Reimagining Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Social Justice
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Essex
Department Name: Law
Abstract
Globalised food production under low-cost fossil fuels has led to economic growth and human wellbeing, yet is also implicated in climate change and food insecurity risks for vulnerable groups which hold profound implications for human rights including to life, food, health, water and sanitation, culture, and self-determination. Not only a lack of, but also poorly designed and implemented climate change mitigation and adaptation schemes can lead to human rights violations, particularly for marginalised groups. The Reimagining Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Social Justice project (RFS) will apply a human rights lens to the development and implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies related to food systems. This lens will anchor policies, programs and strategies in a system of rights and corresponding obligations under International Human Rights Law to empower right-holders to participate in policy formulation and enhance accountability.
The RFS project is participatory and marshals the knowledge, skills, and experiences of Indigenous, riparian, and low-income populations, especially women; the work of Myera Group Inc - an indigenous led corporate body in Canada; and global researchers. This research will identify existing global, national and local challenges affecting food systems, and develop community assessment tools to support the develop Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Social Justice.
The RFS vision is decentralized and applicable to local, circular economies in the context of local knowledge, culture and traditions and human rights. The RFS promotes sound nutrition, healthy child development, brings consumers closer to their food sources and repairs agriculture's relationships with land and water to restore ecosystem health.
The RFS project is participatory and marshals the knowledge, skills, and experiences of Indigenous, riparian, and low-income populations, especially women; the work of Myera Group Inc - an indigenous led corporate body in Canada; and global researchers. This research will identify existing global, national and local challenges affecting food systems, and develop community assessment tools to support the develop Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Social Justice.
The RFS vision is decentralized and applicable to local, circular economies in the context of local knowledge, culture and traditions and human rights. The RFS promotes sound nutrition, healthy child development, brings consumers closer to their food sources and repairs agriculture's relationships with land and water to restore ecosystem health.
| Description | Reimagining Food Systems |
| Organisation | Azim Premji University |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | As part of the reimagined food systems project, the human rights team (4 staff at Essex University and 1 at University of Manitoba) is working in partnership with other researchers under the project to ensure (1) human rights is brought to bear across analytical research as well as the development of interventions in the project as a whole. These collaborations and partnerships are at an early stage of development, aside from two very preliminary meetings held during summer 2024, we have recently had meetings as follows to discuss collaborations - Nov 2024 - February 2025 - 3 x meetings with West Africa and Great Lakes region Small Fish Teams (19 Nov, 28 January, 4 February) to learn more about their work and scope possible collaborations - 17 May 2024 and 14 January 2025 - 2 X meetings with the South Africa Limpopo research team to scope collaborations - Summer 2024 (date unsure) and 3 Feb 2025 - meetings with the India Small Fish team. - 12 September 2024, we held a meeting with Doug Mercer who is a member of the project's Indigenous Governance Working Group. We are meant to be working closely with the IGWG for the project, however there have been delays in the appointment of other members, and we are waiting to begin an earnest collaboration. However, the meeting with Doug Mercer was also important in the context of our research with the Canada team on wild rice cultivation in Manitoba province, as Doug will also be involved with that research. These meetings have been important for our team to better understand local contexts and to confirm our fieldwork locations. For example, during the project drafting proposal it was suggested we should work with the West Africa team to work on the human rights dimensions of small fish research being undertaken there, however closer discussions have suggested that this is a very complex regional context and would be problematic within our resources. On the other hand, we have discovered strong research synergies with the South Africa team and are now planning to undertake a country focus on the Indigenous crop research being undertaken by the University of Limpopo in this country. We are now at the stage of confirming and developing our country focused work in terms of methods and workplans, which will contribute to the analysis and work of country-teams under the project. So far, we have reviewed and submitted human rights-related analysis and comments on the following draft documents which are part of the research goals and methodology planning of the project as a whole: - Matthew Pflaum, Ragnhild Overå, and Jeppe Kolding, SFCC: Value chain mass balance analysis - SFCC Methodology: Mid-range operationalization and research instruments We have been asked to jointly deliver a presentation at the MARE conference, 2025 in the Netherlands, together with partners at the University of Manitoba. We have begun to develop our own research plan including for country-based research, and have circulated this to project partners for their comments and input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | While University of Manitoba has been the lead institution, we have also collaborated with project researchers at the Universities of Bergen, Limpopo, and the Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen. Our partners have been focusing on developing their work under the project across these another collaborating universities and research partnerships. Most project partners work vertically on thematic and country projects, yet our human rights team works horizontally across the project. As such, our partners have been developing their work-streams, including research objectives and methods, which we will be engaging with increasingly. |
| Impact | To date, we are still very much in planning mode under the project. All partners were still waiting for funding to be confirmed until around June/July 2024 just at the start of the summer holidays, and subsequently for relevant administration to be completed within our universities, including cost-codes and recruitment. Thus, the project work only got under way in earnest in the second half of September. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Reimagining Food Systems |
| Organisation | Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | As part of the reimagined food systems project, the human rights team (4 staff at Essex University and 1 at University of Manitoba) is working in partnership with other researchers under the project to ensure (1) human rights is brought to bear across analytical research as well as the development of interventions in the project as a whole. These collaborations and partnerships are at an early stage of development, aside from two very preliminary meetings held during summer 2024, we have recently had meetings as follows to discuss collaborations - Nov 2024 - February 2025 - 3 x meetings with West Africa and Great Lakes region Small Fish Teams (19 Nov, 28 January, 4 February) to learn more about their work and scope possible collaborations - 17 May 2024 and 14 January 2025 - 2 X meetings with the South Africa Limpopo research team to scope collaborations - Summer 2024 (date unsure) and 3 Feb 2025 - meetings with the India Small Fish team. - 12 September 2024, we held a meeting with Doug Mercer who is a member of the project's Indigenous Governance Working Group. We are meant to be working closely with the IGWG for the project, however there have been delays in the appointment of other members, and we are waiting to begin an earnest collaboration. However, the meeting with Doug Mercer was also important in the context of our research with the Canada team on wild rice cultivation in Manitoba province, as Doug will also be involved with that research. These meetings have been important for our team to better understand local contexts and to confirm our fieldwork locations. For example, during the project drafting proposal it was suggested we should work with the West Africa team to work on the human rights dimensions of small fish research being undertaken there, however closer discussions have suggested that this is a very complex regional context and would be problematic within our resources. On the other hand, we have discovered strong research synergies with the South Africa team and are now planning to undertake a country focus on the Indigenous crop research being undertaken by the University of Limpopo in this country. We are now at the stage of confirming and developing our country focused work in terms of methods and workplans, which will contribute to the analysis and work of country-teams under the project. So far, we have reviewed and submitted human rights-related analysis and comments on the following draft documents which are part of the research goals and methodology planning of the project as a whole: - Matthew Pflaum, Ragnhild Overå, and Jeppe Kolding, SFCC: Value chain mass balance analysis - SFCC Methodology: Mid-range operationalization and research instruments We have been asked to jointly deliver a presentation at the MARE conference, 2025 in the Netherlands, together with partners at the University of Manitoba. We have begun to develop our own research plan including for country-based research, and have circulated this to project partners for their comments and input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | While University of Manitoba has been the lead institution, we have also collaborated with project researchers at the Universities of Bergen, Limpopo, and the Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen. Our partners have been focusing on developing their work under the project across these another collaborating universities and research partnerships. Most project partners work vertically on thematic and country projects, yet our human rights team works horizontally across the project. As such, our partners have been developing their work-streams, including research objectives and methods, which we will be engaging with increasingly. |
| Impact | To date, we are still very much in planning mode under the project. All partners were still waiting for funding to be confirmed until around June/July 2024 just at the start of the summer holidays, and subsequently for relevant administration to be completed within our universities, including cost-codes and recruitment. Thus, the project work only got under way in earnest in the second half of September. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Reimagining Food Systems |
| Organisation | University of Bergen |
