Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation

Aled Jones; Sarah Bridle; Katherine Denby; Riaz Bhunnoo; Daniel Morton; Lucy Stanbrough; Barnaby Coupe; Vanessa Pilley; Tim Benton; Pete Falloon; Tom K. Matthews; Saher Hasnain; John S. Heslop-Harrison; Simon Beard; Julie Pierce; Jules Pretty; Monika Zurek; Alexandra Johnstone; Pete Smith; Neil Gunn; Molly Watson; Edward Pope; Asaf Tzachor; Caitlin Douglas; Christian Reynolds; Neil Ward; Jez Fredenburgh; Clare Pettinger; Tom Quested; Juan P. Cordero; Clive Mitchell; Carrie Bewick; Cameron Brown; Christopher Brown; Paul J. Burgess; Andy Challinor; Andrew Cottrell; Thomas Crocker; Thomas George; Charles J. Godfray; Rosie S. Hails; John Ingram; Tim Lang; Fergus Lyon; Simon Lusher; Tom MacMillan; Sue Newton; Simon Pearson; Sue Pritchard; Dale Sanders; Angelina Sanderson Bellamy; Megan Steven; Alastair Trickett; Andrew Voysey; Christine Watson; Darren Whitby; Kerry Whiteside

doi:10.3390/su152014783

Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation

Aled Jones^* (Corresponding Author), Sarah Bridle^* (Corresponding Author), Katherine Denby, Riaz Bhunnoo, Daniel Morton, Lucy Stanbrough, Barnaby Coupe, Vanessa Pilley, Tim Benton, Pete Falloon, Tom K. Matthews, Saher Hasnain, John S. Heslop-Harrison, Simon Beard, Julie Pierce, Jules Pretty, Monika Zurek, Alexandra Johnstone, Pete Smith, Neil GunnMolly Watson, Edward Pope, Asaf Tzachor, Caitlin Douglas, Christian Reynolds, Neil Ward, Jez Fredenburgh, Clare Pettinger, Tom Quested, Juan P. Cordero, Clive Mitchell, Carrie Bewick, Cameron Brown, Christopher Brown, Paul J. Burgess, Andy Challinor, Andrew Cottrell, Thomas Crocker, Thomas George, Charles J. Godfray, Rosie S. Hails, John Ingram, Tim Lang, Fergus Lyon, Simon Lusher, Tom MacMillan, Sue Newton, Simon Pearson, Sue Pritchard, Dale Sanders, Angelina Sanderson Bellamy, Megan Steven, Alastair Trickett, Andrew Voysey, Christine Watson, Darren Whitby, Kerry Whiteside

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, this increased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the various causes of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning.

Original language	English
Article number	14783
Number of pages	21
Journal	Sustainability
Volume	15
Issue number	20
Early online date	12 Oct 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014783
Publication status	Published - 12 Oct 2023

Bibliographical note

S.B. (Sarah Bridle) and A.J. (Aled Jones) are funded by an APEX Award from the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society AA21\100154 for “How to feed the UK amid catastrophic food system disruption”. T.B., S.B. (Sarah Bridle), A.S.B. and N.W., are grateful for funding from the AFN Network+ (UKRI Agri-food for Net Zero Network+) Grant Award EP/X011062/1. Alexandra Johnstone acknowledges funding from the Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme, delivered by UKRI, in partnership with the Global Food Security Programme, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Defra, DHSC, OHID, Innovate UK and FSA. Grant Award BB/W018020/1, for FIO Food: Food Insecurity in people living with Obesity—improving sustainable and healthier food choices in the retail food environment. S.B. (Sarah Bridle) and K.D. acknowledge funding from the same above: the Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme. Grant award FixOurFood programme (BB/V004581/1). P.F. was supported by the Met Office Food, Farming and Natural Environment Climate Service, funded by Defra and the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, funded by DSIT. Christian Reynolds was funded through Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme, Grant Award BB/V004719/1 Healthy soil, Healthy food, Healthy people (H3).
Acknowledgments: We are very grateful to the other participants not included as authors who took the survey, including Dan Crossley, Sue Davies, Katie Palmer, Anna Taylor, Alex Read and those who did not opt in to being named. We are grateful to Ben Dare for assistance in formatting and proofreading. The contents of this paper should not be taken to represent the views of the UK Government or the organisations to which the authors are affiliated.

Data Availability Statement

A spreadsheet of numbers used to create the main figures is included for convenience: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ydvzqyodak455b8ovu8tb/EE23_data_for_figures.ods (accessed on 7 October 2023), The full cleaned anonymised multiple-choice results are provided here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/npf0c49klg7ky3y6in1c2/Airtable_EE23_230808_cleaned_anonymised.csv (accessed on 7 October 2023). Free-text comments are included as Supplementary Materials with this paper.

