Théo Lenormand – PhD Student

BSc (Lycée Saint-Louis), MSc (AgroParisTech)

Website: http://theolenormand.mystrikingly.com/    Email: tlenormand@glos.ac.uk

Profile

Theo is a PhD student at the University of Gloucestershire. His PhD is a partnership between the CCRI, the Welsh Government (through the Environmental Evidence Program) and the CCF (Community and Countryside Foundation) aiming at assessing the impact of the Post-Brexit environment (policy and trade) on the Welsh farm's choice of evolution. His PhD examines the landscape and the impact at a community level, including from an economic perspective. He is supervised by Professor Janet Dwyer (CCRI), S. Devienne (AgroParisTech), Chris Short (CCRI), K. Watts (Welsh Government) and Dr. P. Williams (Bangor University). Theo’s PhD is multidisciplinary, bridging the gaps between farming sciences, social sciences and agri-economics.

To study this subject, he is using a French method called “Agrarian Diagnosis”, which is a fieldwork-based approach to farming research (Cochet and Devienne, 2005). Conducting this sort of work in several focus areas across Wales will help develop a better understanding of farming evolution and how they may be affected by different factors, for example how farms will fare after Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. This will help inform new agricultural policy, at a time when Wales is gaining more independence in its agricultural policy design. It is therefore very important to hear the experiences and views of farmers in Wales. It means closely studying selected focus areas through fieldwork, to understand how and why agriculture has evolved through time (e.g., impacts of the landscape, policy, economy…). Because farming is a complex subject, the goal is to fully appreciate how the impacts of such factors vary between different areas and farm types.

Theo is currently doing some fieldwork for his PhD; working on North Wales and the Vale of Clwyd. After finishing this, he will be applying the same approach to an area of Snowdonia and South Pembrokeshire. He is trying to deliver findings at regular intervals to inform on future developments in farming  to a wide range of stakeholder.