Transforming Food System Relationships

在这个项目中，我们将研究区域粮食系统在促进更健康和更可持续的生产和消费实践中可以发挥的作用，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。在这样做的过程中，我们寻求增加由区域生产的食品组成的健康饮食的比例。我们将解决两个首要问题：1.英国地区景观如何可持续地提供健康食品？和2.食物链行为体之间新的公平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着不同程度的联系，从消费者直接与生产者沟通的系统（以社区支持农业团体为例），到供应链很长、消费者与食品来源及其生产的环境后果脱节的系统。我们将开发一个模型，量化每个案例研究区域的作物和畜牧系统在以下方面的影响：（i）产量;（ii）农场盈利能力;（iii）环境影响（温室气体排放、养分和农药沥滤、土壤健康）;（iv）相关的饮食平衡。我们将使用这个模型来量化“一切照旧”的状态，并探索该地区农作物和牲畜的配置与健康均衡饮食建议更紧密结合的情景的影响。这些方案将考虑环境、加工和季节性限制。第二个首要问题将通过农民和消费者访谈、照片启发、音频食品日记、网络调查和一系列研讨会来解决，（消费者、零售商和生产商）将使用数字化工具来促进共同创造改善区域粮食系统的情景。CSA提供了一个消费者直接与生产者互动的模式系统。我们将以CSA的新客户为目标，并通过在项目生命周期内进行的一系列访谈，评估农民和消费者之间的积极联系随着时间的推移在多大程度上影响食品选择。作为一个变革性项目，我们将解决如何加强消费者和生产者之间的关系（直接或通过零售商），以及食品选择对健康和环境的影响。我们认为，基于信息技术的机制在过渡到“不寻常的商业”方面发挥着至关重要的作用，无论是在建立社会资本方面，还是在向食品系统的利益相关者传达选择的影响方面。我们将探讨社交媒体（例如Twitter）在建立和加强生产者与生产者和生产者与消费者关系方面的当前和未来作用，以及如何进一步利用这一点。在每组研讨会中，我们将使用基于上述模型的数字化工具，共同创建基于区域的粮食系统场景。这些工具将使利益相关者能够通过帮助他们可视化生产，农场盈利能力，环境影响和健康均衡饮食之间的权衡和协同作用，来谈判区域粮食系统的未来情景。这些研讨会、网络分析和访谈的结果将成为设计数字原型的基础，用于连接将被部署和评估的食品系统利益相关者。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.