable one. Promoting local and seasonal as the new normal seems like a step in the right direction.

We must acknowledge the unsustainability of our current model as it promotes the exploitation of natural resources and people to satisfy the insatiable consumers in the global North. Some argue this is a key reason for the outbreak, as our production and consumption systems infringe on nature and other species’ natural habitats. There is increasing recognition that human health cannot be understood independently of the health of the ecosystems, this relationship is being studied in a field of science called ‘Planetary Health’. The destruction of ecosystems is leading to an increase of human exposure to previously unknown pathogens. This is being wrought through land-system change, driven by the expansion of global food systems, and the consumption of bushmeat by millions of the world’s poor who are locked out of these food systems.

Will Covid-19 bring changes to our global food systems? This seems inevitable. But only if we become more informed about how supply chains work, the distribution of power within the system, and the alternative models for change.

To understand more about supply chains, we have pulled together the following resources:

——————————-

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.

A ‘fresh’ start: Exploring the social dimensions of the food systems that supply Bristol

Posted on by janet.crompton
A chard seedling attempting to grow on Lydia’s patio garden

For many years now, I have been researching work in food production ‘out there’: beyond the reach of a day trip and in languages that are not my own. I found the Moroccan tomato so interesting that I wrote a thesis on it. Now though, I want to know what’s occurring closer to home. What of the food produced in the UK? Who is working in the fields? Who is taking the risk that the supermarkets will buy their produce or not? Who is footing the bill, personally, socially, emotionally, for keeping the food coming into cities despite Covid 19, and despite Brexit? After farm work was recognised as ‘essential’ during the pandemic, have workers gained status, or simply more health and safety challenges?

It is to these questions that I am now turning. I want to know who is working to feed Bristol and how they are getting on. More specifically, I want to know about fruit and veg; that food group that we all eat. Vegan, vegetarian, meat eater or flexitarian; we all eat some fruit and veg. Even if it is highly processed into a form with higher ‘added value’: perhaps a smoothie or the filling in a pre-prepared lasagne. What’s more, the UK government want us to eat a specific quantity: five portions a day. Scientists also estimate that if everyone in the UK ate these recommended portions, then our average carbon emissions would go down because fruit and veg have, in many (but not all) ways, a lower impact on ecosystems than other food groups.

How workers and farmers are getting on isn’t just important in its own right, but it also affects food security overall. This is particularly so in regards to exactly those foods which we need more of in this stressful, challenging climate, when it is all too easy to reach for the beer, or the chocolate or the ice cream. Not that I want to get into the business of identifying good and bad foods, they all feed us. Nevertheless, dealing with the coronavirus epidemic and the news that obesity is a major risk factor in suffering badly from the virus, brings fruit and veg into the policy arena again. In the new plan to tackle growing rates of obesity, adverts for fast food will be curtailed before 9pm and there will be a ban on ‘buy one get one free’ offers on sugary and fatty foods, with new encouragement for shops to promote fruit and vegetables. Yet while the focus is on consumers and their needs, the availability of fresh ingredients for this pro-health recipe goes unquestioned. OK, apples do grow on trees, but they must still be picked.

Some people will have seen other news stories. Of crops rotting in the fields last autumn, of seasonal workers flown to the UK from Romania and Bulgaria in the middle of a pandemic, working when everyone else is asked to stay at home. Putting their own lives at risk when white collar workers are ushered inside. More stories, of a lack of seasonal workers and of British workers signing up when for a long time such work has fallen disproportionately to migrant and European workers [1]. These stories alter as we draw back from the pandemic and its outbreaks, through Brexit, and prior to Brexit. Yet the question of who feeds us and how, at what costs and taking on what risks, remains for many of us, out of sight and out of mind.

So this is my new project, and I start this week. In my kitchen, because we’re in a pandemic and that’s where I have a garden table standing in as a desk. I do want to reach out though. So, if you are, or know a farmer or worker in this sector, please get in touch, I would love to listen to your experiences and your challenges. Or even come and see them. I’ve taken flights and chased questions about food to places that look like they will produce answers, simply through their seductive difference to my own normality. Now I am interested in the everyday difficulties in the details faced by farmers and workers in the UK. I’m not looking for heroes and villains, but simply for people who work in the food system.

To be specific, my project focuses on the conventional (not organic) side of the sector. This is simply because it feeds the majority of our country and the city I live in. That could be those who produce vegetables that end up in packaging branded with union jacks, but which otherwise, are just normal. Just simple apples, or tomatoes, or cucumbers, with lots of plastic and stickers, or none at all. I want to consider conventional scale production as close to home as possible and marvel at its successes, struggles and contradictions. Considering ONS data and recent analysis we can observe that only 1-2% of workers in the UK works in agriculture, yet nearly 50% of food consumed in the UK is produced here [2]. How is this done? At what cost? Who is helping and making sacrifices so that the apples keep coming and the carrots arrive fresh and looking perfect.

1. See, Scott, S. (2013), Labour, Migration and the Spatial Fix: Evidence from the UK Food Industry. Antipode, 45: 1090-1109. doi:10.1111/anti.12023

2. The estimate depends on the interpretation of data and could be considered as much as 60%, see, Lang, T. (2020). Feeding Britain: Our Food Problems and what to Do about Them. Pelican. p., 26

———————-

This blog was written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Lydia Medland, it was originally published on her blog Eating Research and has been re-published here with her permission.  Lydia has a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the British Academy to research food systems in the UK. 

