Views wanted on impact of COVID-19 on UK food and nutrition security

"We are actively seeking the views of anyone involved in the food system in the UK, such as farmers, processors, retailers and in the supply chain to help us inform pandemic recovery planning and future food system resilience"

How will food production respond to the effects of COVID-19 in the next 18 months? Which sectors are likely to experience change? These questions are at the heart of research examining how best to protect the UK’s food and nutrition security from the impact of climate change, and for which views are being actively sought.

The research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and carried out by the James Hutton Institute, Chatham House and Cranfield University, seeks to gain a detailed perspective of how the different sectors making up the UK’s food system have been impacted by the pandemic and how lessons learned can usefully inform understanding of other types of risk.

Project coordinator, Dr Mike Rivington, said: “The pandemic has had a major impact on the UK at a time when uncertainty around Brexit has been growing further challenging human health and environmental costs connected to the food system.

“We are actively seeking the views of anyone involved in the food system in the UK, such as farmers, processors, retailers and in the supply chain to help us inform pandemic recovery planning and future food system resilience. We would be very grateful for your time in contributing.

“It is important that we hear views from across the entire food production chain, as different businesses face very different challenges. We are hoping to get a substantial response, so please pass this invitation on to colleagues or other relevant stakeholders and organisations.”

The project survey can be accessed at http://bit.ly/COVID19UKFNS [1] and responses are needed as soon as possible. Results will be available at https://www.hutton.ac.uk/covid19foodnutrition [2]. The survey is fully GDPR compliant and researchers will not collect personal data. However, there is an option to voluntarily provide contact details and make statements that may be attributable in publications.