Abstract
To enhance sustainability, the food system requires significant shifts in the production, processing and supply of food. Ideally, a sustainable food system should operate, not only to protect the biosphere, but also to provide nutritious, high-quality food, and to support social values, an equitable economy, and human and animal health. It should also be governed responsibly within a supportive policy environment. Implementing these shifts is a task of immense scale; but citizen participation/engagement has the potential to help make sustainability a reality through distributed learning, dynamic sensing, and knowledge generation. Technological advancements in sensing and data processing have enabled new forms of citizen participation in research. When food system research is embedded within society it can help us to understand which changes towards sustainability work and which do not. Indeed, citizen engagement in food systems research has the potential to help bring citizens on side, supporting the growth of a food culture of resilience and of sustainable practises (including dietary change). This commentary provides examples of how existing research and alternative food production systems and agroecological practises may provide possible frameworks for citizen participation in food system studies. We highlight potential future food and citizen science approaches. Widening citizen participation and encouraging the involvement of other food system actors, including those in local, national and international governance, is essential to capture the full potential of citizen science in enabling transition to a sustainable food system. For the research community citizen science offers engagement and empowerment of wider communities with science; collecting and analysing data; and creating viable solutions to food system and diet issues.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Social Movements, Institutions and Governance, a section of the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
Widening citizen participation and encouraging the involvement of other food system actors, including those in local, national and international governance, is essential to capture the full potential of citizen science in enabling transition to a sustainable food system
Conclusion and Recommendations for Traditional research and policy methods have proven insufficient for widespread change in diets, food practices and food production
Summary
A rapid literature review (on Scopus, and Google Scholar) was conducted in March to June 2020 (see Tricco et al, 2015 and Haby et al, 2016 for discussion of the characteristics, strengths and limitations of this methodology). Such projects have the potential to bring improvements in food security and food sovereignty to urban areas, whilst increasing the engagement of citizens, local government and researchers in urban growing Such collaborative projects highlight that with the right support, positive health community and environmental benefits can accrue (Beilin and Hunter, 2011; Dobson et al, 2020), as reported in the wider “urban food growing” literature (reviewed in Edmondson et al (2020)). Nutrition was not formally taught, participants reported learning and sharing peer-to-peer support through participatory and exploratory investigation of Canadian and group indigenous food practices (Henderson and Slater, 2019) This key study provides a template or framework to customise planetary diets, and healthy, sustainable food practices in different cultures, communities and geographies whilst respecting pre-existing practices and traditions
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