Luke Owen

• PhD
• Impact and Evaluation Manager at Zero Waste Scotland

Geographical Indications (GIs) are regarded as important endogenous rural development mechanisms by the European Union. GIs have proven successful for some producers in some regions, delivering higher added value and safeguarding a product’s identity and heritage through the notion of terroir. Within the context of a gradual “greening” of GIs, this...

This report is the culmination of a research collaboration between The Real Farming Trust and The Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry University. It summarises the work undertaken to assess and analyse the social impact of eight Community Food Businesses that have been beneficiaries of the Loans for Enlightened Agricultur...

Commissioned by Feeding Britain, this report presents the findings of an evaluation of the Community Food Hub (CFH) project in Foleshill, Coventry. An earlier interim evaluation was conducted covering the launch of the Foleshill Social Supermarket in March 2020 to the end of December 2020 (referred to as Year 1), resulting in an Interim Report. The...

This chapter explores the relationship and use of decolonial participative approaches in environmental history. The main argument is that decolonial and participative methods are useful tools to build environmental histories that are more inclusive and communicate better with today’s society. Furthermore, it is argued that using participative and d...

Protected Food Names (PFNs) are increasingly being regarded as important endogenous rural development mechanisms; cultivating territorial agri-food systems that sustain producer livelihoods, enhance consumer trust, and preserve cultural heritage. There are now over 1,400 PFNs located across the European Union (EU), whereby the provenance and ‘terro...

The purpose of this discussion paper is to: 1. Provide insight into the challenges and opportunities of the Protected Food Names (PFN) scheme in Wales. 2. Introduce discussion points and future research trajectories to initiate conversations and generate debate about the ways in which Welsh PFNs could be developed post-EU-Exit. This discussion pap...

The purpose of this report is to provide insight into the current status of the UK’s (United Kingdom) Protected Food Names scheme, describe key considerations for its future, and outline the main ways in which the scheme could be developed post-Brexit. The report explains what Protected Food Names (PFNs) are, why they matter and why they are import...

Short 10 page report This report summarises the key results and highlights that have emerged from a toolkit pilot in 2017 with five small-scale agroecological enterprises in England. This work has been funded through the Power to Change project (2017), which was instigated to further the work that took place through the Just Growth funding program...

This one page of inforgraphics captures the headline data from a recent pilot study (2017) about the impacts of agreocology in England. The data were generated through a co-developed toolkit following a collaboration between enterprises self-identifying as aligned with the principles of agroecology, The Real Farming Trust and The Centre for Agroe...

This report summarises the key results and highlights that have emerged from a toolkit pilot in 2017 with five small-scale agroecological enterprises in England. This work has been funded through the Power to Change project (2017), which was instigated to further the work that took place through the Just Growth funding programme (2015-16). This res...

CertIn the last few years, grass-roots multicultural community growing initiatives have emerged in the UK where local and migrant communities have come together to collectively grow food, often in urban spaces. Moreover, such multicultural growing initiatives involve the cultivation of non-native ‘exotic’ crops that have been recently introduced to...

This document reports an evaluation of the effectiveness of Garden Organic’s Growing From Your Roots (GFYR) project in capturing, preserving and sharing the cultural heritage of food growing amongst multi-cultural communities in the West Midlands, UK. This involves understanding how the growing of crops, sharing of seeds, recipes and cooking practi...

This document reports an evaluation of the effectiveness of Garden Organic’s Growing From Your Roots (GFYR) project in capturing, preserving and sharing the cultural heritage of food growing amongst multi-cultural communities in the West Midlands, UK. This involves understanding how the growing of crops, sharing of seeds, recipes and cooking practi...

This paper discusses the extent to which charity-led initiatives can contribute to capacity building for food justice in England. The paper draws on evaluations of two projects run by the charity Garden Organic: the Master Gardener Programme, operating a network of volunteers who mentor households, schools and community groups to support local food...

Spaces of ‘alternative’ food production and consumption have been the subject of considerable interest within agri-food research and policy-making circles in recent decades. Examples of these Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) include Farmers' Markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) schemes and farm shops, where food products are embedded with...

Citizen science is the involvement of citizens, such as farmers, in the research process. Citizen science has become increasingly popular recently, supported by the proliferation of mobile communication technologies such as smartphones. However, citizen science methodologies have not yet been widely adopted in agricultural research. Here, we conduc...

PhD Thesis (2011-2015), Coventry University

Spaces of ‘alternative’ food production and consumption have been the subject of considerable interest within agri-food research and policy-making circles in recent decades. Examples of these Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) include Farmers’ Markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) schemes and farm shops, where food products are embedded with...

Building on previous evaluations, this project was especially designed to evaluate the health and social impacts of a project called Sowing New Seeds facilitated by Garden Organic; the national charity for organic growing in the UK. The report evaluated the Sowing New Seeds: Supporting Change phase of the initiative.

Book Review