Tag - #TNOfood
#TNOfood on 2nd November: drivers & trends, food issues & solutions
Here is Ellie Richards’ analysis of the content of the conversations that happened at the New Optimists Forum meeting on 2nd November: Analysis_Forum2ndNov2011_EllieRichards
Ellie has done a superb job in analysing the transcripts from over three hours of scientists talking, plus all the blogposts, interviews and tweets.
Her brief was “make something of all this”, with the further instruction to put her thinking into not more than four pages — she did it in three!
She divided the conversational topics into three main categories: (1) Drivers and trends, (2) Food issues and (3) Solutions.
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#TNOfood: what the participants thought important and interesting
The last task the participants did at the New Optimists Forum last night was to answer three questions:
- What is the most interesting or important thing you’ve heard tonight?
- What didn’t you say that you now wish you had?
- What did you expect to hear tonight that you didn’t?
And here are their responses . . . some of which conflict with each other, as you’d expect from the lively minds of a bunch of scientists:
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#TNOfood notes from table 2
This was a free-flowing conversation and the notes below are paraphrased rather than quotations.
Leaving food aside for the moment, what will the city of Birmingham be like in 2050? What if there is no public transport? What if lorries can’t enter the city? Life would be more localised.
Birmingham’s Big City Plan runs until 2050 and envisages expansion. How will housing expansion be handled? Housing will be built in those areas with least lines of resistance.
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Lynsey Melville on food waste and creating a cycle of calories from food – to waste to energy, back into food.
Dr Lynsey Melville is a a reader in Bio-energy & Bio-refining at Birmingham City University.
#TNOfood on 1st March: group one notes
This was a free-flowing debate and points are paraphrased rather than quotations:
Chris Brewster – we should consider the fundamental underpinning, and that’s the reliance on petrol.
Ruth Reed – is the key about whether we have economic mass-transportation.
David Pink – it’s a dichotomy—economies of scale—small can do things (like crops localised for local conditions) and big can do things. Assumptions that local is more sustainable isn’t necessarily true.
Laura Green — in abattoirs there’s a snobbery that ‘small is beautiful’ but conditions are better in the large EU certified ones. You could have a very large set up in Birmingham.
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Precision farming
Professor Alister Scott, Professor of Spatial Planning and Governance at Birmingham City University, started a discussion on table 2, asking:
“Do we see any fundamental change to the agricultural system by 2050?”
Dr Mark Rutter, Head of Animal Health and Welfare at Harper Adams University College, responded to a general perception of big business taking over agricultural production.
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#TNOfood on 1st March: opening notes
This is the third Food Forum event – a dozen of the finest minds in the West Midlands joining to talk about food futures for Birmingham in 2050.
Here are some notes on what links their expertise to the future of food in the city of Birmingham.
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#TNOfood on 1st March: Ten scientists, Brum’s strategy boss & an architect
For the third Forum event, a dozen of the finest minds in the West Midlands are joining to talk about food futures for Birmingham in 2050 — on Thursday 1st March from 6pm to around 9pm (twitter #TNOfood).
They’re an impressive bunch. And here’s who they are (from left to right, top to bottom):
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Rob Lillywhite on Farming Today
Warwick Crop Centre scientist Rob Lillywhite, who’s taking part in the New Optimists Forum on Thursday 1st March, was interviewed on this week’s Radio 4 programme Farming Today — you’ve got another seven days to listen to it on iPlayer here.
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What choices technology and planning give us with supply and consumption of food. #TNOfood
- GM foods – there is a mis-education around the implications of GM foods because we wouldn’t really know the impact until 20 years into the scheme.
- If there was a choice between no food or GM food people would go for GM food
- We have a luxury in this country that we have a choice about GM food so is it our responsibility to test it out to find out what the effects are before we have no choice.
- Fridges and freezers changed the way we store food.
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