Transforming our food system for health and sustainability: the foundational roles of social science
The UK food system is facing transformational change. Geopolitics brings repeated shocks to the system (including Brexit, the Ukraine war, and Trump’s tariffs). The effects of climate change increasingly impinge upon production, contributing to food price inflation. And poor diet is a major cause of health problems, raising pressing questions about the future financing of the National Health Service and, more broadly, the productivity of the UK workforce. Clinging to status quo arrangements looks futile. The question is not whether to change, but whether the changes that are coming can be actively shaped and managed for the optimum public good. Social science research has a key role to play in supporting and making sense of transformational change in the UK food system over the next 25 years.
Since 2020, a growing body of independent analysis points to the need for reform. The Government’s independent statutory advisor on climate change – the Climate Change Committee – has set out a balanced pathway to a net zero UK in 2050 which involves decarbonising farming practices, considerable reforestation of land and reduction in meat consumption of around 35 per cent. Similar prescriptions featured in the independent National Food Strategy of 2021, led by Henry Dimbleby.
In October 2025, the AgriFood4Netzero (AFN) Network produced a Roadmap for Resilience report. The Network has over 3,000 members drawn from across the food system, with half from universities and research institutes and the other half split evenly between commercial, public and voluntary sectors. Its Roadmap argues that with mounting threats comes a pivotal opportunity to shift direction and build a fairer, healthier and more secure food system that works better for everyone.
Its plan centres on three core transformations. First is the need for a clear strategy to build a stronger and more resilient UK agricultural sector ready for the challenges that climate change will bring. Central to improving UK national food security is the need to much more actively stimulate the production of fruit, vegetables and pulses and reduce the land-take of livestock production. Second is the need for smarter land use which better matches the strategic needs of the country as a whole and enables farm production to work more synergistically with other functions of land, such as adapting to climate change and reducing flood risks. Third is the need to make healthier diets the easiest default option for consumers, meaning changes to how food is marketed and sold.
Actively shaping change, rather than passively being shaped by it, requires careful planning and coordination across government and between the public and commercial sectors. This has been tried and tested before, within living memory, and delivered transformational change in how food was produced between the 1940s and 1960s. Crucially, it requires the huge power of the natural, physical and biosciences – from agricultural engineering, through artificial intelligence, ecology, microbiology and soil science – to be blended with social science understandings of individual, organisations and systems dynamics. In addressing the problems of our food system, once the almost exclusive preserve of agricultural and food science, there is a major role for social scientists. The Roadmap drew out and highlighted the ten key research priorities for supporting food system transformation. They are:
1. How could the economic framework governing UK food production better incentivise domestic production of healthy foods and address the market failures that are inhibiting growth and investment in these crop categories? What are the retailing and supply chain management systems that shape sustainable and unsustainable production practices?
2. What social and demographic trends influence dietary choices? How might social trends be actively influenced to promote healthier and more sustainable behaviour? How can more people be more broadly engaged in changing food systems?
3. What machinery of government changes may help ensure stronger promotion and coordination on healthy and sustainable food across government departments? What steps can be taken to avoid the risk of party politicisation of food reforms, and so avoid ‘culture wars’ and social division around this important set of issues?
4. How can we best improve yields and productivity in a sustainable way? How can the competition for land between food and animal feed be managed for optimum public benefit? How can technological advances in animal breeding and data science be harnessed to improve productivity and reduce emissions, including through individual animal data?
5. What are the best strategies for mixing trees, biomass crops and food production on farmland (in terms of food production and sequestration)? How can market failures be corrected through tax, subsidy and regulation? How can tree-planting and other above-ground sequestration measures be guided to ensure optimum co-benefits (sequestration, flood risk, biodiversity, recreation) and to manage the risk of fires? How can the restoration of peatland for emission-reduction purposes be most effectively balanced with food production priorities?
6. What lessons can be drawn about the efficacy of the research, innovation and knowledge exchange system for UK agriculture, including through learning from other countries’ experience?
7. What would be the impacts on UK production, exports and land use from large-scale dietary shift in UK consumption (e.g. away from meat and dairy)? How elastic are the relationships between changes in yields, land use, diets and exports? How distinctive are recent patterns of UK dietary change compared to other European countries?
8. How can carbon pricing and carbon markets be most effectively developed to support food system transformation and provide economic incentives for desirable land use and land management practices? How can greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction be handled alongside improving biodiversity, water resource management and water pollution risks? How might the tax system be developed to support net zero and nature objectives around land use and land management?
9. How can the true cost of food be included in the financial operation of the agri-food system, so that environmental and public health externalities are properly incorporated? How can the environmental efficiency of food waste cycles be improved?
10. How can companies who do not currently have science-based environmental, social and governance reporting, best be supported to shift focus from Scope 1 (direct) to Scope 3 (indirect) GHG emissions?
These research priorities show that none of the important issues facing the food system can be adequately addressed without strong underpinning social science. International geopolitics and food trade and the changing political economy of food supply chains are important contextual drivers. Systems analysis is required for food production and consumption that incorporates understanding of consumer behaviour and social values. Farmers will be in the vanguard of change, and it will be social scientists who are best placed to develop new insights into farming practices, values and identities. And designing regulation requires a sound grasp of issues of compliance and enforcement, all in the context of the shifting sands of populist politics and culture wars.
There are strong disciplinary communities clustered around the operation of the food system in agriculture, food and environmental sciences. These increasingly appreciate the contribution that social science can make. Recent research by the Campaign for Social Sciences found that EPSRC funded more research in geography and environmental studies than ESRC. There are lots of opportunities for social scientists and an increasingly receptive community of natural, physical and biological scientists open to collaborating.
About the author
Neil Ward is Professor of Rural and Regional Development at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He was UEA’s Deputy Vice Chancellor and PVC-Academic (2013-21). Neil’s research interests are in rural economic and social change, agriculture, food and environmental policy and regional development. He has held chairs at the University of Leeds and Newcastle University, where he was director of the Centre for Rural Economy from 2004 to 2008. He has also worked for periods on secondment to the Cabinet Office and as an advisor to the Economic and Social Research Council. Neil is a co-convenor of UKRI’s Network+ on “AgriFood4NetZero” and is author of Net Zero, Food and Farming: Climate Change and the UK Agri-Food System (Routledge).
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