Newsletter – December 2024
This is our newsletter for December 2024. Please note that this page is not updated, so deadlines may have passed and links may no longer work. To receive future newsletters, please join our network.
News
Booking opens for Big Tent 2025
The Big Tent is the main meeting of the year for the AFN Network+, where stakeholders from across the agri-food sector come together for two days of learning, collaboration and networking. Next year’s event will be held on the 11 and 12 March 2025 in Manchester. Booking is now open.
Attendance (including catering and an evening meal on 11 March) is free. Delegates must have an interest in the AFN Network+ and experience in the agri-food sector. We have some funding available to support your travel and accommodation if your institution is unable to provide this for you. Early Career Researchers are eligible for 100% funding, anyone else is supported at 80%. If you would like to request this please provide explanatory details when you register and specify whether or not you are an ECR.
Last year’s Big Tent was fully booked, so please sign up soon to avoid disappointment.
Apply to join next year’s ECR Board
By joining our ECR Board, early career researchers (ECRs) can make a real impact, grow professionally, and shape the future of the UK’s agri-food sector. Members of our ECR Board work with other early career researchers and AFN Champions; participate in bespoke training workshops; benefit from pastoral care and support from the Network; and receive £1,000 to support their role and activities.
The next ECR Board runs from 1 February 2025 to 30 September 2025. The deadline for applications is 23:59 on Sunday, 8 December 2024.
Webinars
AI & reducing agricultural emissions – risks, opportunities & research gaps
Friday, 13 December 2024, 11:00am–12:00pm
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fast opening up a world of new possibilities in multiple areas – and a lot of questions too. For food and farming, a big question is whether and how it can help us reduce emissions faster, in what is a critical decade for tackling climate change. But what are the risks of using AI in agriculture, and might there be unintended consequences and trade offs? What about research gaps?
We have three speakers to take us on a whistle stop tour of what AI might mean for crop and livestock production. Andrew French is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, Paddy Tarbuck is Innovation Lead in Agri-Food Sustainability at the UK Agri-Tech Centre, and James Strong is a Research Software Engineer at Aberystwyth University.
More information
Book your ticket
Tim Lang on UK food system preparedness for shocks
Tuesday, 21 January 2025, 11:00am–12:00pm
Renowned food systems thinker and scholar, Prof Tim Lang, has spent the last two years researching the UK food system’s preparedness for shocks. In this webinar he will draw on his soon-to-be-published report for the National Preparedness Commission which addresses the state of civil (ie the public’s) food resilience.
UK governments have assured us the UK’s food security is robust. Many food analysts disagree, pointing to a polycrisis of climate change, geopolitics, prices, food ‘weaponisation’ (Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza) and the fragilities of Just-in-Time logistics on which almost all food supply depends. The UK has form in complacency about food, a policy legacy of Empire and EU membership. So far policy advice on resilience-proofing focuses on individual corporate actions and the public has barely featured. This webinar will sketch current national resilience, pointing to a gap between official resilience planning and food system realities. It will highlight the need for community over individualism. Delivering civil food resilience requires a radical but reasonable shift in public policy and more public engagement. Benign ignorance is rarely a good policy.
Ticket link coming soon – look out for an email from Jez.
‘World building’ and ‘behaviour change’ – how to make sustainable & healthy diets easy
If you missed this webinar, it is now available to watch online. How do we move from placing all our bets on individual behavioural change to building a world where healthy and sustainable diets are the easy and normal choice for everyone, regardless of location, income and other cultural factors? And how can political discourse be encouraged toward leadership and action? Our two speakers, Lauren Leak-Smith and Ed Whincup, from the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), discussed these and other issues with Jez Fredenburgh, Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the AFN Network+.
Additional funding for AFN’s EDI work
The AFN Network+ team has recently been awarded a grant from BBSRC to drive forward best practice on EDI within research networks. This work will be led by Angelina Sanderson Bellamy and Sophie Constant. The project is called Elevate: Elevating marginalised voices through EDI codesign, and will run for the next 12 months to look at best practices on EDI within the AFN Network+ and embedding those practices within other research networks, as well as the wider food and farming sector. They will work with Sustain, Eating Better, The Equal Group and Inclusive Farm to deliver project activities, including a Symposium on anti-racism in food and farming in June 2025, aiming for 150 participants.
