J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
-
Upload
anonymous-xvtbc3t6 -
Category
Documents
-
view
218 -
download
0
Transcript of J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
1/11
Measure Your Harvest (MYHarvest)Jill Edmondson, Jonathan Potter, Kevin Gaston,
Jonathan Leake
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
2/11
WHO definition of food security:-when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food
to maintain a healthy and active life
Challenges
Current global population 7 billion and rising
For the first time in history more than 50% of population live incities and towns
During the last 50 years there has been 15% increase per personin calorie consumption
Projected we need a 70% increase in food production by 2050
Need to reduce the environmental impact of food production
Food security
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
3/11
TonnesCO2
per
year
Travel
Power
Heat
Goods
services
7.2 =31%
The impact of UK households through direct and indirect generation of
greenhouse gasses (Office of National Statistics 2004).
61%
The UK household CO2 footprint
(tonnes per year)
The UK is committed to reducing direct CO2 emissions by 80%
of 1990 values by 2050
Need to achieve these CO2 reductions while the population
and consequently food production increases
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
4/11
70% of our apples are imported
Fruit and vegetables
import versus domestically grown
7% of all agricultural land in the UK is used for cultivation of fruits and vegetables
Source: Garnett (2006) Fruit and vegetables and UK greenhouse gas emissions: exploring the relationship.
62% self sufficient in vegetables 9% self sufficient in fruit
75% of the potatoes marketed in the UK are grown domestically
Soft fruit is generally
consumed within season
(or just before) 64%
grown
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
5/11
Globally 800 million people practice urban agriculture (Lee-
Smith 2010)
There is a recognition that urban own-growing can make a
significant contribution to sustainability but there arescarce data on attainable yields
We know that more people are interested in growing their
own food but we dont know how much food people areproducingLee-Smith D. (2010) Environment and Urbanisation 22, 483-499.
Urban own-growing
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
6/11
AIMS
To work with allotment holders and gardeners to establishcurrent crop yields and cultivated / planted areas.
What crop yields per unit area are usually achievable bytypical gardeners for the main fruit and vegetable cropsgrown in the UK?
Enable us to provide realistic projections of potential urban food
production if expansion of urban agricultural land was included in
future strategies for more sustainable cities and towns.
Measure Your Harvest
MYHarvest
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
7/11
Measure Your HarvestMYHarvest
What crop yields per unit area
are usually achievable bytypical gardeners for the main
fruit and vegetable crops grown
in the UK?
http://myharvest.org.uk
http://myharvest.org.uk/http://myharvest.org.uk/ -
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
8/11
MYHarvest allotmentproductivity case study
More than 350 allotment sites across the North East cover at least 320 ha.
Average cultivated area on allotment plots is 52%
The RHS recorded average allotment yield is 3.1 kg m-2 yr-1in the 1970s (Tomkins
2006), slightly higher than preliminary MYHarvest yields.
Using the RHS yield these data suggest there could be up to 5000 tonnes of fruits
and vegetables grown per year on allotments in the North East- enough for 34,000
people on a 5 a day dietTomkins, M. (2006) The Edible Urban Landscape:An assessment method for retro-fitting urban agriculture into an inner London test site. MSc. Thesis, University of East London.
North East population 2.6 million need 230 km2 land assigned specifically for
own-growing
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
9/11
To support our current lifestyles we need 5-10 ha per person (Rees 2003)
but there are only 0.3 ha of productive land per person in the UK. This will
shrink by 22% as UK population rises from 61.8 to 80 million by 2050
Greenspace within urban areas could provide a key productive land
resource What land is available?
Rees WE (2002) Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 22:249-268
Can we increase foodproduction in the North East?
Allotments Industrial estates Gardens
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
10/11
What fruit and vegetable crops should be grown incities and towns?
How much land is realistically available? Is that landsuitable for own-growing - contaminated?
Does it significantly reduce CO2 emission associatedwith food transport? Promotion of growing specificallyin gardens and in the workplace.
Does an increase in own-growing result in a decrease infood waste? Almost all allotment holders compostthere organic waste, would own-growing in gardensincrease composting and reduce conventional waste?
Increased urban fruit and vegetable production in
cities and towns: key questions?
-
7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)
11/11
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by EPSRC grant EP/F007604/1 to the 4M consortium: Measurement,
Modelling, Mapping and Management: an Evidence Based Methodology for Understanding and
Shrinking the Urban Carbon Footprint. The consortium has 4 UK partners: Loughborough
University, De Montfort University, Newcastle University, University of Sheffield and the University
of Exeter. SECURE is a consortium of four UK universities, funded by the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council under the Sustainable Urban Environments programme.
The university partners are supported by an advisory panel drawn from UK central and local
government, industry and academia.
www.4mfootprint.org
www.secure-project.org
We are grateful to all the contributors to the MYHarvest project and the city and county
councils in the North East of England for assistance with the project We thank Infoterra for access to the LandBase Dataset.
http://www.4mfootprint.org/http://www.secure-project.org/http://www.secure-project.org/http://www.secure-project.org/http://www.secure-project.org/http://www.4mfootprint.org/