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Integrating Knowledge for Food Systems Resilience: IKnowFood

The IKnowFood project takes an interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder approach to developing a unifying understanding of ‘food system resilience’ using tools and methods to integrate the knowledge of food system actors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2fV6kDf--s

Context

Systems of food production, trade and consumption are increasingly vulnerable to interconnected political, economic and ecological shocks and stresses associated with climate and environmental changes, shifts in farming practices, uneven power dynamics and consumer lifestyle changes.

IKnowFood takes an interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder approach to developing a unifying understanding of ‘food system resilience’ using tools and methods to integrate the knowledge and perspectives of hitherto disparate food system actors. Food system resilience is the ability of the system over time to learn, adapt and transform to cope at multiple levels with external and internal stresses and shocks in order to provide supplies of food that are economically, environmentally and nutritionally sustainable.

Aims and objectives

Through integrating knowledge from both sciences and social sciences the aim of the project is to remove the significant disconnects between various actors in the global food system and enhance overall food system resilience. Our aim is to produce new datasets, information resources, appropriate technology tools for farmers, decision making tools for business and consumer mobile technologies all working to minimise trade-offs and secure complementarities.

This project has four overarching objectives:

  1. To map out how new forms of data, mobile technologies, institutional models and incentive frameworks can shape information flows, enabling researchers, technologists and food system stakeholder resolve and respond in a timely fashion to pressures facing food consumption, production and trade
  2. To synthesise a new concept of food system resilience
  3. To identify how different structures, institutions and information can support individuals, communities and organisations to think and act in response to different types of challenge that emerge in the global food system
  4. To identify an agenda for future inter-disciplinary research and define policy objectives for a resilient UK food system

Project activities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=501XdnBLoAE&feature=youtu.be

Key York contacts
Principal and Co- Investigators

Principal Investigator

Co-Investigators

  • Dr Jonathan Ensor (SEI-Y)
  • Prof Tony Heron (Department of Politics and International Relations, University of York)
  • Dr Chris West (SEI-Y)
  • Prof Helen Petrie (Department of Computer Science, University of York)
  • Prof Kate Pickett (Department of Health Sciences, University of York)
  • Dr Simon Croft (SEI-Y)
  • Prof Bruce Grieve (School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester)
  • Prof Krikor Ozanyan (School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester)
  • Dr Peter Howley (Leeds University Business School)
  • Prof Jason Halford (Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool)
  • Dr Paul Christiansen (Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool)
Principal funder

Global Food Security programme with support from Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Scottish Government

External partners
  • University of Liverpool
  • University of Manchester
  • Anthesis
  • Café Direct
  • IAgrE
  • Waitrose
  • Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF)
  • Luc Hoffmann Institute
  • Soil Association
  • National Farmers Union (NFU)