Growing risk? The potential impact of plant diseases on land use and the UK rural economy
The Countryside and Community Research Unit (CCRU) at the University of Gloucestershire, in conjunction with Coventry University, have won a major three-year grant for a research project which aims to develop a critical, inter-disciplinary appraisal of the potential impacts of plant disease (food and non-food) on land use and the UK rural economy.
While the government and the public have now become quite used to the risk posed by various food scares associated with things like BSE, Foot and Mouth and Bird Flu, relatively little is known about the current and future risks posed by different plant diseases (food and non-food) to land use and the rural economy. Using examples of plant diseases that are spread either naturally (e.g. potato blight and leaf blotch of wheat) or by human activity (e.g. Ramorum die-back and mushroom virus X), the key objectives of the project are to:
• Forecast the risk and potential impacts of food and non-food plant diseases on land use and the UK rural economy.
• Examine the routes and network nodes of transmission and epidemic foci of emerging or changing plant diseases specific to food and non-food plants through human activity and natural transmission.
• Examine the environmental and socio-economic impacts of specific food and non-food plant diseases on selected rural communities in the UK, including an assessment of alternative management strategies on individual and community behaviour.
• Provide an overall framework for taking a holistic approach to risk analysis, regulation and governance in relation to catastrophic plant disease epidemics.
Brian Ilbery, Professor of Rural Studies at the CCRU, and Dr Damian Maye (Coventry University) will provide the social science inputs to the project and will work alongside plant pathologists and economists at Warwick University (Co-ordinator), Imperial College London and the Central Science Laboratory.
Professor Brian Ilbery says: "This is an important and exciting inter-disciplinary research project that aims to adopt an holistic and integrated approach to risk analysis, regulation and governance in relation to catastrophic plant disease epidemics. It is important to understand more about the potential risks of food and non-food plant diseases in the UK. The aim is to provide an overall framework for the analysis of risk, regulation and governance in relation to catastrophic plant disease epidemics."
The researchers will be using focus group meetings, workshops and interviews to gather the responses and attitudes of key stakeholders to the growing risks that plant diseases may pose to the rural economy. Possible future scenarios will then be examined among key 'actors' in different food and non-food supply chains in selected rural communities within the UK.