 

Dr Lydia Medland

 

Farming in the Páramos of Boyacá: industrialisation and delimitation in Aquitania

Posted on by janet.crompton
Labourers harvest ‘cebolla larga’ onion in Aquitania. Image credit: Lauren Blake.

In October and November 2019 Caboteer Dr Lauren Blake spent time in Boyacá, Colombia, on a six-week fieldtrip to find out about key socio-environmental conflicts and the impacts on the inhabitants of the páramos, as part of the historical and cultural component of her research project, POR EL Páramo. Background information about the research can be found in the earlier blog on the project website.

Descending down the hill in the bus from El Crucero, the pungent smell of cebolla larga onion begins to invade my nose. The surrounding land transforms into plots of uniform rows of onion tops at various stages of growth, some mostly brown soil with shoots poking out along the ridges, others long, bushy and green. Sandwiched between the cloud settled atop the mountainous páramos and the vast, dark blue-green Lake Tota, all I can see and all I can smell is onion production. Sprinklers are scattered around, drawing water from the lake, and large teams of labourers every few plots harvest en-masse. Some may see this as a bucolic landscape, indeed, there are ‘ecotourism’ posters advertising ‘agroturismo’ tours to learn about cebolla larga production. However, there is a less romantic idyllic side to this industry, which Aquitania and the surrounding area depend on heavily: around 90% of Aquitanenses’ economic activity is related to the onion industry.
Approaching Aquitania, where onion cultivation start to dominate the surroundings. Image credit: Lauren Blake.
Aquitania lies at an altitude of 3,030 meters, that is, 30 meters above the supposed line where páramo land begins, according to the Humboldt Institute. As such, this intense onion cultivation would be in breach of the delimitation law (Ley 1930 of 2018) that wants to limit agricultural activities because of their damaging effects on páramo ecosystems, which are now the focus of intense conservation efforts. The area under cultivation immediately around the lake was omitted in the delimitation (around 95% of the cultivable land in the water basin is under cebolla production), perhaps due to the economic importance of the onion industry and maybe even some pressure from the influential landowners who benefit from it. Indeed, many livelihoods depend on cebolla there, so it is complicated. The fieldtrip was aimed at understanding the tensions between livelihoods and conservation at different points of the Boyacá páramos, so Aquitania was an interesting place to start.
From a viewpoint higher up in the páramos, looking down over the town of Aquitania. The cebolla production expands all around it and reaches right upto Lake Tota. Image credit: Lauren Blake.
Cultivation of cebolla larga (picture a spring onion the size of a leek, also known as cebolla junca and cebolla de rama) began in the 1960s, following the demise of wheat, barley and a range of cold-weather crops, and the encouragement for specialisation and intensification (Galli 1981, Instituto Humboldt 2014) – evidenced in the diminished local weekly market. Since then, cebolla larga farming has grown exponentially: there are approximately 1,300 hectares under onion production around Aquitania (some estimate as much as 2,500, especially when the whole municipality is counted), where upwards of 500 tonnes are harvested per day – 200,000 tonnes annually, dominating over 80% of the national market and providing cebolla larga all over Colombia. Toxicologists are worried about the use of chemical fungicides, herbicides and pesticides which growers deem essential, as well as high amounts of gallinaza (chicken manure) for fertilizer, the quantities of each which are only ever increasing as land tires, diseases and insects become resistant, and pressure on yield dominates. Scientists from the UPTC (Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia) are concerned about the toxicity of the lake, which receives the run-off, as indicated by emerging toxicology studies (Barrera, Espinosa-Ramírez and Silva 2019). Growing virtually nothing else, with year-round production and 3-4 harvests annually, Aquitania is the epicentre of the cebolla larga industry and is where producers, intermediaries and distributors are concentrated. Famous for its production, onion has come to form an integral part of the Aquitanense identity, and there are calls for Protected Designation of Origen (like champagne or roquefort cheese). In the central plaza amidst a water fountain, the most prominent feature is a statue of a man standing on top of a giant bunch of cebolla larga, harvesting tool across his shoulder, onions clutched in his hand. This proud identity is reflected again in a nearby mural depicting an image of cebolla larga alongside a statement on being Aquitanense (“Soy Cultura, Soy Ambiente, Soy Aquitanense”: “I am culture, I am environment, I am Aquitanian”).
Mural about Aquitanense identity and water fountain in the central plaza depicting onions and onion producers. Image credit: Lauren Blake.
The Aquitanenses I encountered were incredibly kind and open in sharing their lives with me. I spent time with campesinos who live above the town and benefit only marginally from onion production – with limited access to irrigation away from the lake, fewer resources to input, smaller plots of land and within the protected delimited páramos. I also spent time with jornaleros/cebolleros – day labourers who plant, weed, fumigate and harvest the crop –, and in a pelanza de cebolla – a processing operation where the onions are peeled and packed into nets of 500g and 1kg bunches, largely for direct sale in Bogotá supermarkets. The pelanza takes place in simple warehouses which employ mostly women – with male bosses and managers – who are paid by the quantity of bunches they process. The rectangular warehouse I spent time in was a closed space with a surprisingly low ceiling, one opening on the narrow side with no other windows, a few skylights for visibility, concrete block walls, corrugated fibreglass roof and dirt floor, making the conditions stuffy and dingy for the 15-20 or so workers inside. Throughout the day, the women have with them their babies and infants, who nap and play amongst piles of onions; their older children join after school. It is grubby, hard work, and it didn’t take long before my eyes and nose were irritated and streaming, with a headache lingering well into the night. I wondered if there were residues from the multiple chemical applications, and if this affected the health of the women and their children in the poorly ventilated space. They were concerned, but grateful to have work. I was full of admiration and compassion for them. They were understandably a little suspicious of me at first, but warm, curious and increasingly welcoming, especially once I had learned how to peel adequately!
A ‘pelanza’ where women process the onion ready for supermarket shelves. Image credit: Lauren Blake.
Out in the fields with the jornaleros, I imagined, or rather hoped, the open air would minimise the irritation to my sinuses, but I still felt the aroma permeate my eyes and respiratory system. The work, demanding constant bending over and, for the men, heavy lifting and carrying, is quite literally back breaking. The men are out from about 5am until late lunch, with female partners/family members joining them after taking children to school (and whenever school is closed, children help too, to learn working skills). Cebolla larga generates employment for 170 jornaleros (daily labourers) per hectare per day (Acevedo 2018) and since 89% of the land is occupied by only 20% of the population, in contrast to the 81% of land owners with less than 3 hectare plots (Albarracín 2015), most of Aquitania men are contracted on a daily basis. Hence, whilst there’s often work, there’s little security, and certainly no benefits like sick pay, healthcare, or pensions. The labour is arranged directly with men and the wage goes directly to the man, usually the day before, so whilst female family members work alongside them most of the time, they do not receive a wage. At 50,000 Colombian Pesos a day (about £10), whilst high compared to some manual labour work in Colombia, it is not well remunerated, especially when the man is accompanied by female family members (and sometimes children), which increases the amount of labour for the wage. Working 6, sometimes 7, days a week, most of the jornaleros have spent their entire lives in this work since childhood and see little difference for their future. There is an interesting tension. On the one hand, they feel “solo” (alone), with little state and welfare support, not unionised, and they see few alternatives for the rest of their lives, which can be depressing. On the other hand, they are proud, hard workers and grateful to be in a place with such reliable employment: “those who go hungry are those who do not want to work, because here we’re blessed with plenty of work” – variations of this comment were commonplace. However, it comes at a cost to the social fabric. Several interviewees reported that the rates of alcoholism, especially amongst men and linked to high levels of domestic violence, are amongst the highest in Boyacá.
Labourers load up the trucks for Bogota having harvested the onion. Image credit: Lauren Blake.
The jornaleros are concerned about their health – they know more than most how much chemical inputs are used in the onion production. However, similarly to the women in the pelanza, they are glad that the lake cultivation area is not included in the páramo delimitation, therefore meaning their livelihoods are protected. Indeed, despite being above the 3,000 meters mark, the lack of the characteristic frailejones around the lake indicate to them that they are not in páramo land, which they say is “más arriba” (further up). Having said that, the mounting environmental concerns of the production and increasing pressure to address them prompted from the delimitation debates do worry them – what employment will Aquitanenses have if the cebolla industry is restricted? The landowners and the representatives of the cebolla larga industry seem to have similar concerns and have been heavily active in their opposition to the delimitation and any environmental restrictions. NGOs and public officials in the area have reported that landowners and employers in the industry, who have had a free reign for decades, have demonised them by fuelling fears that the authorities and environmentalists want to stop the production and take away the various jobs (see also studies on socio-environmental conflicts around Aquitania such as Instituto Humboldt 2014 and Carrasco 2018).
A campesina milks her cow in the paramos above Aquitania and Lake Tota. Image credit: Lauren Blake.
In contrast to the Lake Tota industrialised economy, above the town, campesinos have been pushed further up into the páramos and pushed out of their small holdings. They try to participate in the onion industry on marginal land; many have given up and abandoned their dwellings, moving down to Aquitania to work as a labourer, joined the transport business integral to the industry, or migrated further afield to larger urban centres in search of better paid and less back-breaking work. Those who have stayed struggle to compete with the industrial level of production below, but have little choice, as there’s scant market aside from cebolla larga in the area. As a result, it is common to see cultivation right up to the edges of roads and buildings. Women from the Association of Female Campesinas (ASOMUC) report that male household heads are reluctant to allow them to use even small amounts of land to diversify their production, income and family food supply; for the men, every square meter should be onions. Whilst most other crops fetch a poor price at market, like in many other parts of Boyacá and Colombia, milk is one of the commodities that provides a dependable income, even at a small scale. With every inch taken up by onion, cows (often around 2 per household) are found grazing the verges between plots and taken higher up in the páramos above cultivation. Despite this, Aquitania is one of the few municipalities that has no milk collection service for the veredas (hamlets), making it difficult to sell surplus – all the infrastructure focus is on cebolla. Overall, the campesinos I spoke to were angry and felt betrayed and neglected by the government, who provide little support and instead are felt to mainly impose restrictions. Already struggling to survive and maintain their livelihoods, they feel disadvantaged and cut off from the participation and benefits of the onion industry and market, whilst any other activities are not supported either. Furthermore, they now fear the implications of living in and depending on delimited páramo land, worried that the government and authorities will soon prohibit them from practicing the marginal cultivation and livestock that they rely on. Feeling abandoned, the campesinos are often driven to abandon their smallholdings.
Abandoned house with onion planted right up to the edges. Image credit: Lauren Blake.
——————————————————
This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Lauren Blake, from the Bristol Veterinary School at the University of Bristol. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Lauren. View the original blog.
Dr Lauren Blake

Coronavirus: flying in fruit pickers from countries in lockdown is dangerous for everyone

Posted on by janet.crompton
Affordable and plentiful fruit and veg will come at the price of violating the strict national lockdowns in Bulgaria and Romania. epic_images/Shutterstock

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, major agricultural companies and charities have chartered flights to urgently bring in tens of thousands of Bulgarian and Romanian agricultural workers. Flights have headed to places like Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf in Germany, along with Essex and the Midlands in the UK.

