Rachel Bezner Kerr served as a coordinating lead author of Chapter 5: Food, Fibre and Other Ecosystem Products of the IPCC WGII Sixth Assessment Report Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, alongside Toshihiro Hasegawa and Rodel Lasco. Since the release of the report in March, Dr. Bezner Kerr has been featured in many articles on the reports findings, in publications including The New York Times, Civil Eats, Al Jezeera, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and HuffPost.
Malawi Participatory Forest Inventory Project Recieves Atkinson Center Grant
The Malawi Participatory Forest Inventory Project was one of 11 projects awarded an Academic Venture Fund grant by the Cornell Atkinson Center in 2021. The project, which began in the fall of 2020, aims to support climate-resilient farming practices in Malawi while expanding knowledge about the quality and quantity of forests in northern Malawi and the relationship between agroecological farming practices and forest biodiversity. Daniel Kpienbarreh, a postdoctoral associate at Western University, and Linda Chimowa, the new research coordinator for SFHC, are both working on the project with Rachel Bezner Kerr.
Nutrition-Sensitive Agroecology Intervention Paper Featured in Science Editors' Choice
Rachel Bezner Kerr’s paper on nutrition-sensitive agroecology interventions in rural Tanzania, which she co-authored with eight others, was profiled in Science magazine’s editors choice in June 2021. The intervention study selected “mentor farmers” from each intervention village to share agroecological learning about legume intensification, nutrition, and women’s empowerment with other intervention households. After two growing seasons, the intervention significantly improved children’s dietary diversity, reduced household food insecurity, improved women's empowerment and well-being, and improved agricultural sustainability. The profile of the paper published on Science’s editors’ choice page can be found here. The paper, published in Journal of Nutrition in July 2021, can be found here.
Establishment of the COVID-19 Task Force in Tompkins County
Rachel Bezner Kerr is part of the main team that put together a task force to ensure that low-income households in Tompkins County have access to food amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The task force, which started in late April, will operate as a three month long pilot program but could continue further depending on food needs of the county. The team set out to study food needs in the county in the pandemic era using this survey. It works with local organizations and food pantries to distribute food. More information about the task force can be found here.
Talk: Food Security and Africa after COVID-19
Rachel Bezner Kerr was one of four panelists at a talk organized by the Firoz Lalji Center for Africa at the London School of Economics. The talk, which was held on Thursday, May 28th, 2020, explored ways to ensure food security in African countries, especially in the face of the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on African economies. The talk is available on Facebook and Youtube.