Current Research

My research is concerned with labour issues in agriculture. I focus on the need for 'good food jobs' in the UK context where labour shortages in edible horticulture are significant. This PhD project examines the inequalities around routes into farm work, focusing on the experiences of landless wage labourers. Taking an anti-colonial, feminist, and anti-imperialist approach, I interrogate how worker's acquire knowledge, organise, contest and make demands across the edible horticulture sector. This involves questioning current conceptualisations of 'farmers' and 'skilled labour' in the context of agri-capitalism and rising far-right ideologies and agendas.

My interest in the edible horticulture sector stems outside of academia, and led to me work on several organic market gardens and commercial farms as well as completing a horticultural apprenticeship. This work has highlighted the importance of 'practical academia' that is informed by farm-centred experiences, and bridges practitioners in farming, advocacy and activism around my research topic.

This doctoral research is funded by the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership and is a Collaborative Studentship. This collaboration involves working with the Landworker's Alliance (LWA), a member-led alliance of farmers and land-based workers and member of La Via Campesina. My PhD research is influenced by several years of organising with the youth branch of LWA, Food, Land Agriculture: a Movement for Equality (FLAME).

This project will build an evidence base around ecological unionism, and the role of social movements in building new solidarities within and beyond agroecology, labour power and strategies for horticulture to become more diverse, attractive, and viable to new entrants.