This comes after farmers in both countries warned there is a real risk that thousands of tons of produce might be left to rot – further affecting food supply chains – if vacancies for agricultural workers go unfilled.

The excessive demand for food during lockdown has meant that farm labourers are classed as key workers, which is why they are being flown to the UK and other Western European countries.

In the UK, up to 90,000 temporary positions need to be filled within weeks. A national campaign has been launched appealing to students and those who have lost their jobs in bars, cafes and shops to help with the harvest. But so far the scheme only has around 10,000 applicants with even fewer having accepted work contracts due to low pay and demanding terms. This is nowhere near enough to ensure the sustainability of food supply chains.

That means that affordable and plentiful fruit and veg in UK supermarkets will come at the price of violating the strict national lockdowns in Bulgaria and Romania.

From ‘go back’ to ‘come back’

As of last year, nearly 98% of fruit pickers in the UK were foreign nationals. The vast majority come from Bulgaria and Romania. Both countries went into full lockdowns earlier in March, banning international travel. Chartering flights when borders are closed and planes grounded is effectively undermining the efforts of the Bulgarian and Romanian governments to manage the current health crisis.

The European Commission has banned non-essential travel while speeding up the mobility of key workers – a recognition of Western European dependency on Eastern European labour. The Bulgarian and Romanian governments have also been lax and have not insisted that Western European employers provide comprehensive health insurance for agricultural workers.

Farmers have said that without the workforce, crops may be left in the ground to rot and be wasted. Ververidis Vasilis/Shutterstock

There were promises of social distancing on planes and hand sanitiser was to be handed out. But photos of overcrowded airport lounges have demonstrated a complete disregard of health and safety. Workers will also not be paid for the mandatory 14 day quarantine period upon arrival.

Key workers to key spreaders

The reason why the lockdowns in Bulgaria and Romania are particularly strict is because both countries have fast-growing ageing populations.

The share of the population above the age of 65 between 2008 and 2018 is 2.8% for Romania and 3.2% for Bulgaria – both higher than the EU average of 2.6%. Many families also live in multi-generational households, which could put older family members at risk when the younger members return back home.

The exodus of doctors, nurses and care workers from Bulgaria and Romania also means access to medical care in smaller towns and rural areas – where most of these workers come from – will be all but impossible.

If returning migrant workers retrigger the pandemic, the consequences for both countries will be disastrous.

Economic dependency

But herein lies another part of the problem, because the national economies of both countries are heavily dependent on remittances – money sent back home from migrant workers.

For most of these people, seasonal work abroad is the only source of income and there is no safety net. They either stay home unemployed, or risk their (and their families’) health by boarding flights to the UK or Germany.

The financial incentive may be great. But so too are the public health risks. A 57-year old Romanian seasonal worker has already died from COVID-19 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany – begging the question of how many more will follow.

Food for thought

For the most part, the British public has long been disassociated from the realities of low-paid manual labour and has grown accustomed to fresh and inexpensive products produced by a disposable army of migrant workers.

And despite Brexit anxieties about EU migrants stealing British jobs, the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded the public that such labour is essential and won’t be automated anytime soon.

Ultimately though, it shouldn’t be down to migrant workers to fix supply chains during a pandemic – especially when evidence indicates that international mobility is contributing to the spread of the virus. Chartering flights during travel bans and national lockdowns is a dangerous reminder of how exploitative labour overrides political and public health responsibility.

—————————-
This blog is written by Dr Denny Pencheva, Senior Teaching Associate, Migration Studies and Politics, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dr Denny Pencheva

World Water Day: Water scarcity challenges under climate change in East African drylands

Posted on by janet.crompton

Climate change presents great challenges for dryland regions, especially in communities where socioeconomic livelihoods are tied to the consistency of seasonal rainfall. In the dryland regions of East Africa, drought is a major threat to rainfed agriculture and to drinking water supplies, and regional climate is projected to increase drought frequency and severity.

Since 2000 alone East Africa has been struck by 10 droughts, which generated three severe famines affecting millions of people in the region. Although there is often consensus about the growing regional threat posed by drought, there is a major disconnect between the climate science (meteorological drought) and assessments of usable water resources (hydrological drought) that support livelihoods.

Affected communities need straightforward answers to a practical set of questions: How will regional climate change affect soil moisture required to grow crops or the water table in wells that provide precious drinking water in a parched landscape? How will the water stores change season by season and over coming decades? Furthermore, what adaptation strategies are available to address this challenge?

Through a series of funded projects, we have been working at better understanding how climate and climate change translates into useable water in the ground in East African dryland regions, and how people use and access relevant information to make livelihood decisions towards adaptation. We have developed an interdisciplinary team comprised of dryland hydrologists, climatologists, hydrometeorologists, computer scientists, pastoralist experts, and social scientists (both in the UK and Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia) to develop a holistic perspective on both the physical and social aspects of drought. We are developing new regional modelling tools that convert past and future rainfall trends into soil moisture and groundwater. These models will underpin a new mobile phone app that aims to deliver forecasts of crop yields and soil moisture to remote agro-pastoralists. Simultaneously we are working with drought-affected communities in Kenya and Ethiopia to better understand barriers and opportunities for improving resilience to climate change, information use, and feasible adaptation strategies.

We hope that through these research endeavours we can contribute to improved climate adaptation efforts in these dryland regions and to long-term societal resilience to climate change.

Read more about Katerina’s work.

———————————-
This blog is written by Dr Katerina Michaelides, Head of Dryland Research Group at the School of Geographical Sciences and Cabot Institute for the Environment, University of Bristol.

Katerina Michaelides

Sowing the seeds of collaborations to tackle African food insecurity

Posted on by janet.crompton

A group of early career researchers from 11 African countries got together in Bristol, UK, this month for a two-week training event. Nothing so unusual about that, you may think.

Yet this course, run by the Community Network for African Vector-Borne Plant Viruses (CONNECTED), broke important new ground.

The training brought together an unusual blend of researchers: plant virologists and entomologists studying insects which transmit plant diseases, as an important part of the CONNECTED project’s work to find new solutions to the devastation of many food crops in Sub-Saharan African countries.

The CONNECTED niche focus on vector-borne plant disease is the reason for bringing together insect and plant pathology experts, and plant breeders too. The event helped forge exciting new collaborations in the fight against African poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity.

‘V4’ – Virus Vector Vice Versa – was a fully-funded residential course which attracted great demand when it was advertised. Places were awarded by competitive application, with funding awarded to cover travel, accommodation, subsistence and all training costs. For every delegate who attended, five applicants were unsuccessful.

The comprehensive programme combined: scientific talks; general lab training skills; specific virology and entomology lecture and practical work; workshops; field visits, career development, mentoring, and desk-based projects.

 

Across the fortnight delegates received plenty of peer mentoring and team-building input, as well as an afternoon focused on ‘communicating your science.’


New
collaborations will influence African agriculture for years to come

There’s little doubt that the June event, hosted by The University of Bristol, base of CONNECTED Network Director Professor Gary Foster, has sown seeds of new alliances and partnerships that can have global impact on vector-borne plant disease in Sub-Saharan Africa for many years to come.
CONNECTED network membership has grown in its 18 months to a point where it’s approaching 1,000 researchers, from over 70 countries. The project, which derived its funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund, is actively looking at still more training events.
The V4 training course follows two successful calls for pump-prime research funding, leading to nine projects now operating in seven different countries, and still many more to come. Earlier in the year CONNECTED ran a successful virus diagnostics training event in Kenya, in close partnership with BecA-ILRI Hub. One result of that training was that its 19 delegates were set to share their new knowledge and expertise with a staggering 350 colleagues right across the continent.

Project background

Plant diseases significantly limit the ability of many of Sub-Saharan African countries to produce enough staple and cash crops such as cassava, sweet potato, maize and yam. Farmers face failing harvests and are often unable to feed their local communities as a result. The diseases ultimately hinder the countries’ economic and social development, sometimes leading to migration as communities look for better lives elsewhere.
The CONNECTED network project is funded by a £2 million grant from the UK government’s Global Challenges Research Fund, which supports research on global issues that affect developing countries. It is co-ordinated by Prof. Foster from the University of Bristol School of Biological Sciences, long recognised as world-leading in plant virology and vector-transmitted diseases, with Professor Neil Boonham, from Newcastle University its Co-Director. The funding is being used to build a sustainable network of scientists and researchers to address the challenges. The University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute, of which Prof. Foster is a member, also provides input and expertise.
———————-
This blog is written by Richard Wyatt, Communications Officer for the CONNECTED network.

Bristol is Global Competition 2019 – a student response to the global food crisis

Posted on by janet.crompton
Bristol Is Global finalists

Food – not one of us would be able to live without it and crucially, this obvious fact is understated. In the global north, with fast food delivery services available at our fingertips and supermarkets stocked with shelves of tinned cans, frozen meals and fresh fruit and veg, it is unsurprisingly easy to take food for granted. In an increasingly globalised world, where much of our food travels miles across oceans and roads, it is ever more common to find ourselves alienated from the cycles and processes that start in the soil and end up at the tip of our knives and forks. Our disconnection to food is significant given that the global food industry is in a hidden environmental crisis: a crisis of social, cultural, historical, economic, political, and geographical significance. As students, we recognise that if climate demands are not met within our lifetimes: water scarcity, diseases, droughts, floods, and the acidification of oceans will impact the security of our food in irrepressible ways (Empson 2016: 77-8).

And so, this year, Bristol is Global (BiG) asked students to address the question:

How can the university, students and the wider public address the problems with the local and global food industry?

Focusing on three sub-categories:

  1. Food waste
  2. The hunger-obesity paradox
  3. Single-use plastic packaging.

BiG is an annual, university-wide competition organised by students that is themed around a different global socio-political challenge each year, with the winning team being awarded £500. The competition provides an opportunity for students from different disciplines to collaboratively develop a solution to a global problem on a local scale, founded on the belief that no global challenge will ever be resolved by one person, but rather a collective effort of countless individuals each making small actions.

To introduce the theme, Joy Carey, an expert in sustainable food planning who is currently a member of the Bristol Food Policy Council along with Natalie Fee, an environmental campaigner against plastic pollution, gave inspiring talks to launch the competition. This was followed by a panel debate to help students better understand the complex issue at hand a panel event took place. Representatives from Bristol Waste Company, Fair Trade Network, Community Farm, as well as our own Professor Jeffrey Brunstrom engaged in a thought provoking discussion with the students.

This year, the four finalist teams came up with four creative and diverse ideas that could potentially have a significant impact on the Bristol community:

  1. RecycleWise: A comprehensive information pack distributed to second year flats educating students on good recycling practices.
  2. Bright: An all-inclusive app with tutorial videos, interactive maps and reward schemes to encourage people to follow more sustainable eating habits.
  3. Eat Well Bristol: Student-volunteer run holiday cooking sessions in primary schools to make organic and healthy eating more accessible to underprivileged families in Bristol.
  4. Green Brewery Initiative: Growing indoor crops and herbs using plastic bottles rather than pots and used coffee grounds instead of fertiliser to engage the University community in reducing waste.

