Faced with empty supermarket shelves, more time on our hands, confined at home with kids to educate and entertain it seems many thoughts have turned to seeds.

The unfolding COVID-19 crisis is seeing a huge surge in interest in growing our own food at home. Re-growing of veggies is going viral, and we’ve been hitting the virtual shops to get our hands on gardening supplies. Online seed companies and gardening outlets are seeing unprecedented sales and interest. Over Easter weekend, some online garden retailers saw a rise in sales of 500% over usual levels, and others have reported online footfall increase of 4000%. Many seed retailers are having to put in measures to deal with these extraordinary levels of demand and delivery times are longer than usual.

Seeds of rurbanisation

Whether this is panic planting for self-sufficiency, or a bid to sew some positivity into our daily lives and provide some recreation and wellbeing, we can’t be sure. Either way, this wave of activity in urban food growing is of huge interest to us here in the Rurban Revolution project. Our team and project are founded on the idea that using more of our urban space for growing fruit and vegetables and making farming more prominent in our daily lives is central to creating a better food future for all. We call this rurbanisation – the ruralisation of our urban environment and lives. There is lots of evidence to suggest that engaging in growing can help make us happier and help us produce meaningful amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables to support healthy diets. Green spaces in cities have also been shown to be important for environmental sustainability: contributing to biodiversity, water flow regulation, carbon storage and mitigating air pollution. Our interdisciplinary team is exploring how rurbanisation could help make us healthier by changing our diets, how it could make us more sustainable by transforming urban ecosystems and easing the pressures of agriculture, and make us more resilient to food shortages by localising supply chains.

Growing well?

Not all attempts at urban food growing harvest the same benefits, however. Getting growing can be a steep learning curve. Many of us are turning to Google for advice, with searches in the UK for ‘how to grow vegetables’ being 3.5 times higher than usual compared to previous years. The resources needed and access to outside space likely means that this is an unequal opportunity. Who is able to grow their own vegetables and who cannot, even if they would like to? Even more importantly, does what we grow end up on our plate? How good are we in growing those Amazon-bought seeds and keeping those young plants alive? With home schooling becoming essential, is this an opportunity for this to become part of our children’s education? Could this be the way we manage to ensure that the next generation is connected with the food they eat and appreciate its value? Are we growing on the kitchen windowsill or are vegetable patches displacing lawns or creating new vegetated surfaces in our urban environments? What do pollinators make of all this?

In this crisis, our thoughts at Rurban Revolution HQ turn to these little seeds as they disperse across our society. We have lots of questions and there will be much to learn for a post-COVID-19 world. If you have answers or ideas then please do get in touch with us.

Bethan Mead: Rurban Researcher in Psychology 

Who are you?

Hello! I’m Bethan (known as Beth), a psychology researcher who’s part of the Rurban team. I’m also a tea-drinking science fan who occasionally bakes wonky-but-tasty cakes.

What research are you doing as part of the Rurban Revolution project?

I’m interested in what exposure and involvement with urban growing can mean for improving diets and wellbeing. I’m doing this through psychological studies that look at relationships between urban agriculture, food choices, connection with nature and wellbeing. I’m also looking in to barriers and opportunities for upscaling urban agriculture by interviewing growers, stakeholders and council members to try and understand how we might do this.

Are you an urban food grower or an urban greener?

I try to be an urban food grower, although I’m still learning. Since I moved house last year I’ve been trying to grow tomatoes, strawberries, blackcurrants, peppers, spinach and herbs with varying levels of success. The herbs are doing well but the tomatoes and peppers keep ending up tasting bitter. Carrots and onions are next on my list to have a go at.

If you had a magic wand, what is the one thing you would change in our current food system and why?

Inequality in food security. I know there’s issues throughout the system, but the number of people living without secure food access in 2020 is shocking. I’d love it if foodbanks weren’t needed anymore, but they’re so vital. I’d use that magic wand to make sure everyone had access to safe, healthy and sustainable food regardless of their circumstances – and preferably some of that food would come from urban growing.

