Kent’s influence in sustainablity research grew last week when Dr Silvio Caputo was invited to the prestigious AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Conference in the Netherlands to present his latest research on urban agriculture.
This conference attracts world-leading scholars in sustainable food planning and gives the opportunity to early career researchers and PhD students to showcase their work as well as to network. The scientific committee of the conference invited Dr Caputo to present his latest book Small scale soil-less urban agriculture in Europe published in June by Springer Nature. The presentation was a valuable opportunity to engage not only with the wider research community, but also to communicate directly with the Dutch government’s food system consultants, who were key guests at the conference. Engagement with European academia, industry and policy is a crucial thread which runs through much of the Kent School of Architecture and Planning’s work, so it is especially exciting to see Dr Caputo share his research at AESOP.
Dr Caputo says: “It was a great, and hugely enjoyable, opportunity to represent the School and present my investigation to researchers, practitioners and policy experts.”
Small scale soil-less urban agriculture in Europe addresses key issues on food, urban planning, and new food technologies and has the potential to influence future urban planning policies. The book builds on Dr Caputo’s expertise on urban agriculture, sustainable food planning and urbanism to develop the first investigation on the use of new food production technologies in community projects and small sustainable enterprises in cities. Soil-less technologies such as hydroponics and aquaponics generally require high investments but can also be self-built and in a simplified form. The book investigates the uptake of these simplified forms of food technologies in European cities.
