Policies and Governance for Resilient Food and Water Systems

About the Cluster

Research in this cluster critically evaluates the policies, governance and institutional frameworks - at local, regional, national, and international scale - needed to enhance the development of resilient food and water systems as well as identifying the structural factors that currently and historically constrain the development of these frameworks. Research topics include:

• policy and institutional innovations to support resilient food and water systems based on principles of agroecology, community self-organisation, circular economy, food and resource sovereignty, justice, equity and inclusion, more-than-human care and planetary health.
• analysis of the politico- economic, social and cultural factors, that constrain the adoption of such policy innovations.
• re-governing markets, infrastructures, economic exchanges, investments, and non-market mechanisms to enhance the resilience of food and water systems in a context of uncertainty and rapid change.
• critical assessments of methodological and institutional innovations designed to facilitate citizens' participation and agency in local, national and international policy-making on resilience for food and water security.
• identifying enabling policies for the implementation of the ‘right to grow’, the 'right to food' and the ‘right to water’ for all, together with policies which disable such implementation.
• Critical analysis of the use of natural scientific understandings in informing environmental and agricultural policies and critical evaluation of the governance of agricultural technologies in mainstream and alternative agricultural systems.
• Biological governance, especially in relation to enhancing agrobiodiversity
• Alternate theorisations of governance and governmentality

Projects

The members of the cluster lead and collaborate on a number of research projects and additional projects are available on the Coventry University Research Portal. 

Projects

Featured Projects

ATTER Agroecological Transitions for Territorial Food Systems

The ATTER project develops an interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral exchange program for scaling up agroecological transitions for territorial food systems. It gathers researchers and practitioners in working on cross-case studies through secondments, trainings and workshops.

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Agroecology for Europe (AE4EU)

European agriculture and food systems are strongly impacted by a large number of challenges such as soil erosion and degradation, water quality, loss of biodiversity, food insecurity, access to land and other productive resources, indebtedness of farmers, loss of farms, and climate change.

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SCALE-it: upSCALing Efficient alternatives for contentious InpuTs in organic farming

SCALE-it is working to increase the availability, accessibility and adoption of cost-effective alternatives to contentious inputs in organic farming. By reducing dependence on critical plant protection products, manure from conventional farms, antibiotics and anthelmintics, and synthetic and GMO derived vitamins, organic food systems can be truer to the IFOAM organic principle of ‘ecology’.

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Procurement for Good

Transforming food systems in the context of climate change, biodiversity loss, soil fertility depletion, water pollution, food insecurity/poverty, and diet-related diseases requires the socially just development and implementation of new ideas, practices, or technologies that can address the drawbacks of our 'broken' food system.

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FOOdIVERSE - Diversifying sustainable and organic food systems

Food consumption significantly influences resource use and the environmental effects of food production and distribution. Currently a rather homogenous group of well-educated and affluent consumers is strongly interested in organic food.