In recent days, a study has been published by the Journal ‘Sustainability’ on MDPI, called Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation , which as the name suggests, focuses on the most hard hitting impacts or consequences of food shortages.
The upshot, which has found itself in at least one newspaper, suggests that there could be civil unrest related to food shortages within the next 10-15 years.
Whilst I have found the work helpful in view of the questions that I am hoping to answer through the research I have been doing, it concerns me greatly that what was clearly a well thought out piece of work doesn’t go further than building a warning for the future, based upon the opinions of stakeholders.
To be fair, if anyone were to say ‘there will be a food crisis this time next week’, they might get a moments attention at the time, but are just as likely (if not more so) to face ridicule if the crisis suggested doesn’t materialise on time. With the inherent risk that in this day and age, there will be the risk of getting sued.
But does this mean we are not getting the messages – and warnings, that we really need?
My reason for being here is the concern that I have about the coming food crisis and what it will mean if none of the people who should be taking proactive steps now, have done so at the point in time that crisis then begins.
I am as sure as I can be that a lot more of us see the direction of travel than we might be led to believe, especially when so many of us fall into the trap of focusing on our own perspective or what the parts of the wider issue are, that have an affect on us.
However, the content and benefit of that thought means nothing, if we haven’t brought it all together, made sense of it and found the common ground to walk on, as one.
Adam Tugwell 