Knowledge Exchange Seminar - 17 May 2017 - Food Planning System

Dr Wayne Foord (QUB) – Nexus project: a case study of scenario planning methodology applied to food system planning

This presentation provides an introduction to scenario planning, its increasing application to food system planning, and reports on the QUB Nexus project. There is growing evidence that future food security, globally and regionally, is at risk due to climate change, environmental degradation and resource scarcity, including fossil energy scarcity. Scenario planning methodologies have proven potential to bring together policy makers, researchers, and other stakeholders within the food and agriculture sectors, to face these challenges. The Nexus project, funded by the ESRC through the Nexus Network, addresses the following research questions: How might global climate change and future fossil energy depletion impact on food and agriculture systems in Northern Ireland? What are the different ways that food system sustainability is framed by different stakeholders? And what opportunities are there for developing new, shared understandings and options for action? The project brings together stakeholders from public, private, academic and NGO sectors, with differing perspectives and interests within the food system, and offers a process for developing a broader, more integrated perspective of the food system. The scenario planning methodology also presents opportunities to test and adapt existing policies, and to develop preferred transition pathways, in light of plausible future climate and energy scenarios.

 Dr Brídín Carroll (University College Dublin) - TRANSMANGO EU research project: a case study of scenario methodologies applied to food system planning

This presentation reports on a current EU research project, TRANSMANGO, which focuses on the vulnerability and resilience of European food systems in the context of socioeconomic, behavioural, technological, institutional and agro-ecological change. TRANSMANGO addresses the effects of global drivers of change (climate, economic concentration and market structure, financial power, resource competition, marginalization, property rules, geo-political shifts, consumer preferences, consumption
patterns and nutritional transition) on European and global food demand, production, and food flows. The study seeks to review and develop vulnerability assessment methodologies and dynamic modelling tools in order to assess the resilience of Europe's agro-food sector and food security under the new unfolding conditions. The project has gathered analytical data used to design scenarios for possible and desired transition pathways in the food system. This study is important as there are signals that both  food and nutrition security in Europe will be threatened by new global challenges linked to resource scarcity, environmental degradation and climate change. The study provides a valuable case study of the application of scenario methodologies to food system planning in a range of policy-making contexts, and therefore offers useful guidance and potential models for policy-makers in Northern Ireland in the transition to sustainability.