attendees an agrarian renaissance (8)
DESCRIPTION
PROFESSOR JOHN BEDDINGTON Government CSA Thursday 2 nd July 2009 An Agrarian renaissance? Colin Tudge 1 PROFESSOR ROBERT WATSON CSA DEFRA Richard Wakeford Bob Orskov 2 Fred Pearce Tony Juniper Dr Douglas Parr Ian Goldin 3 Alan Spedding Patrick Mulvany Charles Godfray Alex Evans 4 Andrew Whitley Amy Barry Thomas Lines Tom Curtis Martin Stanley 5 Tim Waygood Tom MacMillan Kenneth Hayes Nick Read 6TRANSCRIPT
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An Agrarian renaissance?
Thursday 2nd July 2009 Attendees ____________________________________________________________
Colin Tudge
Colin Tudge is a biologist by education and a writer by inclination. His books on food and agriculture include The Famine Business, Food Crops for the Future, The Food Connection, Future Cook, So Shall We Reap, and Feeding People is Easy. Others on other topics include The Engineer in the Garden, The Day Before Yesterday, The Variety of Life, The Secret Life of Trees, Consider the Birds, and The Link. He is a co‐founder and director of LandShare, and is currently seeking to launch The Campaign for Real Farming.
PROFESSOR JOHN BEDDINGTON Government CSA Professor John Beddington was appointed as Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) on 1 January 2008. John's main research interests are the application of biological and economic analysis to problems of Natural Resource Management including inter alia: fisheries, pest control, wildlife management and the control of disease. He started his academic career at the University of York and spent three years on secondment from York as a Senior Fellow with the International Institute of Environment and Development. He has been at Imperial College since 1984, where he headed the main departments dealing with environmental science and technology. He was Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial until his appointment as GCSA. He has been adviser to a number of government departments, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (on Antarctic and South Atlantic matters), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (where he chaired the Science Advisory Council), the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office. He was for six years a member of the Natural Environment Research Council He has acted as a senior adviser to several government and international bodies, including the Australian, New Zealand and US Governments, the European Commission, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. In June 1997 he was awarded the Heidelberg Award for Environmental Excellence and in 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2004 he was awarded the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George by the Queen for services to fisheries science and management.
[Professor Beddington will be accompanied by one of his Advisors, Dr Alaster Smith: and Joe Flannagan, a work experience pupil.]
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PROFESSOR ROBERT WATSON CSA DEFRA
Professor Watson’s career has evolved from research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory: California Institute of Technology, to a US Federal Government program manager/director at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to a scientific/policy advisor in the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), White House, to a scientific advisor, manager and chief scientist at the World Bank, to a Chair of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, the Director for Strategic Direction for the Tyndall centre, and Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In parallel to his formal positions he has chaired, co‐chaired or directed international scientific, technical and economic assessments of stratospheric ozone depletion, biodiversity/ecosystems (the GBA and MA), climate change (IPCC) and agricultural S&T (IAASTD). Professor Watson’s areas of expertise include managing and coordinating national and international environmental programs, research programs and assessments; establishing science and environmental policies ‐ specifically advising governments and civil society on the policy implications of scientific information and policy options for action; and communicating scientific, technical and economic information to policymakers. During the last twenty years he has received numerous national and international awards recognizing his contributions to science and the science‐policy interface, including in 2003 ‐ Honorary “Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George” from the United Kingdom.
Richard Wakeford
Richard Wakeford has been Director General Environment in the Scottish Government since 2005, where his responsibilities cover everything that Defra does in England, as well as climate change policy. Previously Chief Executive of the Countryside Agency, he is especially interested in how global pressures and the world’s response to the challenges of climate change will impact on rural areas. Through his position as Chair of the OECD Rural Working Party he is developing a programme to allow more countries to collaborate internationally on properly informed rural strategies.
