Welcome

This is the website and blog of Dr John Lever.

Monday 4 May 2020

Project Information: A Safe and Just Local Food System

As it unfolded, the #Covid-19 crisis drew attention to the task of moving the food system into a “safe” (within planetary boundaries) and (socially) “just” operating space that can provide sufficient resources to meet humanity’s needs without outstripping the planet’s environmental capacity to provide for these needs (Rockstrom et al., 2009; Raworth, 2017; Velenturf and Jopson 2019). 

As the recent bush fires in Australia – which killed tens of thousands of farm animals and burnt innumerable crops – demonstrated, there are other dangerous ecological crises on the horizon. The UK food system is not immune from such crises and the countries we depend upon for food will be negatively affected in by these trends in the coming decades. We thus need to plan and develop local, circular and regenerative methods for growing and producing food if we are to make our food system more resilient to future shocks (Lang 2020; Steel 2020; Firbank et al. 2018; Lever et. al 2019).

Funded by the University of Huddersfield (alongside work conducted by academic partners from University of Leeds), this project aims to enhance the resilience of the local food system in West Yorkshire by bringing together a network of key stakeholders in and around Kirklees to; 1) understand the pressure points in food supply and demand during the #Covid19 crisis; 2) the solutions that emerged, and; 3) and the innovations required to enhance the resilience of the local food economy going forward. Please get in touch if you can contribute!