Agriculture and Livelihoods

This time, Poppy Okocha’s looking at our relationship with growing and producing foods around the world. She meets up with Jeremy Torz, one of the founders of Union Hand Roasted Coffee, to find out how one coffee brand is protecting producers and delicate environments in Ethiopia. Many livelihoods and traditions are being threatened by changing climatic conditions, yet many of these age-old practises hold clues to how we might produce food more sustainably and fairly in the future. This episode is packed with inspirational stories of how farmers are able to produce crops without sacrificing their local environments or livelihoods. Artist Helen Law explains how she explored our relationship with food from patch to plate, and was inspired by Kew Science and x-rays of some of the 2.4 billion seeds from the Millennium Seed Bank. Meanwhile Dr Aisyah Faruk tells how the foraging livelihoods of people in the Caucasus region are under threat in the face of climate change. Dr Mami Tiana Rajaonah heads up Kew’s Livelihoods team at the Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre. He shares how they worked with villages to change the habits of generations and cultivate yams sustainably whilst creating a thriving local economy. And Farmerama presenter Abby Rose shares the story of her family’s heartbreaking struggle against forest fires on their farm in Chile, as well as the insights she gained from developing a regenerative farming approach in rebuilding a thriving and healthy farm, starting with soil health!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Wildlife is becoming extinct at an alarming rate and habitats are under strain. What can nature itself teach us about how to heal our planet and support biodiversity? In Unearthed, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew invites you to explore how plant and fungal knowledge can be harnessed to change our world for the better. Series 3 “Unearthed: Nature needs us”, takes us on a journey from soil to sky, scaling the tangle of nature’s systems and interactions to help us tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. Dr Mya-Rose Craig (AKA “Birdgirl”) hears from Kew experts, as well as communities and organisations across the world who are combining learnings in science, wildlife, conservation and restoration to work within the bounds of nature and help halt the devastating impacts of unsustainable human activity. From farming practises and food production to land use, pollinators, traditional techniques, tech and forestry to tackling poverty and inequality through environmental policy, join us as we untangle the secrets of nature and seek solutions to our world’s problems. Subscribe to all episodes and catch up on earlier series of Unearthed from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on this feed.