Agroecological food production for health and net zero (PAU)

The PAU project aimed to address institutional barriers to agroecological food production, by raising the profile of the ways in which it can address climate, health and other challenges faced by local and national decision makers.  It was a one year scoping study, involving myself (Chiara Tornaghi)  from the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University, Rebecca (Bee) Laughton, from the Landworkers’ Alliance, Maddy Longhurst from the Urban Agriculture Consortium and  Andy Goldring from the Permaculture Association Britain (see picture of the team on the right).

PAU addressed the capacity of city region policy communities to drive agroecological transitions, increase local food production, achieve carbon reduction and improve health outcomes. By applying the Food Zones model and Agroecological Urbanism approach in two city regions (Bristol and Leeds), we identified a selection  of diverse  “agroecological actors” (farms, market gardens, food distribution hubs, caterers and landed community kitchens), that offer prototype agroecological models, potentially scalable to urban and peri-urban areas across the UK. Together with them, we built a ‘portfolio of evidence’ illustrating  the multifunctional benefits of agroecology, and barriers to expansion. The evidence has, then, been brough to the centre of an interactive and multi-sensory  event in each city in April and July 2025 (on farm, in Bristol) where we brough together policy makers (the “institutional actors”) and “agroecological actors”, to deepen the understanding of the systemic benefits of (and barriers to) shifting to agroecological food systems. We called these events the first tests for the constitution of a multi-agent Ministry of Agroecological Urbanism. 

Following the on-farm event, we continued to work with all participants online, to co-develop ways in which barriers could be overcome. See our main three piblications and reports from this project below.