This project will address such risks by building on a track record of innovation in systemic risk analysis methodologies, enabling us to identify appropriate interventions to build resilience. Crucially, we link our ‘big-picture’ systems thinking approach to detailed quantitative analysis of risks to the financing, production, supply and consumption of fruit and vegetables to UK citizens, to inform the most appropriate and effective combination of interventions.
We will harness new analysis approaches using a hierarchy of methods, from participatory systems mapping to financial, mathematical and econometric modelling, working closely with government (Defra and Food Standards Agency) and major industry partners (e.g. ASDA, Barfoots and British Retail consortium) who have expressed their desire to engage in this research. Our co-development approach allows us to address the following objectives:
- assess resilience both of the current F&V system and several scenarios of future possible states (e.g. greater domestic production versus imports, scenarios of more vertical farming versus field-based etc.)
- analyse the resilience of transformation pathways both in terms of systemic risks they are exposed to and the transition risks they generate
- identify potential resilience-building interventions, in order to find ‘win-win’ interventions that protect against short term shocks, but do not lock food systems into non-ideal states in the longer term (i.e. avoiding building in ‘undesirable’ resilience).