What’s your favourite food?

Crumpets! Especially on frosty winter mornings.

Lael Walsh: Rurban Researcher in Ecology and Business at Lancaster University

 

Who are you?
My Instagram profile sums me up best ‘Loves science, life and nature’.

How did you get in to this work?
First, I had a vision to learn and educate myself. I studied for a BSc, two MSc degrees (one in business) and a PhD. Biology and nature have always fascinated me, and food research combines these two interests. Second, I actively resist being pigeonholed. I enjoy learning and gathering skills across different disciplines. This is a chance to generate exciting ideas and identify challenges from different perspectives. Third, I worked in between studying. This meant it has taken me 13 years from my undergraduate degree to my PhD, but has also meant I was able to figure out what I want to do with my life along the way and make choices I am happy with.

What do you think the outcomes of the Rurban Revolution research might be?

1. Evidence of the potential for urban agriculture to contribute meaningfully to our food system.
2. Indications of the role urban growing can play in our health and wellbeing.
3. An effective research team and collaborations that will last beyond the Rurban Revolution Project.
4. A blueprint on how effective interdisciplinary collaboration should be structured, and hopefully evidence that research councils should be putting more funding into projects like this, which bring together motivated and passionate trained researchers to deliver effectively and efficiently.

What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever done as a food systems researcher?
I raised insects (aphids specifically) in order to study their genome and proteome, and better understand how they adapt to plant protective compounds that we use to kill them. In this way, I could figure out how to tackle insecticide resistance. This was important work because aphids are one of our foremost crop pests and contribute to significant crop (food) losses worldwide.

 

The UK government has just released details of the much-publicised Yellowhammer contingency plan for a no-deal Brexit. Amongst the warnings contained in it, Yellowhammer paints a stark picture of how the supply of fresh food could be affected amidst the political uncertainty the UK is facing.

Events like this are what we call food system shocks – something that causes sudden disruption to the food system. These mean that production or access to food are interrupted, which often coincides with price rises. Sharp increases in the price of fresh food is likely to disproportionately affect vulnerable people and effectively price out those less able to afford these costs, heightening the inequalities in access to food.

Seeing as the UK imports about 50 % of its food, we’re pretty vulnerable to shocks like this. It’s something that’s been a key research topic for a while – how do we make sure the UK food system is more resilient? This is a question some of the team travelled to discuss at the Global Food Security (GFS) Food System Resilience Stakeholder Event in Edinburgh on the 4^th and 5^th September 2019.

The two-day event was a chance for members of GFS research projects and stakeholders to come together to discuss food strategy and resilience. Through a series of talks, interactive workshops and a public debate we delved into questions such as what resilience means to us, to consumers and to industry, and how to manage that in these ever-changing times.

Sitting around tables with agri-technologists, policy makers, business owners, bakers, academic researchers, food scientists and more, in the beautiful setting of Scotland has taught us a few things:

1. Food and drink are key to Scotland’s economy. James Withers from Scotland Food & Drink told us that Scotland receives over 15 million overnight visits per year, and all those people need to eat! Scotland’s sustainable farming and export practices are growing and resilience – ensuring secure food supply chains – is key to this.
2. We’re not going to get anywhere by working in silo. One of the key themes that came up again and again was the need for collaboration across the food system. Transformation of food systems isn’t going to be achieved by one single thing, it’s going to take a joined-up approach to make this happen. We need to work together to answer questions like how can agri-technology help to make farming practices more sustainable? And how can local government food growing initiatives have an impact on health-promoting dietary changes?
3. The food supply chain employs about 4 million people in the UK – but that workforce is changing. As the types and amounts of food in demand change, so do our production and processing systems. Technology is helping us to keep p with this demand, but as we become more reliant on it to supply our food we’re creating new jobs, such as specialist engineers to maintain that equipment. But is there a cost to this? Are we at risk of losing the food skills and knowledge from previous generations as practices evolve?