Bob Orskov Dr Orskov OBE is professor at Aberdeen University Scotland and Gadja Mada University Yogyakarta Indonesia He is author or co‐author of more than 600 papers and author of 5 books. Professor Ørskov has worked with many international organisations including FAO, IAEA, DFID EU and ILRI in project identification and evaluation in the area of feed resource management and rural development with emphasis on livestock nutrition. He worked for many years at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen and more recently in the Macaulay land use Research Institute Aberdeen. The International Feed Resource laboratory provided appropriate training to support the projects. Subsections of the International Feed Resourse Unit has now been established in Kenya Indonesia and Cuba. He has worked in many countries in Asia, including Indonesia, Mongolia, China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Syria, Iran and Turkey. In Africa including Egypt, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria and Ghana, in South America including Cuba, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile and also in Eastern Europe including
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Poland, Czeck Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. He has also recently conducted nutrition courses in Indonesia, Thailand, Syria, Argentina, Sudan, Turkey, China, Vietnam and Uzbekistan. Fred Pearce Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in London. He has reported on environment, science and development issues from 64 countries over the past 20 years. Trained as a geographer, he has been environment consultant of New Scientist magazine since 1992 and writes the weekly Greenwash column for The Guardian online. Fred’s books have been translated into at least twelve languages. They include Confessions of an Eco Sinner, When the Rivers Run Dry, Earth: Then and Now, The Last Generation (on climate change) and Deep Jungle. His next book, Peoplequake, explores population issues in the 21st century. Dr Douglas Parr Dr Douglas Parr is Policy Director at Greenpeace UK, looking after the science and political lobbying functions, currently working on climate change policy in the power, heat and transport sectors. He has previously worked on a number of issues including GM crops and agriculture, chemicals policy, green refrigeration, marine conservation, biofuels and nuclear power. He obtained a D.Phil in Atmospheric Chemistry from Oxford University in 1991.
Tony Juniper
Tony Juniper is a campaigner, writer, adviser and commentator and one of the UK's best known environmentalists. According to the ENDS Report, he is “one of the top ten environmental figures of the last 30 years”. Tony started his career as a professional ornithologist and worked with Birdlife International to protect critically endangered species of parrots. In 1990 he joined Friends of the Earth. He was appointed Vice Chair of the 70 national bodies that comprise Friends of the Earth International in 2000, and Director of Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2002. He stepped down from both roles mid‐2008. Tony now works as an independent sustainability adviser, including with The Prince of Wales' Rainforest Project and with the Cambridge University Program for Industry, where he is a Senior Associate. He is a member of several advisory panels, for example with the British Council and Science Museum. He makes frequent speaking appearances and advises companies that genuinely wish to make a positive difference in the world. Tony Juniper has authored several books, including the award‐winning Parrots of the World. www.tonyjuniper.com.
Ian Goldin Ian Goldin took up his position as the first Director of the 21st Century School in September 2006. Previously he served as Vice President of the World Bank (2003‐2006), and prior to that, as the Bank's Director of Development Policy. Ian Goldin was brought up in South Africa and from 1996 to 2001 he was Chief Executive and Managing Director of the development Bank of Southern Africa and served as an adviser to President Nelson Mandela.
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Alex Evans Alex Evans is a non‐resident fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University, where he runs CIC’s work on climate change, resource scarcity and global public goods. He has recently completed projects on rising global food prices and on reform of the multilateral system to deal with climate change, and is now working on a British government‐funded project on improving international capacity to deal with long term global risk issues. He is also the co‐founder with David Steven of GlobalDashboard.org, the foreign policy blog. Prior to joining CIC in 2006, Alex was Special Adviser to Hilary Benn MP, then UK Secretary of State for International Development, where he worked on issues including climate change, UN reform, governance in fragile states and the Middle East Peace Process. Before joining DFID he was head of the climate and energy research program of the Institute for Public Policy Research in London. Patrick Mulvany
Patrick Mulvany is senior policy adviser to Practical Action and formerly managed the organisation's work with farmers, herders and fisherfolk. He trained as an agricultural scientist and has worked with small‐scale food producers and their organisations in many parts of the world. His work focuses on food sovereignty and related issues of the governance of agriculture, biodiversity and technology. With a Peruvian colleague, he represented the organisation in the governing Bureau of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Patrick is an active participant in the civil society lobbies at the Food & Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as well as international food sovereignty networks. He is also Co‐chair of the UK Food Group (UKFG), the principal network of UK NGOs concerned with global food and farming issues.
