J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)

7/30/2019 J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)

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Measure Your Harvest (MYHarvest)Jill Edmondson, Jonathan Potter, Kevin Gaston,

Jonathan Leake


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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/


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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


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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


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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?


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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/

J Edmondson: Measure Your Harvest (LEC Seminar)

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