Keywords

food systems
global catastrophic risk
climate change
extreme weather
ecological collapse
scenarios
cascading risks

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.3390/su152014783Licence: CC BY

Jones_etal_S_Scoping_Potential_Routes_VoR
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Final published version, 1.88 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

Jones, A., Bridle, S., Denby, K., Bhunnoo, R., Morton, D., Stanbrough, L., Coupe, B., Pilley, V., Benton, T., Falloon, P., Matthews, T. K., Hasnain, S., Heslop-Harrison, J. S., Beard, S., Pierce, J., Pretty, J., Zurek, M., Johnstone, A., Smith, P., ... Whiteside, K. (2023). Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation. Sustainability, 15(20), Article 14783. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014783

Jones, A, Bridle, S, Denby, K, Bhunnoo, R, Morton, D, Stanbrough, L, Coupe, B, Pilley, V, Benton, T, Falloon, P, Matthews, TK, Hasnain, S, Heslop-Harrison, JS, Beard, S, Pierce, J, Pretty, J, Zurek, M, Johnstone, A , Smith, P, Gunn, N, Watson, M, Pope, E, Tzachor, A, Douglas, C, Reynolds, C, Ward, N, Fredenburgh, J, Pettinger, C, Quested, T, Cordero, JP, Mitchell, C, Bewick, C, Brown, C, Brown, C, Burgess, PJ, Challinor, A, Cottrell, A, Crocker, T, George, T, Godfray, CJ, Hails, RS, Ingram, J, Lang, T, Lyon, F, Lusher, S, MacMillan, T, Newton, S, Pearson, S, Pritchard, S, Sanders, D, Sanderson Bellamy, A, Steven, M, Trickett, A, Voysey, A, Watson, C, Whitby, D & Whiteside, K 2023, 'Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation', Sustainability, vol. 15, no. 20, 14783. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152014783

@article{b6a270e96f1544a4b280ed50f09dbed1,

title = "Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation",

abstract = "We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, this increased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the various causes of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning.",

keywords = "food systems, global catastrophic risk, climate change, extreme weather, ecological collapse, scenarios, cascading risks",

author = "Aled Jones and Sarah Bridle and Katherine Denby and Riaz Bhunnoo and Daniel Morton and Lucy Stanbrough and Barnaby Coupe and Vanessa Pilley and Tim Benton and Pete Falloon and Matthews, {Tom K.} and Saher Hasnain and Heslop-Harrison, {John S.} and Simon Beard and Julie Pierce and Jules Pretty and Monika Zurek and Alexandra Johnstone and Pete Smith and Neil Gunn and Molly Watson and Edward Pope and Asaf Tzachor and Caitlin Douglas and Christian Reynolds and Neil Ward and Jez Fredenburgh and Clare Pettinger and Tom Quested and Cordero, {Juan P.} and Clive Mitchell and Carrie Bewick and Cameron Brown and Christopher Brown and Burgess, {Paul J.} and Andy Challinor and Andrew Cottrell and Thomas Crocker and Thomas George and Godfray, {Charles J.} and Hails, {Rosie S.} and John Ingram and Tim Lang and Fergus Lyon and Simon Lusher and Tom MacMillan and Sue Newton and Simon Pearson and Sue Pritchard and Dale Sanders and {Sanderson Bellamy}, Angelina and Megan Steven and Alastair Trickett and Andrew Voysey and Christine Watson and Darren Whitby and Kerry Whiteside",

note = "S.B. (Sarah Bridle) and A.J. (Aled Jones) are funded by an APEX Award from the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society AA21\100154 for “How to feed the UK amid catastrophic food system disruption”. T.B., S.B. (Sarah Bridle), A.S.B. and N.W., are grateful for funding from the AFN Network+ (UKRI Agri-food for Net Zero Network+) Grant Award EP/X011062/1. Alexandra Johnstone acknowledges funding from the Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme, delivered by UKRI, in partnership with the Global Food Security Programme, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Defra, DHSC, OHID, Innovate UK and FSA. Grant Award BB/W018020/1, for FIO Food: Food Insecurity in people living with Obesity—improving sustainable and healthier food choices in the retail food environment. S.B. (Sarah Bridle) and K.D. acknowledge funding from the same above: the Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme. Grant award FixOurFood programme (BB/V004581/1). P.F. was supported by the Met Office Food, Farming and Natural Environment Climate Service, funded by Defra and the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, funded by DSIT. Christian Reynolds was funded through Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme, Grant Award BB/V004719/1 Healthy soil, Healthy food, Healthy people (H3). Acknowledgments: We are very grateful to the other participants not included as authors who took the survey, including Dan Crossley, Sue Davies, Katie Palmer, Anna Taylor, Alex Read and those who did not opt in to being named. We are grateful to Ben Dare for assistance in formatting and proofreading. The contents of this paper should not be taken to represent the views of the UK Government or the organisations to which the authors are affiliated.",

