ESRC WR DTC Network – Social Science of Agri-Food System Sustainability
University of Leeds, University of Sheffield, University of York
Network Description:
There is good reason for the resurgence of systems thinking within agriculture and food policy and
research (Thompson and Scoones, 2011). In addressing the urgent need to build resilient food supply
chains that are socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable, a systems approach calls on us
to think, for example, about the globally interlinked nature of local production, consumption, and waste
(e.g. through markets and trade); the dependency and impacts of food provision on changing ecological
and climatic systems and services; and the role and movement of knowledge, information and values
across nodes of decision making at a variety of scales (Darnhofer et al., 2012; Whitfield, 2016; Vermeulen
et al., 2012). As is explicitly recognised in the ESRC research priority on the Social Science of
Environmental Change, there is a need to apply innovative and interdisciplinary social science to better
understanding and effectively addressing today’s complex societal challenges.
Three research projects, each with a geographical focus on East Africa, have been designed to study the
interlinked nature of supply chains, rural livelihoods, and socio-ecological interactions. Each project
takes a unique combination of two of these systems concepts as its foundation to respectively study: (1)
supply chains as socio-ecological systems (Tallontire, Doherty, Dallimer) (2); socio-ecological system
services for rural livelihoods and adaptation (Marchant, Twyman, Ensor) and (3) and rural livelihoods
within global supply chain systems (Blake, Quinn, Whitfield).
The intention is that the network fosters creative conceptual development and the empirical application of
innovative research approaches within emerging areas of academic enquiry. In each case the supervisory
team represents a new collaboration of individuals with alternative but complimentary disciplinary
backgrounds, which include human geography (Blake, Twyman); environmental science and ecology
(Marchant, Dallimer); management and business studies (Doherty); environmental social science
(Whitfield, Ensor); and international development (Tallontire, Quinn, Whitfield, Marchant, Twyman).
East Africa represents a common geographical interest across all supervisors and, whilst the projects will
be multi-sited in nature, this represents a point of synergy, with potential for collective and comparative
learning across the projects. It is a context in which challenges of food security and environmental change
are particularly acute and in which they intersect with pressing economic and social constraints and
development needs and are differently experienced across mosaic landscapes of both subsistence and
large commercial agriculture. It is therefore a context in which there is both interesting scope and a
societal need for better understanding the complex dynamics of agri-food systems.
Through partnership with the CGIAR Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
Programme, network activities will be integrated into a programme of international action-research.
CCAFS targets the building of climate resilient and smart systems and through it there is available an
established body of data from and research infrastructure around an existing network of studied
agricultural and food systems in and beyond East Africa.
The network itself offers an opportunity for intellectual exchange – learning lessons from research across
connected disciplines, and schools of thought – and for the collective furthering of an exciting and
appropriately multidimensional social science of agri-food system sustainability, that builds on the
strengths on socio-ecological systems, supply chains, and rural livelihoods research. It is intended that
the network will generate co-authored outputs that present and collectively analyse empirical findings
from across the projects and draw out key lessons.
Title of network: Social Science of Agri-Food System Sustainability
Academic Lead: Stephen Whitfield, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
Partners: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)
Studentship topic 1: Supply Chains as Socio-Ecological Systems: Fair Trade and Cooperative
Governance as a means to Building Resilience.
Principal Supervisor: Anne Tallontire, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds.
Co-Supervisor/s: Bob Doherty, York Management School, University of York and Martin Dallimer, School
of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
Studentship topic 2: Socio-Ecological System Services for Rural Livelihoods: Adaptation to Climate
Change through the Management of Multifunctional Landscape Systems.
Principal Supervisor: Robert Marchant, Department of Environment, University of York.
Co-Supervisor/s: Chasca Twyman, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield and Jon Ensor,
Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York
Studentship topic 3: Rural Livelihoods within Global Supply Chains: Food Waste and Recovery in East
Africa from Global Supply Chains to Local Food Systems.
Principal Supervisor: Megan Blake, Geography Department, University of Sheffield.
Co-Supervisor/s: Claire Quinn and Stephen Whitfield, Sustainability Research Institute, University of
Leeds
In each case, please contact the academic lead for further
information.