Sarah Davenport is a post-graduate researcher with the UK Food Systems-CDT and is researching risks and challenges to UK Food Security.

Currently, Sarah is undertaking her second kernel at IDS, researching the Food Retail response to COVID-19 and Brexit in Brighton & Hove with Dominic Glover and John Thompson. Previously, Sarah worked with Colin Axon at Brunel University London, Identifying Risks for Security in Food Supply Chains.

Passionate about community-led food systems change Sarah has worked with various food organisations over the past 6 years. Including coordinating projects and campaigns with Sustain and London Food Link (Good Food for London Report, Urban Food Awards and the Jellied Eel Mag ), working with Brighton & Hove Food Partnership on the Harvest project, developing a Food Partnership in Adur & Worthing. Sarah also co-ordinates a small orchard in her community with Brighton Permaculture Trust and is a member of a local housing cooperative. Sarah is currently studying part-time while she works with The A-Team Foundation on supporting food and land projects.

Previous to her PhD study, Sarah graduated from Global Studies at University of Sussex in 2018 where she studied Environment, Development and Policy (MA) and focused her dissertation research on Scaling up Agroecology in the UK from a small-scale farmer perspective.

Sarah’s research interests include the political ecology of agroecological approaches to food and farming, resilience, transformative systems approaches, governance, community-led intervention, seed production and distribution, cooperatives, and the political economy of access to healthy and sustainable and culturally appropriate food.