Concept of Resilience in Transition

Peter Lipman is from the Transition towns network and will be speaking at the debate. The following article will be an interesting introduction to a key concept in transition: ‘resilience'.

Resilience; “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks”

http://transitionculture.org/2009/10/21/resilience-thinking-an-article-for-the-latest-resurgence/

Case Studies for Fair Trade and Public Procurement in Times of Austerity workshop

http://fairtradewales.com//resources/case_studies/1184

Here is a link that will direct you to the following three case studies, which have been developed for the Fair Trade and Public Procurement in Times of Austerity workshop.

1. Making a Statement: Sustainable Procurement in the Welsh Assembly Government
2. Fair Trade Procurement in Carmarthenshire County: Building New Practices and Overcoming Hurdles
3. Fair Trade Procurement in Cardiff School Catering: Encouraging Sustainability
   

These case studies illustrate examples of good practice and will be available in English, Welsh and Spanish. We hope they will be disseminated widely.

Reading up for the workshops

This blog is for the Food Debate and will be updated on a regular basis with relevent material that will be used throughout the day. At the event we’ll be exploring some specific topics in the workshops, and there will be relevent materials and case studies for each of these workshops updated on here once a week.

The first three workshops that will be held in the morning are:

1) Moving up the value chain- In this workshop it will be discussed how farmers ablity to capture more of the value chain is an important element of sustainability and resiliance to climate change. We currently have a couple of readings that are relevent to this workshop, and the links are as follows:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Developing+capabilities+and+capacities+in+African+LDCs%3a+a+strategy+of...-a0183867285

This article discusses the fact that sustained economic growth and poverty eradication in the least developed countries (LDCs), 34 of them in Africa, require improving their productive capacities through three closely interlinked processes. They include capital accumulation, technological innovation and structural reforms. It looks at what is creating failure and also how to help ensure success.

http://www.kit.nl/smartsite.shtml?id=SINGLEPUBLICATION&ItemID=2764

This explores how farmers have become shareholders in companies that market their product, and the opportunites and challenges that are created.

2) Stewardship of the environment: improving livelihoods amidst a changing climate-This workshop explores if it is possilbe for smallhold farmers can adapt to become stewards of the environment and help maintain and possibly increase their yields, despite widespread environmental degradation and the escalating risks posed by climate change impacts.

3) Food Security- This workshop will look at how food security is a key policy issue, and how the production and availability of safe and nutrious food is a daily challenge in developing countries ann can be directly linked to nutrition and public health status.

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/food/food_matters_es.pdf

‘Food Matters: towards a strategy for the 21st century’- This is a government report from 2008 and reviews the main trends in food production and consumption in the UK. It explores the implications of these on the economy, society and the environment. It sets out four strategic objectives for Government on food, which were to secure goals such as fair prcies, choice etc.

And

The three workshops that will be held in the afternoon are the following:

4) Strengthening smallholders’ ability to deal with climate change- This workshop will discuss how support can be given to help build the capacity and resilience of smallholders to climate change. It will also look at what roles people need to take to help the most vunerable adapt to climate chage and whether in fact it is possible to provide sustainable support in an unsustainable world.

5) Fair Trade and Public Procurement in Times of Austerity-This workshop explores whether the value of global social justice, that Fair Trade represents remains significant for public authority. It also looks into whether there is still scope to expand public procurement of Fair Trade products.

6) Engaging the public/Group collaboration-This workshop will provide examples of how civil society can be engaged with on the key issues of fair trade, sustainable food and climate change. These issues are complicated, interrelated and involve a series of value driven negotiations.

There will be more documents for the workshops to follow, along with some more general articles.