Rurban Revolution is exploring the potential of urban food growing to improve food system resilience and access to healthy, nutritious food. With the potential worst-case scenarios that are set out in the Yellowhammer plans, it’s an ideal time for us to be thinking about what it would take to upscale urban growing, and what the impact of that would be.

During the GFS Stakeholder event Charlotte Hardman delivered an interactive workshop called “Changing diets in changing times”. This got us all thinking about how changes in climate and the food system mean we should consider changes to our diet, like using more urban-grown food, and what could help or hinder us doing this.

Charlotte’s workshop was a perfect example of why we need to diversify our approach to food system transformation and work together. We might have some suggestions ourselves but business owners, agri-technologists, policy specialists and supply chain experts came up with different perspectives based on their own expertise. For example, although local authorities have their own food growing strategies, there’s a gap in facilitation from central government that needs to be addressed to support these. Producing urban food also requires growing skills and knowledge, but how will we overcome a skills gap in communities where only certain people may have this experience? How do we pass that on? Hearing from stakeholders and colleagues has given us plenty of new ideas for Rurban Revolution. We’ve come away with a better understanding of what resilience means to others throughout the food system, and how our work with Rurban Revolution will inform this and make a difference.

The Yellowhammer documents, although only a worst-case scenario, highlight just how important it is to improve our food system’s resilience. And as for the key thing we’ve learned about how to do this? We need to work together to get there.

If you’re interested in finding out what we do next or talking to us about our research, sign up to our newsletter or get in touch.

 

The expansion of our towns and cities is leading to loss of cropland and food production according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which summarises the science on climate change. This loss in food production due to urban expansion puts food supply at risk and creates food insecurity. The report also highlights that one of the key strategies for tackling this issue is increasing the production of food in urban and peri-urban areas.

We too in the Rurban Revolution project recognise the importance of cities in our future food system and in tackling urgent sustainability issues such as climate change. Towns and cities today are home to more than half of our global population, but at the moment the vast majority of the food eaten in cities is grown elsewhere – according to one study, only 14% of food eaten comes from urban and peri-urban areas.

In our project, we are investigating the transformative power of urban food growing: can upscaling the food we grow in cities help us reduce carbon emissions and land use pressures, helping in our fight against climate change? Would growing more fruit and veg close to where we live also increase the resilience of our food supplies and help us be healthier and happier by encouraging us to improve our diets, get active and destress? Our interdisciplinary team is currently tackling these questions.

The links between land and climate change

Released on August 7^th 2019, the latest IPCC report explores how the way we use our land contributes to climate change and vice versa. The IPCC is made up of 195 member countries and 30 observer organisations. It is also the United Nations body for evaluating the science related to climate change.

Scientists in this panel appraise research undertaken worldwide and provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, and propose adaptation and mitigation possibilities. They also assess the state of knowledge and indicate where there is insufficient research in an area.

Urban agriculture is a triple win

At Rurban HQ, the report made interesting reading as there were many mentions of urban food systems throughout. The research summarised in Chapter 5 on food production strongly suggests (robust evidence, with medium agreement in IPCC terms) that urban and peri-urban agriculture is a triple win, helping to: mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions; adapt to climate change impacts, whilst also helping improve our urban food security. Our research is exploring whether there are more wins to be had: can it also make us healthier and enhance our urban ecosystems?

Urban food systems were also prominent in Chapter 6 which focuses on the inter-linkages between land food and emissions, the trade-offs, synergies and response options. Quotes like the one below give us a good indication of what urban and peri-urban agriculture can do in our world:

“Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture and Forestry and local food policy and planning initiatives such as Food Policy Councils and city-region-wide regional food strategies …develop inter-linkages of the city and its citizens with surrounding rural areas to create sustainable, and more nutritious food supplies for the city, while improving the health status of urban dwellers, reducing pollution levels, adapting to and mitigating climate change, and stimulating economic development”

Understanding the interconnections

The IPCC report makes us vividly aware of the importance of scaling up urban and peri-urban food growing and the need for good research to support policies and interventions for this. In the Rurban Revolution project, we hope to add to the evidence base on urban agriculture, and in particular to boost our current understanding of the inter-linkages between health, sustainability and resilience.

We need to increase our holistic understanding of urban food growing, and we can only do that by working together across disciplines and with cities, communities, policy makers and businesses. If you’re interested in getting involved or future collaborations, please get in touch.

Over the next two years the interdisciplinary Rurban Revolution team will share research findings and project updates on twitter @RurbanRev and facebook @RurbanRevolution, as well as through our website. Sign up for our quarterly newsletter to keep regularly updated on what we are up to.

We were very excited to see the review on a new National Food Strategy launched last week. It’s not often as a country we step-back and take a look at our food system and plan for the future.

In the Rurban Revolution project we too are stepping-back to think about urban food strategy: in our research we are exploring how up-scaling urban food production could result in a more healthy, sustainable and resilient food system. 

What is the National Food Strategy?

Political uncertainty, climate change and health concerns have led to the UK Government announcing the first major review of the UK food system in 75 years. Headed by restauranteur and co-founder of the Sustainable Restaurant Association Henry Dimbleby, the review will examine all aspects of the UK food system, “from field to fork”. The outcome of this will be the publication of the new National Food Strategy in 2020 that aims to safeguard our food system for future generations, whilst reducing environmental damage and ensuring access to healthy, safe food for us all. 

Why do we need a Food Strategy?

Our food system has changed radically since the last review took place 75 years ago. The variety and nature of food we eat today would have seemed unimaginable back then. This is thanks to the sheer intensity and scale at which we farm, produce, process, import and export our food, but what’s the cost?  

Diet-related conditions, such as obesity and diabetes, pose major challenges to the NHS and people’s quality of life as their health deteriorates. Agriculture is a major driver of climate change, being responsible for around 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and some farming practices lead to biodiversity loss, water pollution and environmental degradation. Reliance on imports could make us vulnerable to food system shocks. Economic and political uncertainty can trigger food insecurity, leading to shortages, malnourishment and price fluctuations. Problems like these are at the heart of the new National Food Strategy, and Rurban Revolution.   

Where does urban agriculture factor in? 

Why should we think about urban food systems when thinking about a national food strategy? The majority of the UK population lives in urban areas and growing food poverty in cities is a major concern. Urban agriculture provides a great opportunity for increasing our food production at the point of need, connecting people with their food and nature, shortening our supply chains and making them more resilient. At the same time, the rejuvenation of degraded urban landscapes can provide further ecosystem benefits. 

Rurban Revolution and a National Food Strategy 

We’ve taken a look at the aims for the National Food Strategy and we see five ways in which our new research can add to the evidence Henry Dimbleby and his team will be gathering. 

1. We are investigating how increasing urban growing and greening could influence healthy diets. The food systems review is looking at ways to deliver healthy, sustainable food to all to improve our diets and health. Our research is helping us understand the connections between urban food growing and health: does increasing access and connection with growing of fruit and vegetables lead to better dietary choices, stress reduction and ultimately better health? 
2. We are studying how urban-grown food could contribute to food system resilience. Fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains are particularly vulnerable to future shocks and are of high value for our health. We’re working on a UK-wide analysis that will tell us what, where, and how much fruit and vegetables we could grow in our urban environments. By comparing this with the fresh fruit and vegetables we grow domestically and import, we will be able to explore the potential or urban food systems to play a part in national food system resilience.  
3. We are thinking about how urban food production could enhance or restore our natural environment.We will be examining how using our urban landscape for fruit and vegetable production – whether it be through garden-growing and allotments, community growing projects, edible corridors and rooftops, or indoor vertical farming – affects the ecosystem services that are delivered in cities, and whether this helps alleviate pressures in other landscapes. 
4. We are testing the nutritional quality and safety of urban-grown and conventionally grown fruit and vegetables. We need to be sure that what our food system produces is actually safe and good for us. That’s why we are examining how pollution and the supply chains themselves, aka the “field to fork” time, can affect nutritional quality and safety. 
5. We are examining how urban growing and greening could support the economy. The food system needs to provide jobs and foster innovation for sustainable solutions to our food supply issues. Rurbanisation is an exciting solution to this. Upscaling it needs producers, urban planners, stakeholders and scientists to work together. Figuring out what this could look like is just one of our aims for Rurban Revolution.   

