Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation

We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, this increased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the various causes of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning.

我们报告了一次结构化专家意见征集的结果，以确定英国最有可能出现的潜在食品系统中断情景类型，重点关注引发内乱的途径。我们采用回溯法，将英国每2000人中有1人受伤这一社会事件定义为一个终点，40%的专家认为在未来十年内该事件“有可能（20% - 50%）”、“很有可能（50% - 80%）”或“极有可能（>80%）”。在50年的时间范围内，持这种观点的专家增加到80%。专家们考虑了两种食品系统情景，并对它们导致给定社会情景的合理性进行了排序。在10年的时间尺度上，大多数专家认为食品配送问题是最有可能的。在50年的时间尺度上，专家们在这两种情景之间的分歧更为平均，但超过一半的人认为英国内乱最有可能的途径是食品总量短缺。然而，专家们强调，食品系统中断的各种原因是相互关联的，可能产生连锁风险，凸显了系统方法的重要性。我们鼓励食品系统的利益相关者在其风险规划中使用这些结果，并建议未来开展工作以支持预防、准备、响应和恢复规划。