Economic Performace in Rural England

English economic policy requires different levels of government to pursue incommensurate, urban-centric, objectives. Rural areas are characterised by ‘softer’ development approaches centring on relocalisation. Measuring rural economic performance is obscured by the simultaneous use of two spatial platforms: the ‘city-region’ and the ‘rural definition’. The characteristics of these spatial platforms for measuring rural economic performance are explored through plant level productivity data. In general, English rural districts are less productive but particularly where they are both lagging and fall outside city regions. The city-region platform makes the rural productivity performance look worse than it really is but since 2000, rural districts have not been charged with pursuing productivity objectives anyway.Rural economic policy; productivity; skills; industrial structure

A food strategy for the City of Lincoln

Summary report of recommendations regarding a Food Strategy for the City of Lincoln. Based on research undertaken by the Health Advancement Research Team (HART) at the University of Lincoln

Feeding Lincoln: multiple benefits from considering food as a local system

Introduction Over the last fifteen years or so there has been a huge growth in interest in local food in cities and towns throughout the western world (Renting et al, 2012). This interest is illustrated in case studies throughout this document. Two major concerns have been at the forefront of this local food movement. Threats to global food security are a concern for many and have been highlighted in a number of international reports . These include fossil fuel dependence and fuel shortages (it takes 10 calories of energy to produce one calorie of food, Lott (2011)); crop failures; intensive animal production; soil erosion; land use change; climate change; resource depletion (including water); population growth; price volatilities; extreme weather and civil unrest, for example. Food system waste is a particularly pressing issue within this global food security agenda, because it requires solutions that are almost entirely local. Globally, the issue is huge: there is enough food waste going into landfill to feed a billion people. There is more food wasted in the northern hemisphere than is consumed in the sub-Saharan world. A third of all food produced is lost or wasted each year (50% of the world’s fruit and vegetable production). This is equivalent to 1% of all global output (UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2016a). It wastes resources and contributes significantly to global warming

Learning in the Permaculture Community of Practice in England: An Analysis of the Relationship between Core Practices and Boundary Processes

This article utilizes the Communities of Practice (CoP) framework to examine learning processes among a group of permaculture practitioners in England, specifically examining the balance between core practices and boundary processes. The empirical basis of the article derives from three participatory workshops and 14 interviews with permaculture practitioners distributed across England. The research found that permaculture practitioners are informally bound together by shared values, expertise and passion for the joint enterprise of permaculture, thus corresponding to a CoP. It found that core practices (situated learning, mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire) are strong but also that boundary processes are active, enabling learning and interaction to take place with other learning systems, although this tends to be restricted to those with similar perspectives. This, and the strong cohesion and identity of the CoP, leads to some insularity. Scholars propose that innovative groups can strengthen the conventional Agricultural Knowledge System (AKS). This research, however, shows that the potential for the permaculture CoP to integrate with the conventional AKS is limited due to its insularity and self-reliance, in that the Permaculture Association fulfils the role of information provision and network facilitation. Most opportunities for integration lay in facilitating brokerage and dialogue between members at the periphery of the permaculture CoP and the AKS. The research provides a critique on the use and value of the CoP framework in a new context and offers insights into how learning takes place in the permaculture community

Lincolnshire Food Chain Diagram (HART)

Diagram illustrating Lincolnshire food chai

The food chain in Lincolnshire - Diagram

The food chain in Lincolnshire - Diagrammatic representatio

Exploring motivations for volunteers in nature conservation to inform local policies

Nature conservation at a local level is characterised by high involvement from volunteers. Meanwhile, the recognition of their potential and capability to use local knowledge to inform nature conservation policies and actions is lacking. In this paper we explore their motivations for participation in nature conservation activities and compare these against the goals of policy initiatives that support local projects. Using four case studies, we apply a neo-endogenous development framework and the principles of sustainable development (SD) to demonstrate the capabilities for local communities to manage their natural resources. The study suggests that a better understanding of the motivations of volunteers in nature conservation and the creation of opportunities for them to participate in local policy making would positively influence local planing policies

