Eating Biodiversity: an investigation into the links between quality food production and biodiversity protection
James Kirwan and Owain Jones worked on this interdisciplinary research project, which was funded under the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme of the UK Research Councils (ESRC, NERC and BBSRC), involving researchers from the Universities of Exeter, Gloucestershire, Nottingham, Bristol and IGER. The project sought to examine and develop opportunities for ‘win-win-win’ situations where farm enterprises can gain added value from producing high-quality products in terms of taste and nutrition from significant biodiverse pasture types, such as moorland, heathland and salt-marshes, in ecologically sustainable ways.
The interdisciplinary research team, that includes food scientists, ecologists and social scientists, provided evidence and analysis of the relationship between food quality (defined according to both scientific criteria and consumer perception), animal diet (analysed in terms of grazing composition) and natural biodiversity (considered in terms of species and community diversity), and relatied this to implications for land use management, farm practice and processes of rural socio-economic development. By using biodiversity to add value to products, producers are linking the ecological to the economic in ways which may be important for sustainability in a post-subsidy climate.
The project concluded in November 2007, with a presentation of its main findings to a RELU-organised conference in London. The final report was completed in December 2007. Further details of the project are available from the RELU project website: http://www.relu.ac.uk/