| Country | Norway |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | As part of the reimagined food systems project, the human rights team (4 staff at Essex University and 1 at University of Manitoba) is working in partnership with other researchers under the project to ensure (1) human rights is brought to bear across analytical research as well as the development of interventions in the project as a whole. These collaborations and partnerships are at an early stage of development, aside from two very preliminary meetings held during summer 2024, we have recently had meetings as follows to discuss collaborations - Nov 2024 - February 2025 - 3 x meetings with West Africa and Great Lakes region Small Fish Teams (19 Nov, 28 January, 4 February) to learn more about their work and scope possible collaborations - 17 May 2024 and 14 January 2025 - 2 X meetings with the South Africa Limpopo research team to scope collaborations - Summer 2024 (date unsure) and 3 Feb 2025 - meetings with the India Small Fish team. - 12 September 2024, we held a meeting with Doug Mercer who is a member of the project's Indigenous Governance Working Group. We are meant to be working closely with the IGWG for the project, however there have been delays in the appointment of other members, and we are waiting to begin an earnest collaboration. However, the meeting with Doug Mercer was also important in the context of our research with the Canada team on wild rice cultivation in Manitoba province, as Doug will also be involved with that research. These meetings have been important for our team to better understand local contexts and to confirm our fieldwork locations. For example, during the project drafting proposal it was suggested we should work with the West Africa team to work on the human rights dimensions of small fish research being undertaken there, however closer discussions have suggested that this is a very complex regional context and would be problematic within our resources. On the other hand, we have discovered strong research synergies with the South Africa team and are now planning to undertake a country focus on the Indigenous crop research being undertaken by the University of Limpopo in this country. We are now at the stage of confirming and developing our country focused work in terms of methods and workplans, which will contribute to the analysis and work of country-teams under the project. So far, we have reviewed and submitted human rights-related analysis and comments on the following draft documents which are part of the research goals and methodology planning of the project as a whole: - Matthew Pflaum, Ragnhild Overå, and Jeppe Kolding, SFCC: Value chain mass balance analysis - SFCC Methodology: Mid-range operationalization and research instruments We have been asked to jointly deliver a presentation at the MARE conference, 2025 in the Netherlands, together with partners at the University of Manitoba. We have begun to develop our own research plan including for country-based research, and have circulated this to project partners for their comments and input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | While University of Manitoba has been the lead institution, we have also collaborated with project researchers at the Universities of Bergen, Limpopo, and the Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen. Our partners have been focusing on developing their work under the project across these another collaborating universities and research partnerships. Most project partners work vertically on thematic and country projects, yet our human rights team works horizontally across the project. As such, our partners have been developing their work-streams, including research objectives and methods, which we will be engaging with increasingly. |
| Impact | To date, we are still very much in planning mode under the project. All partners were still waiting for funding to be confirmed until around June/July 2024 just at the start of the summer holidays, and subsequently for relevant administration to be completed within our universities, including cost-codes and recruitment. Thus, the project work only got under way in earnest in the second half of September. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Reimagining Food Systems |
| Organisation | University of Limpopo |
| Country | South Africa |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | As part of the reimagined food systems project, the human rights team (4 staff at Essex University and 1 at University of Manitoba) is working in partnership with other researchers under the project to ensure (1) human rights is brought to bear across analytical research as well as the development of interventions in the project as a whole. These collaborations and partnerships are at an early stage of development, aside from two very preliminary meetings held during summer 2024, we have recently had meetings as follows to discuss collaborations - Nov 2024 - February 2025 - 3 x meetings with West Africa and Great Lakes region Small Fish Teams (19 Nov, 28 January, 4 February) to learn more about their work and scope possible collaborations - 17 May 2024 and 14 January 2025 - 2 X meetings with the South Africa Limpopo research team to scope collaborations - Summer 2024 (date unsure) and 3 Feb 2025 - meetings with the India Small Fish team. - 12 September 2024, we held a meeting with Doug Mercer who is a member of the project's Indigenous Governance Working Group. We are meant to be working closely with the IGWG for the project, however there have been delays in the appointment of other members, and we are waiting to begin an earnest collaboration. However, the meeting with Doug Mercer was also important in the context of our research with the Canada team on wild rice cultivation in Manitoba province, as Doug will also be involved with that research. These meetings have been important for our team to better understand local contexts and to confirm our fieldwork locations. For example, during the project drafting proposal it was suggested we should work with the West Africa team to work on the human rights dimensions of small fish research being undertaken there, however closer discussions have suggested that this is a very complex regional context and would be problematic within our resources. On the other hand, we have discovered strong research synergies with the South Africa team and are now planning to undertake a country focus on the Indigenous crop research being undertaken by the University of Limpopo in this country. We are now at the stage of confirming and developing our country focused work in terms of methods and workplans, which will contribute to the analysis and work of country-teams under the project. So far, we have reviewed and submitted human