Lived experiences of physical activity in outdoor environments [final report to Sport Wales]

The aim of the research project as a whole, as commissioned by Sport Wales, was to examine whether and in what ways the Mentro Allan Programme was successful in increasing and sustaining increased physical activity levels amongst target groups of relatively inactive people in Wales. The research brief provided an exciting opportunity to undertake a relatively novel approach to this kind of evaluative research, for at the core of the research was the opportunity to capture the experiences and ‘voices’ of individuals and social groups from different backgrounds, to chart their perceptions and perspectives in order to facilitate understanding of what they themselves considered was likely to stimulate engagement with physical activity and to encourage sustained participation. Rather than imposing Sport Wales’ or the Research Team’s conceptual framework upon participants, therefore, we wanted to hear from the participants themselves and to undertake the qualitative element of the research as inductively as possible. A quantitative dimension was also incorporated into the research design in terms of analysing quantitative data collected by the MA Central Support Team via their Physical Activity Level (PAL) forms and attendance records for each project throughout the duration of the MA Programme. Mentro Allan targeted specific demographic groups (‘target groups’), which are considered to be generally less active than the wider population in Wales. Fifteen Projects initially were granted funding for four years to increase the physical activity levels of their target group(s), making use of the local outdoor environment. Subsequently one of these Projects terminated, leaving 14 Projects in total, all of which were researched by the Research Team, including via extended fieldwork with six Projects

Potential Co-benefits and trade-offs between improved soil management, climate change mitigation and agri-food productivity

Maximising resource-use efficiency, productivity and environmental sustainability are all fundamental requirements to raise global food production by ~70 per cent in order to feed a world population of ~9.7 billion people by 2050. Perhaps the most vital resource within our capacity to achieve this goal is our soil. Broadly, the fundamental question concerns whether or not satisfying this production demand will accelerate soil degradation, climate change, and the loss of soil carbon stocks. This paper builds upon the outputs of the UK Charity ‘Food & Farming Futures’ (chaired by Lord Curry of Kirkharle) virtual workshop held on 23 March 2021, entitled ‘Capturing the Potential of Soil’. The event focussed on the link between soil health, primarily soil organic carbon (SOC), and agricultural productivity. Supported with commentaries by Professor Pete Smith (University of Aberdeen and Science Director of the Scottish Climate Change Centre of Expertise) and Professor Steve McGrath (Head of Sustainable Agricultural Sciences at Rothamsted Research), specific focus will be given to the research challenges within the UK’s ability to improve soil health and functionality, the implementation priorities that must be held in order to improve soil management by 2050 and what the potential co-benefits could be. These co-benefits were scattered across environmental, economic, social and political issues, yet they may be summarised into six primary co-benefits: developing natural capital, climate change mitigation, carbon trading, improvements in crop yield, animal performance and human health (nutrition). Additionally, the main barriers to improved soil management practices are centred on knowledge exchange-regarding agri-environmental techniques—whilst the most impactful solutions rely on soil monitoring, reporting and verification

Political scientists on the functions of personal pronouns in their writing: An interview-based study of 'I' and 'we'

In contrast to the numerous corpus-based studies of pronouns in academic writing, this paper uses qualitative interviews in an attempt to account for academic writers' motivations for using the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’ and to describe the textual effects that each case of ‘I’ and ‘we’ helps to create. Five political scientists took part in the research, commenting upon their pronoun use in one of their own journal articles and also in the other informants' texts. Seven textual effects that ‘I’ and ‘we’ help to construct are identified and described. ‘I’ and ‘we’ are said to help (i) make the readership feel included and involved in the writers' argument; (ii) make the text more accessible; (iii) convey a tentative tone and hedge writers' claims; (iv) explicate the writers' logic or method regarding their arguments or procedures; (v) signal writers' intentions and arguments; (vi) indicate the contribution and newsworthiness of the research; and (vii) allow the writer to inject a personal tenor into the text. The insights and implications of the study are discussed and the paper closes by proposing that similar interview-based studies could be used for pedagogical purposes in English for academic purposes (EAP) contexts