year = "2023",

month = oct,

day = "12",

doi = "10.3390/su152014783",

language = "English",

volume = "15",

journal = "Sustainability",

issn = "2071-1050",

publisher = "MDPI",

number = "20",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System

T2 - Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation

AU - Jones, Aled

AU - Bridle, Sarah

AU - Denby, Katherine

AU - Bhunnoo, Riaz

AU - Morton, Daniel

AU - Stanbrough, Lucy

AU - Coupe, Barnaby

AU - Pilley, Vanessa

AU - Benton, Tim

AU - Falloon, Pete

AU - Matthews, Tom K.

AU - Hasnain, Saher

AU - Heslop-Harrison, John S.

AU - Beard, Simon

AU - Pierce, Julie

AU - Pretty, Jules

AU - Zurek, Monika

AU - Johnstone, Alexandra

AU - Smith, Pete

AU - Gunn, Neil

AU - Watson, Molly

AU - Pope, Edward

AU - Tzachor, Asaf

AU - Douglas, Caitlin

AU - Reynolds, Christian

AU - Ward, Neil

AU - Fredenburgh, Jez

AU - Pettinger, Clare

AU - Quested, Tom

AU - Cordero, Juan P.

AU - Mitchell, Clive

AU - Bewick, Carrie

AU - Brown, Cameron

AU - Brown, Christopher

AU - Burgess, Paul J.

AU - Challinor, Andy

AU - Cottrell, Andrew

AU - Crocker, Thomas

AU - George, Thomas

AU - Godfray, Charles J.

AU - Hails, Rosie S.

AU - Ingram, John

AU - Lang, Tim

AU - Lyon, Fergus

AU - Lusher, Simon

AU - MacMillan, Tom

AU - Newton, Sue

AU - Pearson, Simon

AU - Pritchard, Sue

AU - Sanders, Dale

AU - Sanderson Bellamy, Angelina

AU - Steven, Megan

AU - Trickett, Alastair

AU - Voysey, Andrew

AU - Watson, Christine

AU - Whitby, Darren

AU - Whiteside, Kerry

N1 - S.B. (Sarah Bridle) and A.J. (Aled Jones) are funded by an APEX Award from the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society AA21\100154 for “How to feed the UK amid catastrophic food system disruption”. T.B., S.B. (Sarah Bridle), A.S.B. and N.W., are grateful for funding from the AFN Network+ (UKRI Agri-food for Net Zero Network+) Grant Award EP/X011062/1. Alexandra Johnstone acknowledges funding from the Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme, delivered by UKRI, in partnership with the Global Food Security Programme, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Defra, DHSC, OHID, Innovate UK and FSA. Grant Award BB/W018020/1, for FIO Food: Food Insecurity in people living with Obesity—improving sustainable and healthier food choices in the retail food environment. S.B. (Sarah Bridle) and K.D. acknowledge funding from the same above: the Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme. Grant award FixOurFood programme (BB/V004581/1). P.F. was supported by the Met Office Food, Farming and Natural Environment Climate Service, funded by Defra and the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, funded by DSIT. Christian Reynolds was funded through Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme, Grant Award BB/V004719/1 Healthy soil, Healthy food, Healthy people (H3). Acknowledgments: We are very grateful to the other participants not included as authors who took the survey, including Dan Crossley, Sue Davies, Katie Palmer, Anna Taylor, Alex Read and those who did not opt in to being named. We are grateful to Ben Dare for assistance in formatting and proofreading. The contents of this paper should not be taken to represent the views of the UK Government or the organisations to which the authors are affiliated.

PY - 2023/10/12

Y1 - 2023/10/12

N2 - We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, this increased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the various causes of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning.

AB - We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, this increased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the various causes of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning.

KW - food systems

KW - global catastrophic risk

KW - climate change

KW - extreme weather

KW - ecological collapse

KW - scenarios

KW - cascading risks

U2 - 10.3390/su152014783

DO - 10.3390/su152014783

M3 - Article

SN - 2071-1050

VL - 15

JO - Sustainability

JF - Sustainability

IS - 20

M1 - 14783

ER -

Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this