rights-related analysis and comments on the following draft documents which are part of the research goals and methodology planning of the project as a whole: - Matthew Pflaum, Ragnhild Overå, and Jeppe Kolding, SFCC: Value chain mass balance analysis - SFCC Methodology: Mid-range operationalization and research instruments We have been asked to jointly deliver a presentation at the MARE conference, 2025 in the Netherlands, together with partners at the University of Manitoba. We have begun to develop our own research plan including for country-based research, and have circulated this to project partners for their comments and input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | While University of Manitoba has been the lead institution, we have also collaborated with project researchers at the Universities of Bergen, Limpopo, and the Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen. Our partners have been focusing on developing their work under the project across these another collaborating universities and research partnerships. Most project partners work vertically on thematic and country projects, yet our human rights team works horizontally across the project. As such, our partners have been developing their work-streams, including research objectives and methods, which we will be engaging with increasingly. |
| Impact | To date, we are still very much in planning mode under the project. All partners were still waiting for funding to be confirmed until around June/July 2024 just at the start of the summer holidays, and subsequently for relevant administration to be completed within our universities, including cost-codes and recruitment. Thus, the project work only got under way in earnest in the second half of September. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Reimagining Food Systems |
| Organisation | University of Manitoba |
| Country | Canada |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | As part of the reimagined food systems project, the human rights team (4 staff at Essex University and 1 at University of Manitoba) is working in partnership with other researchers under the project to ensure (1) human rights is brought to bear across analytical research as well as the development of interventions in the project as a whole. These collaborations and partnerships are at an early stage of development, aside from two very preliminary meetings held during summer 2024, we have recently had meetings as follows to discuss collaborations - Nov 2024 - February 2025 - 3 x meetings with West Africa and Great Lakes region Small Fish Teams (19 Nov, 28 January, 4 February) to learn more about their work and scope possible collaborations - 17 May 2024 and 14 January 2025 - 2 X meetings with the South Africa Limpopo research team to scope collaborations - Summer 2024 (date unsure) and 3 Feb 2025 - meetings with the India Small Fish team. - 12 September 2024, we held a meeting with Doug Mercer who is a member of the project's Indigenous Governance Working Group. We are meant to be working closely with the IGWG for the project, however there have been delays in the appointment of other members, and we are waiting to begin an earnest collaboration. However, the meeting with Doug Mercer was also important in the context of our research with the Canada team on wild rice cultivation in Manitoba province, as Doug will also be involved with that research. These meetings have been important for our team to better understand local contexts and to confirm our fieldwork locations. For example, during the project drafting proposal it was suggested we should work with the West Africa team to work on the human rights dimensions of small fish research being undertaken there, however closer discussions have suggested that this is a very complex regional context and would be problematic within our resources. On the other hand, we have discovered strong research synergies with the South Africa team and are now planning to undertake a country focus on the Indigenous crop research being undertaken by the University of Limpopo in this country. We are now at the stage of confirming and developing our country focused work in terms of methods and workplans, which will contribute to the analysis and work of country-teams under the project. So far, we have reviewed and submitted human rights-related analysis and comments on the following draft documents which are part of the research goals and methodology planning of the project as a whole: - Matthew Pflaum, Ragnhild Overå, and Jeppe Kolding, SFCC: Value chain mass balance analysis - SFCC Methodology: Mid-range operationalization and research instruments We have been asked to jointly deliver a presentation at the MARE conference, 2025 in the Netherlands, together with partners at the University of Manitoba. We have begun to develop our own research plan including for country-based research, and have circulated this to project partners for their comments and input. |
| Collaborator Contribution | While University of Manitoba has been the lead institution, we have also collaborated with project researchers at the Universities of Bergen, Limpopo, and the Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Bremen. Our partners have been focusing on developing their work under the project across these another collaborating universities and research partnerships. Most project partners work vertically on thematic and country projects, yet our human rights team works horizontally across the project. As such, our partners have been developing their work-streams, including research objectives and methods, which we will be engaging with increasingly. |
| Impact | To date, we are still very much in planning mode under the project. All partners were still waiting for funding to be confirmed until around June/July 2024 just at the start of the summer holidays, and subsequently for relevant administration to be completed within our universities, including cost-codes and recruitment. Thus, the project work only got under way in earnest in the second half of September. |
| Start Year | 2024 |