Social, environmental and public health benefits of growing food

Speakers: Kristin Bash - PhD candidate, Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, Co-Chair of Faculty of Public Health Food SIG
Dr Miriam Dobson - Postdoctoral Research Associate in Urban Agriculture, The University of Sheffield
Date: Friday 12 February 2021, 6pm

You can watch the webinar recording below

Impact of growing food at home on public health and climate change - Kristin Bash

Kristin Bash is the University of Sheffield honorary lecturer in public health, and a senior public health specialty registrar (ST5) in Yorkshire & the Humber. She is also a PhD candidate and a Grantham Scholar at the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures and the School of Health and Related Research (University of Sheffield). Outside the university setting, Kristin is a co-Chair of the Faculty of Public Health Food Special Interest Group, which aims to promote issues, and facilitate advocacy and action related to the many links between healthy, sustainable food systems and public health. She is also interested in the impacts government policy and local food environments have on population diet.

Social and environmental benefits of allotment gardening - Dr Miriam Dobson

With climate change threatening global agricultural yields and food security, attention is turning to the possibility of growing food in cities- in home gardens, community gardens and hydroponic systems, for example. Alongside increasing the provision of nutritious fruit and vegetables for urban residents, urban agriculture can also provide a wide spectrum of co-benefits for human and environmental health, both on the growing site itself and in the wider urban environment.

Dr Dobson's research focuses on the social and environmental benefits of allotment gardening which is a common form of urban agriculture in the United Kingdom. She will be speaking about some key themes and indicators of the public and environmental health benefits that allotment gardens can offer, and the policy changes that could be made in light of her research in order to expand the provision of urban horticulture.

Dr Miriam Dobson is a post-doctoral researcher in the Edmondson lab group, having recently completed her PhD, ‘Harvesting more than food: Assessing the provision, resource demand and ecosystem service delivery of British allotments’. Her research sits at the intersection of environmental and social science. She is particularly interested in understanding how expanding the provision of urban horticultural land could tackle issues of urban deprivation and increase participation in urban food growing, whilst maximising benefits for urban ecosystems. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and enjoys field-based teaching of environmental science.