Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Last week the Bristol Food Connections festival explored “all that is GREAT about food in Bristol (and beyond)” [1]. This made me realise that what I am exploring are the separations in our global food system. While so much of food in Bristol is ‘GREAT’ there is still much work to do about what is NOT SO GREAT. In the global food system, the separations between those who produce and those who consume what is transported around the world are many: income, origin, lifestyle, language, history, opportunities, culture, diet, microbiome – you name it there are separations in the way we eat and live. This weekend I co-facilitated an event, Philosophy Breakfast: The ethics of global food production , with Julian Baggini, philosopher and author of the book, Virtues of the table: How to eat and think , [2]. Julian focused our thoughts on ethics and justice, and I grounded us with a case study, on tomatoes produced in Morocco, based on my recent fieldwork. We were treated, literally, to f...

Educating farmers on the value of pollinators and how to manage their services will be critical to ensuring sustainable food security across the developing world. Image: pixabay.com Animal pollinators are the industrious workers in the factory of life – transporting pollen from one flower to another to ensure successful fertilisation. 75% of our crop plants benefit from this free service which can increase the yield, quality and even shelf-life of their products. This translates to a US$235-577bn value to global agriculture each year. Many of our favourite foods – strawberries, coffee and cocoa – can end up shrivelled and tasteless without pollination. This ecosystem service is under increasing threat however, as pollinators face the potent cocktail of pressures we have laid upon them, declining in numbers across various parts of the world. But what has all this got to do with international development? From what we can tell, communities in developing countries  [1] are m...

Foot selfie at secret swimming spot If you don’t fix things in words, they might float away. So, briefly, a skeletal accounting — 3 open-water swims 2 workshops in maritime writing 1 public lecture 1 trip up the canal locks to Saltford 2 days at #MT2018 ( Marine Transgressions Conference ) 2 keynotes ~ 12 panels 1 Blue Humanities roundtable 2 receptions [a poetry reading that I missed] And many half-garbled memories, starting in the middle — The Llandoger Trow, where Daniel Defoe met Alexander Selkirk Toxicity, the Ocean, and Urban Space (Wednesday) I was trying some new things for this public lecture, knowing that the audience would swirl together academics with non-academics, be mostly composed of city-dwellers, and further include mostly those with a particular interest in the sea. Unpicking the knots of writing and thinking I’ve been chasing down in the wake of Oceanic New York , my talk splashed through some recent watery adventures, included images of Th...