We’re thrilled that the food systems review is happening right as we’re getting started with Rurban Revolution because it mirrors so many of our aims. Over the next two years our interdisciplinary team will be carrying out the described here and elsewhere on our website. If you want to keep in touch with us as the research progresses, please sign up to our newsletter or contact us via our social media channels. You can also take part in our first consumer survey about fruit and vegetable growing, health, nature, and diet.  

The Rurban Revolution isn’t confined to the laboratory: over the next two years we will be taking the research on the road, out into communities to spread the word about what we are doing and get people involved! We want to meet and talk to people about the project and get an understanding of what Rurban Revolution could mean for them. We have already started doing this through our social media channels and now we will be taking Rurban Revolution to young people in the Merseyside area this summer.

Science in the Community

Team member, Dr Beth Mead is taking part in a Science in the Community project with secondary school students in Merseyside. Along with Flo Sheen, a PhD student in Appetite and Obesity at the University of Liverpool, she will be working with groups of young people to design activities around urban growing for public engagement events. Beth, Flo and the students will be taking their activities to community and school events, such as parent’s evenings, community festivals and public spaces, over the next few months.

The “Gloveaphones”!

Beth and Flo recently took part in Science Communication training with Science Made Simple to prepare for this. “We spent the day practicing different presenting techniques and turning scientific concepts into fun demonstrations!”, said Beth. “For example, we had a demonstration of how sound waves work using the second largest whoopee cushion in the world! And then we invented our own demonstrator. We made a “Gloveaphone” – a musical instrument made out of everyday objects that shows how air and pressure can make music”.

“It was a lot of fun, and it really helped spark some creative thinking about the kinds of fun activities that could get people engaging with some of our core science in the Rurban Revolution project”. Beth and Flo will be meeting the young people in the next few weeks to start putting together some ideas and then getting out and about with them this summer.

 

Who are we?

A group of researchers with a very diverse background. Not your usual research team, as we bring together expertise from psychology and political science to environmental science, modelling and plant sciences. What brings us together? A common goal and our passion for change. We want to make a difference and we want to help transform our food system to a more resilient and sustainable one that promotes healthy eating.

But really, who are we?

Our Rurban Revolution team includes four academics and three early career researchers from three UK universities; Lancaster University, University of Liverpool and Cranfield University.

Our academic lead is Dr Jess Davies. Jess is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainability at Lancaster University and her research has been focused on developing models that help us understand and predict change in plant, soil and water systems. These models can inform our decisions regarding the resilience and sustainability of our food system.

Joining Jess at Lancaster University is also Dr Lingxuan Liu, a Lecturer in Sustainability at the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business and Management School. Ling’s work is focused on supply chain sustainability as well as on environmental governance and policy and he will be responsible for stakeholder engagement and for identifying opportunities for alternative business models suitable for urban agriculture.

Dr Charlotte Hardman, a Senior Lecturer in Psychological Sciences at the University of Liverpool is bringing the psychology of eating into the Rurban Revolution concept. Charlotte’s research is focusing on the psychological determinants of dietary behaviour and the development of interventions for health behaviour change.