Members from LettUs Grow, a successful University of Bristol start-up developing vertical farming technology met with the teams to help them refine their pitch. In the final event, each team presented their ideas to a panel of judges. The quality of research and originality in each proposal was truly impressive, as well as the passion and enthusiasm shown by all four teams. The judges ultimately decided to chip in an extra £100 and fund two teams, the Bright App and RecycleWise, as well as providing continued support to all four teams to carry on with their projects. With Bristol Going for Gold (Bristol’s ambition to become the first Gold Award Sustainable Food City in the UK by 2020), each proposal has tremendous potential to help the city reach its goal.

As organisers of BiG we would like to thank the Cabot Institute for providing invaluable support throughout the competition. We would also like to extend our thank you to the Alumni Grant Foundation for funding to further help the teams implement their ideas.

Next year BiG will return with a different socio-economic issue, challenging students to come up with solutions that can truly help the Bristol community in different ways. We hope to engage more students and encourage the entire university community to engage in the issues we face.

—————————-
This blog was written by Lina Drozd, Usha Bholah and Smruthi Radhakrishnan, all students at the University of Bristol.

World Water Day: How can research and technology reduce water use in agriculture?

Posted on by janet.crompton
Record breaking temperatures in 2018 led to drought in many European countries. Image credit Wikimedia Domain Mimikry11.

World Water Day draws attention to the global water crisis and addresses why so many people are being left behind when it comes to having access to safe water. The UN estimates that globally 80% of people who have to use unsafe and unprotected water sources live in rural areas. This can leave households, schools, workplaces and farms struggling to survive. On farms water is vital for the production of food and is used in a huge range of processes, including irrigation and watering livestock. In this blogpost I will lightly review the current issues around water in agriculture and highlight some exciting research projects that may offer potential solutions.

What is the water crisis?

The UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 is to ensure that all people have access to sustainable, safe water by 2030. Unfortunately, we’re a long way off achieving this goal as a recent report from UNICEF/WHO estimates that there are currently 2.1 billion people living without access to safe water in their homes and workplaces. Another report estimates that 71% of the global population experiences severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year. In recent years we have seen water risks increase, with severe droughts in Africa, China, Europe, India and the US. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of record breaking dry months increased by 50% from 1980 to 2013. Unfortunately droughts, floods and rising sea levels are predicted to continue and become more unpredictable under climate change scenario models and as the global population continues to grow, there will be increasing demands on water supplies. Increases in water scarcity are likely to lead to increases in political and economic instability, conflict and migration.

Why is water important to agriculture?

In agriculture, water is vital for growing crops and sustaining livestock. Farmers use water to irrigate, apply pesticides and fertilizer and protect from heat and frost. This heavy reliance means that when water supplies run out, farmers are unable to effectively maintain their crops and livestock, leading to food insecurity. Drought stress can result in yield losses of 64% in rice, 50% in chickpea, 18 – 32% in potato. Drought has particularly devastating effects in tropical and sub-tropical regions, where climate change is predicted to have the biggest impact.

The amount of water it takes to produce food and drink products is pretty shocking. Beef production in particular is associated with high levels of water usage. It is estimated that the global average water footprint of a 150g beef burger is 2350 litres; despite producing just 5% of the world’s food calories, beef production is reported to create 40% of the water scarcity burden. Although there are big variations in the environmental impacts of beef farming, with grassland fed, rotational systems being less intensive than grain fed herds on deforested land.

Where does water used for agriculture come from?

The water that is used in agriculture comes from a range of sources, including surface and ground water supplies, rivers and streams, open canals, ponds, reservoirs and municipal systems. Globally, the FAO estimates that agriculture accounts for 70% of freshwater withdrawals, which is predominately used for irrigation. In many areas the high level of groundwater used for irrigation is unsustainable, leading to depletion. For instance, the OECD estimates that groundwater supplies 60% of India’s agricultural water needs but groundwater sources are suffering from depletion and pollution in 60% of states. A big problem is that irrigation is often highly inefficient; in the US the FAO estimates that the amount of irrigated water that is actually used by plants is only 56%. Large amounts of energy are also needed to withdraw, treat and supply agricultural water, leading to significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

What happens to agricultural water after use?

As well as depleting freshwater supplies, agriculture can also pollute them, with runoff containing large quantities of nutrients, antibiotics, growth hormones and other chemicals. This in turn has big affects on human health through contamination of surface and ground water with heavy metals, nitrate and pathogens and in the environment; it can cause algal blooms, dead zones and acidification of waterways. Combined these issues mean that better management of water in agriculture has huge potential for improving sustainability, climate resilience and food security, whilst reducing emissions and pollution.

What are the potential solutions?

Thankfully there are many innovative projects that are working to improve issues around water in agriculture. Below are a few examples that I find particularly promising.

How can technology help?

To reduce water wastage on farms, agri-technology is being developed whereby multiple wireless sensors detect soil moisture and evapotranspiration. The sensors feed this information to a cloud-based system that automatically determines precisely how much water to use in different parts of the field, leading to increased yields and saving water. Farmers can get water management recommendations via a smartphone app and the information automatically instructs irrigation systems. At a larger scale, these data systems can feed into a regional crop water demand model to inform decision-making on agricultural policies and management practices, and to provide early warnings of potential flood and drought risks.

