Webinars & Podcast
To suggest a topic or person for our webinar and podcast series,
contact our Knowledge Exchange Fellow, Jez Fredenburgh: [email protected]
contact our Knowledge Exchange Fellow, Jez Fredenburgh: [email protected]
Peatlands are incredible - globally they cover 3% of land area but hold more than twice the carbon in all the world’s forests. But managing them is a conundrum and a balancing act between short and long term food security, biodiversity, climate, and livelihoods: Their carbon-rich soils make them food-producing power-houses (accounting for 30-40% of UK-grown potatoes and vegetables) but also significant carbon emitters when drained and cultivated (1% of UK carbon emissions). Those who farm peatlands are often acutely aware of this issue, but don’t know what to do: Rewetting peatlands can lock this carbon back up and improve biodiversity, but rewet them too much and they start to emit methane, and of course displace food production elsewhere and potentially impact livelihoods too. So, what should we do? Prof Heiko Balzter, from the University of Leicester, unravels this topic for us: Last year he convened 40 researchers and peatland farmers in the East Anglian Fens, an area that accounts for around 27% of England’s total peatland, and on which 4,000 farms and 80,000 livelihoods depend. Prof Balzter will present his main findings and possible ways forward.
Heiko covers:
About Heiko: Prof Heiko Balzter is a professor of Physical Geography and Director of the Institute for Environmental Futures. His research interests include carbon accounting, Earth observation and remote sensing of land use and forests. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Royal Geographical Society’s Cuthbert Peek Award ‘for advancing geographical knowledge of human impact through earth observation’ (2015). He leads UKRI’s Landscape Decisions Programme and NERC’s National Centre for Earth Observation’s International Programme, and he was an AFN Network+ Champion 2022-2023.
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WEBINAR: Food security under pressure - UK fruit & veg in an era of climate change (Part 2)5/2/2024 Food system transformation models often rest on us all eating more fruit and veg and less meat and dairy. But even if consumers were persuaded to choose a more plant-based diet, our supply of fresh produce is on a knife edge: Mounting pressures from Brexit to supermarkets, and labour to energy costs, mean many UK growers have left glasshouses, fields, or orchards unplanted or unsown for two years now. In addition, we rely heavily on imports (around 80% for fruit, 45% for veg) from countries that are projected to suffer large-scale drying and other climate-related shocks and stresses. Add to that an ever more fractured world with traditional trade routes disrupted, and there is a big case for increasing our own domestic production. But how? What are the challenges? How can research and academia contribute?
In this two-part webinar, we have two great speakers with significant first-hand experience of working in fresh produce, and who are both sought-after voices to talk about these topics in the media and to government. Part 2: Fruit crops (23 February, 10-11am) Ali Capper grows apples and hops on the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border and is the chair of British Apples & Pears, a grower-funded apple and pear trade group. British apples are our national fruit, yet British-grown apples represent only 40% of all the apples sold in the UK. (Part 1 Vegetable and Salad Crops with Lee Stiles, the secretary of Lea Valley Growers Association.) About Ali: Ali Capper wears many hats and is a well-known voice in British horticulture. She grows eating and cider apples at her family farm on the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border and is the chair of British Apples & Pears, a grower-funded apple and pear trade group. Ali also sits on the NFU’s horticulture and potatoes board, which she was chair of from 2016-2022. She has contributed to the government’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and regularly appears in national media and the farming and horticulture press. She is also a director of the Oxford Farming Conference, Director of British Hop Association (she also grows hops), chair of Wye Hops, Chair of Horticulture Crop Protection Ltd, a Nuffield Scholar, and non-executive chair of rural insurer, NFU Mutual. Follow Ali on Twitter here and LinkedIn here. About the webinar series: The webinar is chaired by Jez Fredenburgh, Knowledge Exchange Fellow for the AFN Network+, and agri-food journalist. Jez is based at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. This webinar is part of a series run by the AFN Network+ which explores net zero in the UK agri-food system with leading movers and shakers. Expect deep and varied insight from across the sector, including farmers, scientists, policy analysts, community leaders, retailers, politicians, businesses and health professionals. The series is put together by Jez and Neil Ward, co-lead of the network, also based at the Tyndall Centre at UEA. Follow Jez on Twitter/X and follow Neil on Twitter/X. |
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July 2024
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