Finally, joining the northern team is Dr Sofia Kourmpetli, a Lecturer in Plant Science at Cranfield University. Sofia’s work is focused on food quality and sustainability and on the development of technologies to reduce food waste.

The team would not be complete without the addition of our three talented early career researchers who will be responsible for undertaking all the experimental work; Lael Walsh (Lancaster University), Dr Beth Mead (University of Liverpool) and Dr Natalia Falagán (Cranfield University). Lael will focus on environmental modelling and ecosystems service analyses, Natalia will collect soil, fruit and veg samples from different locations and analyse them in the lab for quality and safety aspects, while Beth will have a double role, working on understanding the relationship between urban growing and dietary choices (through surveys, interviews and virtual reality experiments) as well as coordinating stakeholder engagement throughout the project.

On the 8^th and 9^th April 2019 we brought together the project team along with food system experts to have our official kick-off in Lancaster University.

On day one, colleagues from the Global Food Security Resilience Programme, Lancaster University, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and other N8 institutes joined us to help us shape our research plans and find research synergies. Following a healthy lunch from a local caterer who focuses on tasty sustainable produce from local suppliers and small businesses (food is important to us – the Rurban Revolution project is all about helping people make healthier, sustainable food choices!), we spent some time explaining our plans for the next two years. We then had lots of time for discussion – and of course flip charts! Drawing on our colleagues’ diverse disciplinary expertise (i.e. supply chains, plant sciences, air quality, GIS, ecology, business partnerships, and urban design), they helped us broadened our vision and recognise the main challenges we might face in the future. We came away with a shed-load of information – thanks to all that joined us for a very productive day.

The second day gave us the chance to reflect on all these ideas and discuss plans with a core member of our external steering group: Natural England. We learnt more about how the Environmental Land Management Scheme is changing and how urban green spaces and growing spaces are starting to factor into decisions on public spending.

Most importantly, it was great to get the whole project team together and spend some quality time laying the foundations for the exciting research ahead. Our first research priorities are scoping the rurbanisation potential of the United Kingdom – just how much food could we grow in cities and what would this mean for food system resilience – and getting our first insights into how connections with food growing and green spaces affect diet and wellbeing. We are looking forward to sharing our findings!

To stay in touch, please follow us on Twitter or facebook, or join our mailing list.

Food has a big role to play in dealing with climate change. How can we change our local food systems to help fight climate change and deal with its consequences? This was the topic of a recent workshop we co-facilitated with Anna Clayton from LESS and Sustainable Food City Lancaster and N8 AgriFood Knowledge Exchange Fellow Rachel Marshall at a recent Climate & Environmental Emergency Conference held at Lancaster Town Hall on the 29^th of March.

Local action on a global problem

The past 6 months has seen a groundswell of local action on climate change. Over 70 local councils across the UK have declared climate emergencies, with many setting out targets to be carbon neutral by 2030, going well beyond the national climate commitments. Many are now working out how to achieve these ambitious goals. The conference at Lancaster brought together councillors across the country to discuss approaches.

Dishing up climate change

Where does food fit in? Almost a third of our greenhouse gas emissions are related to food production and consumption. As well as driving climate change, our food system is under threat from climate change. For example, increasingly frequent floods and droughts makes farming more difficult and causes disruptions in our supply chains.

In the workshop, we discussed these issues, and explored what action participants could practically take in their local regions to create a climate-smart food system. Ideas included working with local networks to boost sustainable food and local growing initiatives, and supporting farmers to exchange knowledge on sustainable farming practices.

Healthy plates, people and planet?

Health kept popping up in our conversations. Food is central to our health as people and the health of our ecosystems. Some participants felt that changing our approach to food could have win-wins for people and the planet – healthier food options can also be more sustainable food options, and the costs to the environment and costs to health are often linked. Our research project will explore how increasing the ‘local-ness’ of our food through urban agriculture could benefit our ecosystems and our health.