Sensor that detects leaf moisture levels. Image credit: Wikimedia Domain Massimiliano Lincetto

Irrigation systems are also being made more efficient; one study found that simply changing from surface sprinklers to drip irrigation that applies water directly to plant roots through low-pressure piping, reduced non-beneficial water wastage by 76%, while maintaining yield production. In arid areas these systems can be used for a technique called partial root drying, whereby water is supplied to alternate side of the roots, the water stressed side then sends signals to close stomatal pores which reduces water lost through evapotranspiration.

These efficient precision irrigation systems are becoming cheaper and easier for farmers to use. However in tropical and sub-tropical areas, the technology can be difficult to apply smallholder farming, where there is often insufficient Internet connectivity, expertise, capital investment, and supply of energy and water. Several precision agriculture projects are working to overcome these challenges to promote efficient use of irrigation water, including in the semi-arid Pavagada region of India, the Gash Delta region of Sudan and São Paulo, Brazil. In Nepal, a Water Resources Information System has been established that collects data to inform river management, whereas in Bangladesh hundreds of solar-fuelled irrigation pumps have been installed that simultaneously reduce reliance on fossil fuels and reduce GHG emissions.

Hydroponic systems whereby plants are grown in water containing nutrients are becoming increasingly popular; the global market for hydroponics is projected to reach £325 million by 2020. Compared with land-based agriculture, hydroponics uses less land; causes less pollution and soil erosion and so these systems are less vulnerable to climate change. Critically they also reduce water use; once the initial water requirements are met, the closed-system recycles water and there is less evapotranspiration. The adoption of these systems is predicted to occur predominately in water stressed regions of the Middle East and Africa and in highly urbanised countries such as Israel, Japan and the Netherlands.

How can researching traditional approaches help?

It’s not just about agri-tech; there are relatively simple, traditional ways to tackle water issues in agriculture. To protect against drought, farmers can harvest and store rainwater during heavy downpours by building ponds and storage reservoirs. To reduce water wastage, farmers can improve the ability of soil to absorb and hold water through reducing tillage and using rotational livestock grazing, compost, mulch and cover crops. Wetlands, grasslands and riparian buffers can be managed to protect against floods, prevent waterlogging of crops and improve water quality. Increasingly these traditional methods valued and research is being done to optimise them. For instance a novel forage grass hybrid has been developed that is more resilient to water stress and can reduce runoff by 43 – 51% compared with conventional grass cultivars.

A small-scale farmer in Kenya who is harvest rainwater. Image credit: Wikimedia Domain Timothy Mburu.

How can crop and livestock breeding help?

In the past, crop and livestock varieties have been selected for high productivity. However, these varieties are often severely affected by changes in climate and extreme weather events such as drought and require high levels of water and nutrients. To improve resilience and sustainability, breeders increasingly need to also select for stress responses and resource use efficiency. In crops, drought resilience and water use efficiency is influenced by many traits, including root and shoot architecture, stomatal density and thickness of the waxy cuticle that covers leaves and reduces evapotranspiration. The complexity of these traits makes breeding crops for drought resilience challenging, as many different groups of genes need to be selected for. To deal with this, the International Rice Research Institute’s Green Super Rice project has been crossing high-yielding parent lines with hundreds of diverse varieties to produce new high-yielding varieties that require less water, fertilisers and pesticides. These varieties are now being delivered to farmers in countries across Asia and Africa. Similarly, climate change resilience is also vital for current and future livestock farming. Projects run by Professor Eileen Wall (SRUC) have identified novel traits and genes associated with drought and heat resilience in UK and African dairy cattle, which can be incorporated into breeding programmes.

What are the incentives?

Although these projects might sound promising, without incentives to drive their uptake it may take a long time for real impacts to come to fruition. Unfortunately, in some countries such as India there can be a lack of monetary incentives that would effectively enable farmers to take up new water management technology and practices. In the EU, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has allocated funds to support farmers in complying with ‘greening rules’ that improve sustainability, preserve ecosystems and efficient use of natural resources, including water. Farmers across the EU receive CAP payments for environmentally friendly farming practices, such as crop diversification and maintaining permanent grassland.

In many European countries, there is increasing consumer demand for sustainably farmed food products. This is driving large and small manufacturers to seek out sustainable suppliers and so farmers are incentivised to improve the sustainability of their farming practices so that they can be certified.  For instance the Sustainable Farming Assurance Programme requires farmers to follow good agricultural and environmental protection practices, including sustainable water use. In the coming years, more food products are likely to have water foot print labels that provide the consumer with information on the amount of water used during production and processing. This places considerable power in the hands of the consumer and large manufacturers are responding. For instance, by 2020 Kellogg has pledged to buy ten priority ingredients (corn, wheat, rice, potatoes, sugar and cocoa) only from farms that prioritise protecting water supplies, as well as using fertilizers safely, reducing emissions, and improving soil health. And Pepsico has created sustainable agriculture sourcing programmes that aim to help farmers improve water and soil resource management, protect water supplies, minimise emissions and improve soil health.

What can we do?

There are ways to take responsibility for reducing our own water footprints, including reducing meat and animal production consumption, reducing food wastage and buying sustainably farmed products. Finally, we can all get involved with communicating and promoting the importance of water in agriculture so that more people are aware of the issues. Head to the World Water Day website to find out about resources and events that may be happening near you.

——————————
This blog is written by Caboteer Dr Katie Tomlinson, who recently completed her PhD at the University of Bristol on cassava brown streak disease. Katie is now an Innovation and Skills manager at the BBSRC and is running the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Innovation Club. Views presented in this blog are her own. You can follow Katie on Twitter: @KatieTomlinson4.

Dr Katie Tomlinson

 

Travelling through Asia’s breadbasket

Posted on by janet.crompton

This is the second of a series of blogs from a group of University of Bristol Cabot Institute researchers who are on a remote expedition (funded by BCAI) to find out more about Kazakh agriculture and how farmers are responding to their changing landscape. 

Image credit: Hannah Vineer

Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ played on the car radio as we drove through endless fields of stubble stretching into the horizon in every direction. We were 2 days into our 3-day, 2,345km journey from Astana to our field site, and it was easy to see why Kazakhstan is referred to as Asia’s breadbasket. Spring had finally arrived after an unusually long winter.  Tractors were busy burning, ploughing and planting, disappearing into the distance with each pass of the field.

The vast, flat steppe has provided the opportunity for cereal production on a scale unrivalled by the UK’s comparatively small field enclosures. In 2017, Kazakhstan held wheat stocks of 12MMT (million metric tonnes), making UK’s 1.4MMT seem like a drop in the ocean by comparison. Kazakhstan exports wheat globally and is a key player in global food security. Grain elevators capable of storing more than 100,000 tonnes of grain dominate the skyline of every major town and soon became a familiar feature of the landscape to us.

Image credit: Hannah Vineer

Our journey was punctuated every 6 hours or so by stops at restaurants that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Each one was as unique as the last, their bright colours a reflection of the cheerful nature of the Kazakh people. The popular Tabletkas parked outside reminded me of VW Transporters, and the friendly locals reminded me of my Welsh roots, where strangers greet you on the street.

Image credit: Hannah Vineer

The restaurants served a range of traditional Kazakh comfort food – meat and milk based meals like borscht, always served with bread, of course. Bread, or нан (pronounced naan) is a staple food here and is said to be the most important part of the dinner table. The menu, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, was indecipherable to me at first and I had to pester the Kazakh and Russian members of our team to help me choose a meal each time. Based on my excited reaction when I finally discovered the image recognition feature of my Google Translate app, you would have thought that I had never seen modern technology before. In truth, I was just relieved to not be such a burden on the rest of team!

Image credit: Hannah Vineer

Before long we were back on the road and as the hours passed I looked forward to getting to camp and getting started with our work. We planned to visit remote villages, thousands of kilometres off the tourist track, to survey farmers about how they cope with weather extremes such as this year’s particularly harsh winter. But for now, we had run out of time and energy. The sun was setting and we needed to find a place to rest for the night. We headed for the dim twinkling lights of Aktobe, passing a tractor working into the night, illuminating a cloud of dust in its wake. When we eventually found a motel with rooms available, I found it difficult to sleep. I couldn’t wait for the final leg of our journey to our wild camp in the Kazakh steppe.

———————————
This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Hannah Rose Vineer.  This expedition has been kindly funded by the Bristol Centre for Agricultural Innovation.  This blog was reposted with permission from the BCAI blog site.

Setting off on a BCAI expedition to Kazakhstan

Posted on by janet.crompton

This is the first of a series of blogs from a group of University of Bristol Cabot Institute researchers who are on a remote expedition (funded by BCAI) to find out more about Kazakh agriculture and how farmers are responding to their changing landscape. 

Abandoned machinery. Image credit Hannah Vineer.

Ghost towns on the Kazakh steppe look as though they are centuries old, but it is an illusion. They have been sandblasted relentlessly by the force of the steppe since they were abandoned, less than 40 years ago, after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. This is one area on earth that people have largely failed to tame, but as the human population increases the country’s agricultural systems are rapidly developing and focus is turning to the steppe once again. At the same time, farmers must adapt to recent changes in climate – drier summers limit crop production and water availability, and changing patterns of snowfall and snowmelt threaten the lives of livestock. I am about to embark on a remote expedition to find out more about Kazakh agriculture and how farmers are responding to their changing landscape. Follow this blog series for updates from the field.

Since 2000, approximately 5,000,000 additional hectares of land have been sown for cropping, and approximately 2,000,000 each additional sheep, cattle and horses are kept in Kazakhstan. This increase in livestock productivity is largely driven by smallholder farmers, who rely on livestock for up to a fifth of their family’s food. However, climate change has been felt disproportionately in Central Asia, threatening food security. National Geographic recently reported that over half a million animals failed to survive the winter in neighbouring Mongolia due to a combination of lethal winter conditions and poor summer crop growth, so I’m anxious to see how the Kazakhs fared.

Image credit: mapchart.net

I’m told that in the Ural region in Western Kazakhstan, wheat production, livestock and wildlife exist in close contact, and that this is the best place to start my research. I’m set to fly to Astana tomorrow to join colleagues from the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK) on the three-day, 2,000km journey to the far west. With the help of ACBK and Bristol PhD student Munib Khanyari, I will interview farmers spread out over an area the size of England, skirting along the Russian border and the Caspian Sea. I’ll spend my evenings wild camping off-grid under the stars for 2-3 weeks. There will be no fresh water, no toilets and no internet – the team and I have to carry everything we need in order to survive the duration. Wish me luck!

———————————

This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Hannah Rose Vineer.  This expedition has been kindly funded by the Bristol Centre for Agricultural Innovation.  This blog was reposted with permission from the BCAI blog site.Read part two of this blog – Travelling through Asia’s breadbasket.

Sign up to our weekly newsletter for all the latest news, events and opportunities at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/news/subscribe. Find out more about our unique Master's by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot-masters.