Just and sustainable? : examining the rhetoric and potential realities of UK food security

The dominant discourse in 20th century UK food and agricultural policies of a liberal, free trade agenda was modified at the turn of the 21st to embrace ecological sustainability and "food security." The latter term has a long international history; the relationship between issues of technical production and equality of distributional access are also much debated. The paper examines shifts in UK policy discourse in the context of international research, policy, and initiatives to promote food security, and highlights the implications for social justice in and through the food system

Duchy Originals Future Farming Programme – A practical, farmer led approach to innovation

We have adapted farmer field schools for the UK to boost innovation in organic and other low-input systems by encouraging farmers to share knowledge about experimentation and supporting farmer priorities for research. Benefits in productivity and for the environment come from improved management practices and the use of renewable resources to provide low cost and sustainable solutions

Taking farmers on a journey: experiences evaluating learning in Farmer Field Labs in UK

This paper presents results from an evaluation of the Soil Association’s Duchy Originals Future Farming programme which supported regular farmer group meetings (Field Labs) and problem based field experiments. Drawing on the theoretical ideas of the three learning loops (Argyris & Schön, 1996), the paper examines the nature and extent of farmer learning that can be attributed to participation in the initiative. Using data from a survey, detailed interviews and a discussion forum, the evaluation found that farmer understanding of Field Lab topic, practices and skills, and research methods has been enhanced to different extents as a result of participating in Field Labs. However, overall farmer learning is as much about being given the tools and the confidence to go away and try things, as it is about acquiring specific knowledge, skills and practices. The paper concludes by reflecting on methodologies employed for evaluation of learning approaches and arguing for a more embedded and reflective approach

Quality control procedures at the World Data Centre for Geomagnetism (Edinburgh)

Geomagnetism data holdings at the World Data Centre for Geomagnetism (Edinburgh) include observatory minute, hourly and annual mean values and global magnetic survey and repeat station data. Until 2007 the observatory minute and hourly mean value holdings were maintained by the Danish Meteorological Institute. We describe the quality control procedures developed at the British Geological Survey for application to new and legacy data. A number of issues raised for the legacy observatory hourly mean values result from formatting and typographical mistakes. The clearly obvious mistakes are being corrected in the WDC data that are made available at www.wdc.bgs.ac.uk. Whilst these quality control procedures have been mostly developed with the application of global modelling in mind, they will have benefits for all users of the data. Some examples of corrections are given

Operations of the World Data Centre for Geomagnetism (Edinburgh)

The British Geological Survey has operated a World Data Centre for Geomagnetism since 1966. We hold geomagnetic time-series from around 280 observatories worldwide, for a number of time- resolutions from one-minute to annual, along with various magnetic survey, model and activity index data. The operation of this dynamic data centre contributes towards global geomagnetic field modelling efforts and provides a valuable service to the worldwide research community. We describe the operation of this data centre detailing the range of data held and our data collection, storage and distribution processes and infrastructure. We describe the quality control checks we apply to incoming data and our work interacting with other data centres for geomagnetism to share data and improve the overall consistency of data held. We also demonstrate how we are developing the metadata associated with our datasets and note the current issues around establishing metadata standards for geomagnetism

Recent Activities Of The World Data Centre For Geomagnetism (Edinburgh)

For almost 50 years the World Data Centre for Geomagnetism (Edinburgh) has been a custodian of geomagnetic data. In particular, over recent years the scope of the data holdings has been increased, quality control measures introduced and better interfaces to make the data more accessible to users are being developed. The WDC hold geomagnetic time-series data from around 280 observatories worldwide at a number of time resolutions along with various magnetic survey, model, and geomagnetic activity indices. These data are of value to various scientific communities. Commonly the spatial and temporal coverage of geomagnetic observatory data are valuable for geomagnetic field modelling and contribute to models such as the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (Thébault et al., 2015) and the World Magnetic Model (Chulliat et al., 2015). More recently long-time series of geomagnetic data at a higher-cadence (one-minute means) have been useful in the space weather community, for example in extreme event analysis to estimate likely maxima in geomagnetic activity levels (Thomson et al., 2011). Furthermore recent efforts to digitise historic data and magnetograms may help scientists to re-analysis the largest geomagnetic storms of the past such as the 1859 ‘Carrington Event’ (Humphries et al., 2015). The World Data Centre accepts definitive observatory data from all operating observatories who submit their data. The primary aim is to provide a repository of data that is freely accessible to all. That said, good quality science requires good quality data and to that end various quality control checks are applied to on all new data received. Work has also been carried out to assess and improve the quality of our long-standing datasets. Recent activities have focused on the development of an improved user interface in the form of a new Data Portal for geomagnetic observatory data (http://www.wdc.bgs.ac.uk/dataportal/). This sits atop a RESTful web service which should allow other users or data platforms to integrate the data in the WDC more directly into their applications. This and other activities will be presented. We would welcome feedback from the community on these efforts

Threat or opportunity? An analysis of perceptions of cultured meat in the UK farming sector

The environmental and social impacts of cultured meat, and its economic viability, are contingent on its implications for food production and for agriculture. However, the implications of cultured meat production for farmers have not yet been thoroughly investigated and are poorly understood. The aim of this research was to engage with the farming sector in critically assessing cultured meat as a technology which could profoundly affect future farm livelihoods, land use, rural and farming communities and agricultural value chains. Ensuring farmers' voices, and potential 'counternarratives' inform the development of cultured meat is not only inclusive, but could identify unexpected impacts of this emerging technology and contribute to the framing of the social license of the industry developing them.Six focus groups were undertaken with 75 UK farmers from a variety of farming sectors and regions. Questions focused on what the term 'cultured meat' means to farmers, the potential impacts of cultured meat, and potential business scenarios arising for farmers. All meetings were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed.Farmers expressed complex and considered reflections on cultured meat, raising several perceived opportunities and risks associated with the themes of 'ethics and affective' narratives, 'environmentbased' narratives, and 'socio-economic' narratives. Aspects of foci of power, food system control and transparency associated with cultured meat emerged from the conversations, as well as cultured meat's potential impacts on the environment and on jobs, farming/rural communities and connecting with the land.Globally, meat production underpins the livelihoods of many rural communities, so a transition to cultured meat is likely to have deep-seated ethical, environmental, and socio-economic impacts. Within the discourse on cultured meat the voices of farmers are often lost. While not claiming to be representative of all UK farming, this study engaged UK farmer perspectives as a way of starting the substantive process of greater stakeholder inclusion in cultured meat innovation pathways, and which should underpin responsible technology transitions in agriculture

Scoping potential routes to UK civil unrest via the food system: results of a structured expert elicitation

We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a Societal Event in which 1 in 2,000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)” or “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a longer timeframe of 50 years, nearly 80% of experts rated such an event as “Possible (20–50%)” or “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)”. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. Overall, in the next 50 years, 45% of participants said there is a greater than 20% chance of civil unrest due to insufficient food in the UK due to extreme weather or ecological collapse. However, the experts stressed that the various causes are interconnected, can create cascading risks and highlighted the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning, and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning