Environment, agriculture and food strategic research programme 2016-2021

Food, Health and Wellbeing

The research undertaken in this Theme will lexamine how the performance of our food and drink sector can be enhanced; what a healthy sustainable diet looks like and how this can be encouraged; and the role of short food supply networks within the broader challenge of ensuring food security in Scotland.

WORK PACKAGE 3.1: IMPROVED FOOD & DRINK PRODUCTION

The research in Work Package (WP) 3.1 will deliver evidence which can improve Scottish food and drink production, across the supply chain, in terms of making it more desirable, nutritious, beneficial to health, safe, economically viable, sustainable and ethically produced. Scotland has an extensive larder of nutritionally valuable animal- and plant-derived products that can be grown, harvested, produced and processed to provide a healthy and sustainable diet.

Driven by the Scottish national Food and Drink Policies, A Recipe for Success (2009) and Becoming a Good Food Nation (2014), which aim to increase access to good quality food to improve Scotland’s diet and food culture, this research will focus on providing scientific evidence to deliver foods with superior nutritional qualities and reformulate processed foods to improve their healthiness while retaining consumer appeal and food manufacturer acceptability. Food borne illness currently affects 1 million people in the UK annually, costing the UK economy £1.5 billion.

Research in WP 3.1 will help improve food safety by defining the risk factors, improving detection of the most important food-borne pathogens and toxins, and encouraging uptake by stakeholders across the food industry. Significant food security challenges lie ahead for agricultural production due to an increasing global population and climate change pressures. Food waste, from farm to consumer level, impacts on this with 570,000 tonnes of food and drink being wasted by Scottish households annually in Scotland.

WP 3.1 will assess food waste along main Scottish food supply chains (e.g. dairy, potatoes and fruits) and consumption in Scotland, to provide robust strategies to reduce waste and identify valorisation routes at different levels across primary and secondary production, processing, retailing, consumption and society. The research in WP 3.1 will underpin the long-term sustainability, economic growth and societal value of Scottish food and drink, and will deliver outputs relevant to a diverse range of stakeholders including policy, industry, academia, and consumers.

Key aims of WP 3.1 are, therefore, to contribute to a sustainable, healthy diet by improving the nutritional and health qualities, affordability, availability and sustainability of Scottish primary and processed food and drink through:

• The identification of the nutritious and health beneficial components in major, underused or emerging affordable and seasonal Scottish primary produce that would benefit from enhancement.
• The characterisation and development of strategies for improving the nutritive value and health benefits of processed foods.
• The development of technologies and strategies for the prevention, detection and eradication of food borne infections and related toxins with particular relevance for Scotland.
• The development of tools, techniques and best practice to allow the Scottish food and drink industry to reduce or valorise waste.

WORK PACKAGE 3.2: HEALTHY DIETS AND DIETARY CHOICE

Work Package (WP) 3.2 aims to understand the linkages between diet, behaviour, lifestyle, and the social and cultural environment in order to improve the health of the Scottish population. Scotland has a richly deserved international reputation for the quality of its food yet its population has one of the poorest diet-related health records in the developed world and a poor diet and excessive consumption of food and drink contribute to high rates of non-communicable diseases and early death.

Diet quality is strongly linked to socioeconomic status with poor dietary habits and attitudes developing from a very early age. Children’s diets are particularly poor and there is evidence of transgenerational transmission of poor health, and poor dietary habits and attitudes. Diet is linked to behaviour, lifestyle and the social and cultural environment in complex ways. Understanding these linkages is essential if we are to improve the health of the Scottish population.

WP 3.2 will study the interplay between dietary health, affordability and sustainability with the aim of improving public health by influencing behaviours. It also seeks to improve the quality of the choices that are currently being made by basing food reformulation on sound nutritional principles. WP 3.2 will deliver a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the factors operating within communities and individuals in order to inform the development of more effective health improvement strategies.