News from the wider agri-food sector
Reports
Nourishing Britain: a Political Manual for Improving the Nation’s Health
This report, written by the UK government’s former food policy advisor Henry Dimbleby and public health expert Dr Dolly van Tulleken, draws on interviews with an unprecedented number of former prime ministers, health secretaries and other senior ministers to offer practical advice and insight on how today’s politicians can tackle the UK’s obesity crisis. If you haven’t the time to read the full 69 pages, you can read this handy digest, written by Ali Morpeth, our Year 3 Champion for Policy: Food Systems Nutrition and Health, and Jez Fredenburgh, our Knowledge Exchange Fellow.
Funding
Launchpad: agri-tech and food technology, Mid- and North Wales
UK-registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £1.5 million for projects that grow their innovation activities in the agri-tech and food technology cluster in Mid- and North Wales. This Minimal Financial Assistance (MFA) funding is from Innovate UK.
Deadline: 11 December 2024
More information
Event
Webinar: Ultra Processed Food: making us sick or keeping us fed?
Organised by Cambridge Global Food Security and chaired by Professor Martin White, Professor of Population Health Research at the University of Cambridge. An expert panel gave brief presentations addressing key issues around ultra-processed food, followed by a Q&A with the audience. The speakers were Dr Yanaina Chavez-Ugalde and Dr Jagjit Singh Srai (University of Cambridge), Dr Chris van Tulleken (University College London), and Baroness Walmsley, Chair of the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee. If you missed the webinar, the event was recorded.
Webinar: Looking into the 2024 Consumer Insights Report
Wednesday, 11 December 2024 11:00am – 12:30pm
UK Organic are hosting a webinar looking at where organic shoppers prefer to shop, how they navigate their purchasing decisions, and the key motivators driving their choices, such as health, sustainability, and ethical considerations. Speakers include Julia Kirby-Smith from Better Food Traders and Leslie Cowell from Officially Organic.
Webinar: Quick Bites: 2024 – a year in food policy
Tuesday, 17 December 2024, 11:00 – 11:30am
The Food Foundation is holding a webinar looking back at an eventful year in food policy. Join Food Foundation Executive Director Anna Taylor and Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain: The Alliance for Better Food and Farming.
Sustainable Foods Conference
28-29 January 2025, London
This year’s conference features senior spokespeople from Sainsbury’s, Danone, PepsiCo, British Sugar, Tate & Lyle, Arla Foods and Tesco.
Vacancies and opportunities
Short Deadline: Policy Engagement Training
This policy engagement training programme is designed to support and equip UK researchers to translate their environmental, economic and social science research into policy insights and real-world impacts. The free programme consists of a self-paced online training course and live virtual training sessions.
You do not need policy experience to be eligible to apply. However, you’ll need to be an environmental or social science researcher at postdoc level or higher (at any postdoctoral career stage) and based at a UK higher education institution or a recognised independent research organisation.
Deadline: 4 December 2024
More information
Research Fellow in Regenerative Agriculture
As part of the Regenerative Farming work package of Fix Our Food (a UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) project), the University of Leeds is looking for a research fellow to continue a field trial at the University of Leeds research farm to demonstrate and measure the impacts of different transition strategies to regenerative agriculture.
Closing date: 9 December 2024
More information
Research Associate – Fix our Food
A one-year Post-Doctoral Research Associate to work on communications about the quantitative systems model that will underpin the AFN Network+ Roadmap, engaging broadly with stakeholders including citizens. The successful applicant will work to increase and measure the impact of the FixOurFood AgriFood Calculator interface to the FixOurFood quantitative systems model, considering users from farmers to citizens, including young people. The role will involve running workshops online and in person and capturing information on how opinions are affected by interacting with the calculator and associated materials.
Closing date: 17 December 2024.
More information
Research Fellow – JPP4JL
Based at City St George’s, University of London, the Research Fellow will contribute to the Joined-up Policy and Practice for Joined-up Landscapes (JPP4JL) project, aiming to enhance climate change adaptation through Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). The Research Fellow will conduct rapid qualitative analyses and semi-structured interviews with diverse stakeholders; organise and facilitate participatory workshops to evaluate and prioritise Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) strategies; and synthesise findings to inform policy recommendations and contribute to academic publications.
Closing date: 22 December 2024
More information