Potential pathways to acute food systems crisis in the UK

There is increasing concern in many advanced economies about the risks of disruption and crises in agri-food systems. Government departments and non-governmental organisations are working to identify and understand specific risks but struggle to take broad, holistic perspectives and therefore underestimate the potential for civil unrest. In the interests of helping move from understanding to action, we convened a group of experts through a Delphi process to map out potential pathways to acute UK food system crises and identify interventions that would build resilience and sustainability. To this end, we consulted 31 experts, carrying out 15 expert interviews, followed by three surveys and two workshops with a further 16 experts. The experts highlighted the many existing chronic issues creating a tinderbox for an acute risk to lead to a food crisis in the UK. These
chronic issues include climate change, poor policy implementation, rising inequality, food supply chain consolidation and the risks from just-in-time supply of food. They voted to include three acute triggers—(a) cyber-attack, (b) a major extreme weather event and (c) a major new international conflict—and described how any combination of these could lead to (d) a UK food availability and/or price shock that could result in widespread fear of unsafe or inadequate food, leading to violence. A total of 7 system-wide interventions were prioritised to help address these pathway elements together and build sustainability, and a further 21 were identified to address elements individually.