Transforming Food System Relationships

在这个项目中，我们将调查区域食品系统在促进更健康和更可持续的生产和消费做法方面可以发挥的作用，以及我们如何利用信息技术来促进消费者和生产者之间的关系，以实现这一目标。通过这样做，我们寻求增加健康饮食的比例，包括地区生产的食物。我们将解决两个首要问题：1.英国地区性景观如何可持续地提供健康食品？2.食物链行为者之间的新的平等关系能否推动更可持续的生产和消费做法？我们将专注于两个不同的案例研究地区，东安格利亚(以耕地和园艺业为主)和南威尔士(以畜牧业为主)。在这些案例研究领域中，生产者和消费者之间存在不同程度的联系，从消费者与生产者直接沟通的系统，例如社区支持农业(CSA)组织，到供应链较长、消费者与其食品来源及其生产的环境后果脱节的系统。为了调查第一个问题，我们将开发一个模型，从(I)生产、(Ii)农场盈利能力、(Iii)环境影响(温室气体排放、营养和农药淋洗、土壤健康)和(Iv)相关的膳食平衡方面量化每个案例研究区域的作物和牲畜系统的影响。我们将使用这个模型来量化“一切照常”的状态，并探索该地区农作物和牲畜的结构与健康平衡饮食的建议更紧密地结合在一起的情景的影响。这些方案将考虑环境、加工和季节性限制。第二个主要问题将通过与农民和消费者的访谈、图片启发、食品日记音频、网络调查和一系列研讨会来解决，在这些研讨会上，粮食系统的利益攸关方(消费者、零售商和生产者)将使用数字工具，促进共同创造改善区域粮食系统的情景。CSA提供了消费者与生产者直接接触的模式系统。我们将瞄准新的CSA客户，并通过项目整个生命周期内的一系列采访，评估随着时间的推移，农民和消费者之间的这些积极关联在多大程度上影响了食品选择。作为一个变革性的项目，我们将讨论如何加强消费者和生产者(直接或通过零售商)之间的关系，以及食品选择对健康和环境的影响。我们认为，无论是在建立社会资本方面，还是在向食品系统中的利益相关者传达选择的影响方面，基于IT的机制在向“不寻常的商业”过渡方面发挥着至关重要的作用。我们将探讨社交媒体(例如Twitter)在建立和加强生产者-生产者和生产者-消费者关系方面目前和未来所扮演的角色，以及如何进一步利用这一点。在每一组研讨会中，我们将使用基于上述模型的数字工具，共同创建基于区域的食品系统的情景。这些工具将使利益攸关方能够通过帮助他们了解生产、农场盈利、环境影响和提供健康平衡饮食之间的权衡和协同作用，就区域粮食系统的未来情景进行谈判。这些讲习班、网络分析和访谈的结果将成为设计连接粮食系统利益攸关方的数字原型的基础，这些原型将被部署和评估。通过这些创新的跨学科方法，研究小组寻求新的方法来解决英国的粮食安全需求。

In this project, we will investigate the role that regional food systems could play in promoting healthier and more sustainable production and consumption practices, and how we can use IT to catalyse relationships between consumers and producers to achieve this. In doing so, we seek to increase the proportion of a healthy diet comprised of food produced regionally.We will address two overarching questions: 1. How can regional UK landscapes deliver healthy food sustainably? and 2. Can new and equitable relationships between food chain actors drive more sustainable production and consumption practices? We will focus on two diverse case study regions, East Anglia (dominated by arable and horticulture) and South Wales (dominated by livestock systems). Within these case study areas there are various levels of connectivity between producers and consumers, ranging from systems where consumers communicate directly with producers, exemplified by Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups, to those where supply chains are long and consumers are disconnected from the source of their food and the environmental consequences of its production.To investigate the first question, we will develop a model to quantify the impact of crop and livestock systems in each case study region in terms of (i) production, (ii) farm profitability, (iii) environmental impact (greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient and pesticide leaching, soil health) and (iv) associated dietary balance. We will use this model to quantify a 'business as usual state' and to explore the impact of scenarios where the configurations of crops and livestock in the region align more closely with recommendations for a healthy balanced diet. These scenarios will account for environmental, processing, and seasonality constraints. Data from existing national surveys and data collected during the project on farm practice and farmer networks will be used in the models.The second overarching question will be addressed through farmer and consumer interviews, photo elicitation, audio food diaries, network surveys, and a series of workshops where food system stakeholders (consumers, retailers and producers) will use digital tools to facilitate co-creation of scenarios for an improved regional food system. CSAs provide a model system where consumers directly engage with producers. We will target new CSA customers, and through a series of interviews across the lifetime of the project assess to what extent these positive associations between farmers and consumers influence food choices over time. As a transformative project, we will address how to strengthen the relationship between consumers and producers (either direct or through retailers), and the implications of food choice on health and the environment. We maintain that mechanisms based on IT have an essential role to play here in transitioning to "business unusual", both in terms of building social capital and communicating the impact of choices to stakeholders in the food system. We will explore the current and future role that social media (for example Twitter) plays in building and strengthening producer-producer and producer-consumer relationships and how this could be exploited further. Within each set of workshops, we will use digital tools based on the models described above to co-create scenarios for a regional based food system. These tools will enable stakeholders to negotiate future scenarios for regional food systems by assisting them to visualise trade-offs and synergies between production, farm profitability, environmental impact and delivery of healthy balanced diets. The findings from these workshops, the network analysis and interviews will form a basis for the design of digital prototypes for connecting food system stakeholders which will be deployed and evaluated. Through these innovative interdisciplinary methods, the research team seeks novel approaches to address UK food security needs.