Do agricultural microplastics undermine food security and sustainable development in developing countries?
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Reading
Department Name: Sch of Agriculture Policy and Dev
Abstract
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Organisations
| Description | The component of the research (workpackage 4) at the UoR towards the wider collaborative grant focuses on Identify smallholder farmer barriers and opportunities associated with removing plastics from soil. The team have developed participatory engagement exercises with groups of farmers using agricultural plastic and a survey with 1500 farmers from across different contexts in China, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Vietnam. The priority focus is to understand farmers' perceptions of barriers and opportunities associated with removing plastics from soil and implications for decisions to adopt new practice across these different contexts, which offers a novel contribution. Our exploratory analysis of perceptions helps to identify the most relevant behavioural barriers e.g. which groups exert the most pressure on farmers to adopt new innovations or change behaviour (the role of change agents) and views about low uptake of new technology/decision support tools. The communication mapping of farmers' sources of information and communication channels (including what formats and information is valued) also highlight information that is valued and used by farmers and gaps where better information could be provided by the project. The at scale survey reveals perceptions of socio-economic barriers and opportunities, associated with typologies by context and farmer, and implications for communicating/supporting behaviour change. For example, we can use these insights to inform improved targeted information or incentives by change agents, which reflects groups of farmers with different decision-making values and to identify where other actors in the agriplastic system are critical, for example in waste management and policy regulation. This is useful both for demonstration activities, engagement with other actors to deliver sustainable changes and for scaling out of project work to similar contexts. It should be noted that the covid pandemic was a major challenge to this research for the first two years because country partners faced restrictions on movement of people, accessibility of data collection areas and individual travel to planning meetings. While remote working was used, this could not overcome the delay to data collection, particularly in China. Sri Lanka also faced economic and political circumstances in-country which delayed the start of the data collection for this component on the research. Further specific updates on how the findings from WP4 have been used by the project, by stakeholders and for impact will be reported as the project continues. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Training event Bhopal India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | In August 2022, Dr Mondira Bhattacharya from the University of Reading provided a week of training to staff at ICAR-IISS, Bhopal, the India project partner and Government research institute. The training focused on the use of a social survey tool and input into Kobo tool box. The training event included trialling the new skills in the field with farmers and the process helped to increase capacity of researchers at the research institute. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Training event at Mansoura University, Egypt |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | In September 2022 Dr Mondira Bhattacharya and Prof Henny Osbahr visited Mansoura University, Egypt for a week to provide training in the social science tools and visit field locations to pilot the approach. The research team, together with extension and outreach professionals, visited field locations and had the opportunity to engage with farmers who use plasticulture, a business which collects plastic from farmers and recycles, and a plastic producer. The engagement with farmers and the private sector opened a conversation about further information about production of biodegradable plastic and the constraints within the waste management system for agricultural plastics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Vietnam WP4 project workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Participants from China, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Vietnam met at the Soils and Fertiliser Research Institute, Hanoi, Vietnam, for 3 days from 27 February 2023 to discuss progress in the data collection and preliminary insights from the data analysis for WP4. This component of the research focuses on understanding farmer level perspectives about the use of agricultural plasticulture, challenges for removal and decision making to adopt bioplastic alternatives. The workshop facilitated co-development of the research narratives, agreement on analysis methodology, publication strategy and ways to feed in the learning to other components of the wider research project, including identification of other stakeholders and legacy impact. The meeting also facilitated capacity building through training of research tools and analysis methods and included research staff and PhDs from the countries to participate, in addition to country leads. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |