Abstract
We identify major knowledge gaps in the primary impacts of extreme weather and climate change across the UK's food system, its functioning and their interactions to provide information to support adaptation and resilience planning. Future shocks and stresses due to changes in weather and climate extremes will have significant impacts on the UK food system. Key knowledge gaps remain in our understanding of their impacts on non-cereal crops, livestock and fisheries production, on the food chain beyond primary production, on the longer-term impacts, and in an integrated, full system view of impacts that accounts for cumulative impacts, interactions, feedbacks and the interplay between domestic and overseas elements of the UK food system. These knowledge gaps need to be urgently addressed to ensure future climate resilience of the UK food system. There are several areas where research could better support decision-making towards increased resilience to weather and climate shocks in both food policy and business sectors. We note the need for a step change in the collection, quality, synthesis and application of a broad range of weather and food chain data and information across time and space. There is a need to develop tools to support the inclusion of the "missing middle" of food chain and policy discussions that incorporate weather and climate impacts: processing/packaging, transport, storage, wholesale, retail and disposing/reusing. Greater integration of climate, biophysical, social, political and economic research is required to characterise geo-political influences on food system climate resilience. Further work is needed to assess adaptation actions needed in response, and their knock-on trade-offs and consequences across sectors, and their interactions. The challenges identified here suggest the need for challenge-led, connective, interdisciplinary approaches to future funding initiatives in support of achieving food system resilience to weather and climate shocks.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 051001 |
| Journal | Environmental Research Letters |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 21 Apr 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 4 May 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:PF was supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by BEIS and Defra. CD was supported by an Independent Research Fellowship from the Natural Environment Research Council (Grant No. NE/N01524X/1). TN was supported by grants from the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/R010811/1) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/S008160/1), and by a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society (UF150526). PF would like to thank Sean Milton and Helen Mako-Yule (Met Office, UK) and the Global Food Security Programme’s Programme Coordination Group ( www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/about/governance/ ) for discussions that helped inform the development of this paper, along with comments from three anonymous reviewers. The discussions that led to this paper were part of a Met Office Academic Partnership ( www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/approach/collaboration/partnership ) activity with logistical support from Shannon Jackson and Verity Payne (Met Office, UK).
Funding Information:
The UK’s Horticultural Quality and Food Loss Network, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, aims to tackle food loss through research and promoting improved horticultural crop quality and could help address knowledge gaps in the post-harvest impacts of weather and climate extremes. The UK Government, through the Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is also funding international research on food system climate resilience through the Horizon 2020 ERA-NET co-fund on Food Systems and Climate ( www.foscera.net/en/foscera/About-FOSC.htm ) which focuses on assessing climate change risks for food value chains, promoting innovative food technology deployment and resilience to climate change across Africa, Latin America and Europe. Given the need to build resilience across the food chain, there is also a need to consider potential links to private funding, including from the (re)insurance and risk sectors.
Research Groups and Themes
- Food Justice Network
