Incentivising resilient and innovative food supply chains and sustainable consumer choices

Challenges

Scotland faces a significant societal challenge in increasing the production and use of fruit and vegetables as part of a healthy and affordable diet accessible to all. It is accompanied by the technical challenge of producing enough fruit and vegetables sustainably, and the economic challenges in creating innovative and profitable value supply chains.

There is growing recognition for increased domestic fruit and vegetable production, including the development of national food strategies for each of the devolved nations. While the need for a national food strategy was recognised before the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a greater focus on re-shaping policy decisions on local food production systems, especially around resilience, and nutrition.

Other key drivers for increasing fruit and vegetable production include:

• Addressing food production’s contribution to climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
• Enhancing food security at different scales and improve diets
• Creating secure and meaningful jobs and incomes for those working in the food supply chain.

The latter driver includes production (tackling value chain, local food systems and food justice); and the need to ensure access to markets for increased domestic production.

Achieving increased fruit and vegetable use and production for secure supply and healthy diets requires the uptake of social and technical innovations and stakeholder engagement across the supply chain, coupled with policy interventions to facilitate and support innovations and behaviour change from farm to fork. Addressing these holistic challenges and drivers requires a systems-led approach engaging all actors along the food supply chain, enabling contributions from scholars, food scientists, policymakers, civil society activists and environmentalists.

Questions

Solutions

This project aims to increase our understanding of the means, barriers and drivers for increasing the production and use of Scotland’s fruit and vegetables.

Assessing the agroecological potential for increased fruit and vegetable production in Scotland

We are establishing patterns of current supply and demand of fruit and vegetables and predicting future demand for domestic fruit and vegetable production based on future scenarios of shifts to human and environmentally healthy diets and increased national self-reliance. This analysis determines the production gap by combining the above to establish patterns of supply and demand under alternative scenarios.

We are assessing the capacity of fruit and vegetable production systems to meet future demand. It involves reviewing fruit and vegetable production systems with potential applications in Scotland and the literature on the biophysical requirements of fruit and vegetable crops. We are using results to predict Scotland’s production potential under future climate scenarios, any further barriers to increasing fruit and vegetable production and to identify geographical and sectoral narrowing of production scope. All the above is used to determine any potential human and environmental health benefits of future fruit and vegetable production.  

Assessing the systematic barriers and drivers for increased fruit and vegetable production

We are identifying the range of stakeholders from representing the different sectors and actors active in the food system, including public, private and third-sector organisations, farmers and food businesses, policymakers, community groups, consumers, and activists. We are conducting a literature review to identify international examples of increased fruit and vegetable production and scope for emerging and current technology to maximise capacity and minimise waste. It includes an assessment of the challenges and impacts of increased production in terms of potential economic, environmental and health benefits.

We are identifying what barriers, drivers and impacts exist for transformation towards sustainable and resilient increased production of domestic fruit and vegetables at local/regional scale levels. This project identifies opportunities and barriers for change with different actors and sectors, trade-offs between imports and exports, and potential contributions from social and technical innovations. We are visualising these participatory systems models and using them as an engagement tool with stakeholders.

In sum, this project works towards equipping policymakers, practitioners, and campaigners with a shared understanding of the potential for increased domestic production of fruit and vegetables in Scotland.