Charles Godfray
Charles Godfray is a population biologist in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University with broad interests in evolution, ecology, pest management and epidemiology. He is currently chair of the Lead Expert Group in the government’s Global Future of Food and Farming Foresight project and a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Alan Spedding Alan Spedding edits RuSource a weekly email briefing for rural practitioners. He is part‐retired after two careers – one as a beef production specialist with the Meat and Livestock Commission, the second as a communications manager with the Royal Agricultural Society of England. He is also honorary editor of the RASE Journal and has recently produced a report for them on attracting the best young people to farming. He is currently reporting on a survey on the impacts of bovine TB on farming families for the Farm Crisis Network. His main interests are charting the direction of future change in agriculture and working out how such change could be made to happen
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Thomas Lines The commodity markets have followed Thomas Lines around ever since he started work on the trade magazine, Metal Bulletin, in 1978. He finally realised he could not shake them off and wrote a book about their relationship with rural poverty: Making Poverty: A History, published in 2008. He has studied development, taught International Business at Edinburgh University, been an advisor at the European Parliament and team leader of agricultural aid projects. Now he mainly does research for UN agencies and sympathetic NGOs. He has worked in more than 40 countries, many of them in Africa and the post‐Communist world.
Martin Stanley
Martin Stanley worked in commercial sector for many years including telecoms, software and publishing. Set up a small charity which supports and works with a number of wildlife conservation and sustainable development projects in Latin America and Africa. I also support some UK environmental and education projects related to the environment, and helped set up Landshare based in Oxford.
Tom Curtis
Tom Curtis is Managing Director of LandShare and a Policy Manager at the Woodland Trust. With a background in applied ecological research, he also has extensive professional land management experience, ranging from ancient woodland restoration, to sheep and arable farming. Tom is concerned with the connection between people and land ‐‐ the finite resource on which we all rely for the basics of survival.
Andrew Whitley
Andrew Whitley left a career as a producer in the BBC Russian Service in 1976 to found The Village Bakery Melmerby, which became one of the country’s leading organic bakeries. He stepped down from The Village Bakery in 2002 to concentrate on teaching, writing and campaigning on food and health. He is chair of the Soil Association’s Processing Standards Committee. His book Bread Matters – the state of modern bread and a definitive guide to baking your own won the André Simon 2006 Food Book Award. He is co‐founder of the Real Bread Campaign.
Amy Barry
Amy Barry is Head of Communications at Global Witness, an NGO working to break the link between natural resources, conflict and corruption. Prior to this she was Head of News at Oxfam's press office, where she worked among other things on international trade and agricultural polices, including the Common Agricultural Policy. She has also been a journalist for the Times and Mail on Sunday and has lived in Brazil, Geneva, Australia and Spain. She has a First Class degree in English Literature from Oxford and a Postgraduate Diploma in Economics from Birkbeck.
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Kenneth Hayes
Kenneth Hayes works for the Soil Association on promoting organic farming as a solution to food security and climate change with a particular interest on organic agriculture in Africa. He is also responsible for several strands of organic standards development including ethical trade, glasshouses and protecting primary habitat from conversion to farmland. Kenneth joined the Soil Association after completing his dissertation in the biotechnology department at the University of Bath where he was involved in the early stages of developing genetically modified Brassicas.”
Tom MacMillan
Tom MacMillan is Executive Director of the Food Ethics Council, which provides independent advice on the ethics of food and farming. Tom edits Food Ethics magazine and co‐ordinates the council's work. He is currently involved in projects on livestock and climate change, water scarcity and priority‐setting tools for food NGOs, as well as a new inquiry into social justice in food and farming. His other recent work spans food distribution, the governance of agricultural science and personalisation in public health policy. Tom was a member of the expert advisory panel for the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit’s Food Matters report. He is a member of the BBSRC Science and Society Strategy Panel. He is a director of the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, which aims to make healthy and sustainable food readily available to all across the city. He has a PhD in Geography from the University of Manchester.
Nick Read Nick is Chaplain for Agriculture & Rural Life in Hereford Diocese with degrees in Agricultural Science, and Forestry and Land Management. He worked previously in academic research and as an Adviser with the NFU. He co‐founded the Rural Stress Information Network, a charity supporting distressed farmers, for which he was awarded the OBE in 1998. He has been a member of the West Midlands Rural Affairs Forum since its inception (Chairman from 2005 – 2008), and currently chairs the Institute of Rural Health. He is a member of Herefordshire Food Vision, and a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society.
Tim Waygood
Tim’s family were all small mixed farmers so he had a practical farming upbringing. Church farm ceased farming in 1988. All set aside was set aside whilst he studied BSC Agriculture Reading from 1985‐1988. Whilst at university he started MotivAction plc. From £10 advert ‐ £15 million Turnover business. Events, Communications, Motivation, Team Building.. He is an Alumni of the Harvard Business School OPM course and has won various entrepreneurial awards. In 2008 he re‐started Church Farm as a prototype, mixed farm, producing food, and acting as multi service centre. Together with others he is forming the Agrarian Renaissance Movement to connect people land and food and devise replicable systems and social franchises for an ecologically based farming future.
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Sam Henderson
Sam Henderson has been working to help establish Church Farm and Agrarian Renaissance since January 2008. He graduated from Forum for the Future's masters course in 'Leadership for Sustainable Development' in 2006. Since then has worked as a consultant, both freelance and for Beyond Green. He has been involved in developing communications projects, planning submissions, exhibition designs, public consultations, corporate strategies, and in his spare time won an architecture competition by turning an old scrap car into a mini‐park.
Ruth West
A researcher and campaigner in the areas of health, the environment and human rights, with particular interest in traditional knowledge and practices and the right of self‐determination, Ruth has worked as a consultant for the WHO, UNEP and the Commonwealth Secretariat She is a Director of LandShare (CIC).
Ruth Layton Ruth is a founding director of the Food Animal Initiative which runs a 1200 acre organic farm site at Wytham near Oxford. FAI are tenants of Oxford University and work closely with Oxford Zoology Department and other universities. Ruth has the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Diploma in Animal Welfare and has worked extensively as a consultant within the food industry. Ruth’s major current role is the development of R&D programmes with teams of scientists, farmers and others to provide sustainable food solutions while taking account of animal and human welfare together with environmental care. Professor Martin Wolfe Professor Martin Wolfe is Research Director for the Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm. After a career in plant pathology at the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge, he moved to Switzerland in 1988 where he held the Chair of Plant Pathology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, until 1997. He now farms Wakelyns Agroforestry in Suffolk, which is the main site for ORC arable farming research. The arable field trials rotate within six organic agroforestry systems, developed over the past 15 years. The diversity theme is highlighted in the current main project on production of wheat populations ('Evolutionary Breeding') as an alternative to monoculture.
Mike Townsend
Mike Townsend OBE, BSc (Hons), MA, FICFor. Head of Conservation Policy for the Woodland Trust, founder member of Landshare. Has worked in agriculture, horticulture and forestry in both the commercial and voluntary sector. Awarded the OBE in 2004 for services to the forest industry.
Kath Dalmeny Policy Director at Sustain
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Dr Kustantinah Dr Kustantinah is assistant professor at Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta Indonesia. She is in the Animal Nutrition Department but she has also projects on complementary multiculture and has set up many community projects in Indonesia very successful ones using goats funded by my rotary club and now also by a foundation called orskovfoundation. At the moment she works with us to be familiar with a new technique funded for 6 months from Stapledon trust Tara Garnett
Tara Garnett is a research fellow at the University of Surrey where she initiated and runs the Food Climate Research Network. Her work focuses on exploring the contribution that our food consumption makes to greenhouse gas emissions and the scope for emissions reduction, looking at both technological and behavioural options, and at the framing policy context. She has a particular interest in the relationship between food GHG mitigation objectives and other areas of concern, particularly food security and nutrition, and animal welfare. She has written exensively on food and climate change. In addition, Tara initiated and runs the Food Climate Research Network. This brings together around a growing number of individuals (1300 so far) from across the food industry, NGO, Government and academic sectors and from a broad variety of disciplines to share information on issues relating to food and climate change. The FCRN also runs seminars and conferences, and its website www.fcrn.org.uk is a comprehensive information resource on all things food and climate related. The Network is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Defra.
Susan Lee Susan Lee has been Sir Crispin Tickell's Personal Secretary since 1998. She was also secretary to the Green College Centre for Environmental Policy and Understanding at Green College Oxford, before becoming the Programme Manager of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin 21st Century School, University of Oxford. She continues to be Sir Crispin's Personal Secretary.
Members of the Press:
Sheila Dillon ‐ BBC Radio 4 The Food Programme
Melvin Richarby ‐ Farming Today Radio 4
Bill Heine ‐ BBC Radio Oxford
John Vidal ‐ Guardian Graham Harvey ‐ Free lance Greg Neale ‐ Oxford Today