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Food system resilience has multiple dimensions. We draw on food system and resilience concepts and review resilience framings of different communities. We present four questions to frame food system resilience (Resilience of what? Resilience to what? Resilience from whose perspective? Resilience for how long?) and three approaches to enhancing resilience (robustness, recovery, and reorientation—the three “Rs”). We focus on enhancing resilience of food system outcomes and argue this will require food system actors adapting their activities, noting that activities do not change spontaneously but in response to a change in drivers: an opportunity or a threat. However, operationalizing resilience enhancement involves normative choices and will result in decisions having to be negotiated about trade-offs among food system outcomes for different stakeholders. New approaches to including different food system actors’ perceptions and goals are needed to build food systems that are better positioned to address challenges of the future. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 47 is October 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Abstract:The purpose of the paper is two-fold. First, to identify the main sustainability issues that Scottish food supply chain actors are concerned with and any differences that exist between primary producers, processors and distributors and consumers; and second, to explore the implications of respondents' views for the direction of food and drink policy in Scotland. The analysis was based on a dataset assembled from the written responses to the National Food Policy discussion in Scotland, which contains opinions on the different dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental and social) from a broad range of individuals and organizations representing different segments of the Scottish population. The empirical analyses involved comparing the responses according to two criteria: by food supply chain stakeholder and by geographical region. The results indicated that whilst there were differences among the studied groups, the importance of social and economic sustainability were strongly evident in the foregoing analysis, highlighting issues such as diet and nutrition, the importance of local food, building sustainability on sound economic performance, the market power of supermarkets, and regulation and support in building human and technical capabilities.

The resilience of food systems, including agricultural systems, has become a high profile issue in the face multiple disease, environmental and social challenges. Much of agriculture takes place in remote locations where social networks, or connections between individual actors, have been implicated in increasing resilience. We examine a case study of Orkney, Scotland, a remote rural location, using interviews and Social Network Analysis. This case study provides evidence indicative of resilient patterns of social networks, emphasising the importance of schools, transport links and livestock markets in creating and maintaining these networks. These domains are rarely included in agricultural policy, highlighting the need for wider framing of questions. Our research suggests Social Network Analysis is a fruitful avenue for investigating resilience of agricultural systems that can identify hitherto hidden elements.

summary Innovation in Livestock Genetic Improvement The application of genetic selection technologies in livestock breeding offers unique opportunities to enhance the productivity, profitability and competitiveness of the livestock industry. However, there is a concern that the uptake of these technologies has been slower in the sheep and beef sectors in comparison to the dairy, pig and poultry sectors. This article discusses how an agricultural innovation systems perspective can help identify the dynamics of technology uptake in the livestock sector using the adoption of Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) in sheep production in Scotland as a case study. Five major (systemic) challenges were identified: a weakly integrated sheep supply chain (market structure failure); the presence of a powerful faction antagonistic towards EBVs (network failure); a challenging policy environment (hard institutional failure); a dismantled and weak advisory service with regard to EBVs (capabilities failure); and an outdated and inflexible data management system (infrastructure failure). Whilst efforts are being made to address the barriers individually it is argued that a more holistic approach is needed to innovation. The findings are shown to have wider implications for innovation within the agricultural sector of the European Union.

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Both the planning of EurSafe2021 and the origin of this book were profoundly influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, and we are extremely pleased to see that so many contributions still arrived. We would like to thank all authors for sharing their work and insights and all reviewers for their muchappreciated expertise on the vast range of topics. We are grateful for the support and encouragement received from the EurSafe board and Svenja Springer, in preparing this conference despite the challenging circumstances. Our special thanks go to