WP 3.2 will deliver evidence to answer four research questions:

• What is the relative importance of diet in maintaining health throughout life and how is this modulated by socio-economic status, lifestyle and the individual response to diet?
• How do specific dietary components impact on health, including gut health, weight maintenance, and wellbeing?
• What is the best way to measure sustainability (personal, environmental, social and economic) and how can advice designed to optimise health, sustainability, and affordability be most effectively communicated to consumers?
• How do wider cultural factors, customs and habits influence dietary choices in different settings and social environments and how can a better understanding of these be used to improve food choices in children and adults?

WORK PACKAGE 3.3: FOOD SECURITY

The aim of Work Package (WP) 3.3 is to provide evidence to policy makers on food security in Scotland, including how various policies are likely to impact food security in Scotland in the future.

This WP focuses on a range of issues relating to food security in Scotland. At a macro level this includes examining the pattern of domestic and international consumption of Scottish produce and the extent to which current consumption in Scotland is dependent on imported products. The WP will explore the potential tensions around promoting exports, encouraging the consumption of local produce in the context of encouraging food supply chain resilience, economic growth of the food and drink sector and food security.

At a micro level, the WP will explore ways in which food security in Scotland can be enhanced in the future, including the role of encouraging the consumption of more local produce. The research will develop the evidence base required to improve the efficiency and sustainability of Short Food Supply Networks (SFSNs) and will explore ways to increase producer and community empowerment and household food security.

The WP sets out a range of objectives including the following:

• Analysing the relationship (demand and supply) between Scottish exports and imported products; and the implications of these on sustainability, economic growth, food supply network resilience and food security.
• Analysing international factors that may influence food security in Scotland.
• Understanding who is affected by food insecurity in Scotland and the degree to which particular groups are affected by it and manage it.
• Developing a culturally relevant measure of household food insecurity which is applicable to the Scottish context that can be used to inform the development of policy responses aimed at alleviating household food insecurity and evaluating their effectiveness.
• Generating baseline data on different forms of SFSNs in Scotland to improve policy-makers’ knowledge of: diversification in Scottish agriculture and crofting; links between farmers, food producers and other local food-related rural enterprises, such as Community Supported Agriculture.
• Informing policy on the role of SFSNs in helping promote rural development and innovation, empower resilient communities and enhance trust, equality, food sovereignty and sustainability.

WORK PACKAGE 3.4 – COMMUNITIES AND WELLBEING

The aim of Work Package (WP) 3.4 is to improve and enhance the lives of people living in rural communities. The work within WP 3.4 focuses on the resilience and wellbeing of Scotland’s rural communities and provides the context within which work elsewhere in the Strategic Research Programme (on natural assets, land-based industries, and food and health) can be placed.

WP 3.4 is one of three exclusively social science package in the Strategic Research Programme. It is designed to help people living in and using the rural landscape and uses a wide range of social science approaches including demographic analysis, economic analysis, quantitative and qualitative sociological approaches, environmental psychology, and policy reviews. This WP is designed to produce policy and practice relevant findings. Demographic, social, economic and environmental change is being experienced from remote through to accessible rural areas in Scotland; from rural towns and their hinterlands, to coastal areas and islands.

This WP examines how such changes can be measured and what they mean for the future and for the wellbeing of rural residents. It will identify policies which can enhance community wellbeing and resilience and the role of empowerment, local participation and democracy in this process. It follows that issues of social inclusion and equality are cross-cutting themes for the WP.

WP 3.4 will deliver core policy relevant social research to enhance the lives of people in rural Scotland, in a time of environmental change, on-going land reform and economic uncertainty. Research is focussed on the following questions:

• How do changes in the population of remote rural areas of Scotland affect the social, economic and ecological resilience of these areas?
• Can place-based policies address differences in economic performance and social outcomes in Scotland’s rural areas and small towns?
• What are the links between the environmental and landscape qualities of rural areas and the wellbeing of those that visit or live in these areas?
• What does “success” in rural community resilience look like, and how can methodologies be developed which capture the impact and outcomes of policy and practice interventions?