Heritage crops for a resilient future
Engaging people with heritage crops to promote biodiversity friendly behaviours.
Funder
National Lottery Heritage Fund
Value to Coventry University
£5,000
Project Team
Margi Lennartsson, Geraldine Brown, Judith Conroy
Collaborator
Garden Organic
Project Overview
Coventry University is working with Garden Organic to explore and evaluate awareness of the importance of heritage crop varieties for biodiversity and resilience, with the aim of encouraging people to make biodiversity friendly decisions in their daily lives.
This research sits alongside Garden Organic’s Sowing Your Seeds – heritage crops for a resilient future. The Midlands-based project finds, conserves and shares non-commercial crop varieties that exist within our communities, and is working to safeguard them at a time of increasing uncertainty with the loss of both wild and cultivated biodiversity.
Project Objectives
This project supports Sowing Your Seeds by working with Garden Organic to co-create a bespoke process for capturing, evaluating and evidencing outcomes. The evaluation process is embedded within the wide-ranging activities of Sowing Your Seeds. By focusing on outcomes and the impact on the individuals and communities involved in, or affected by the project, we intend to discover:
- How the project affects awareness, attitudes and biodiversity friendly behaviours of individuals and communities
- How the project contributes to saving heritage
- How the project is protecting the environment
- How the project is increasing inclusion, access and participation
- How the project can improve organisational sustainability
