Does scientific interest in the nature impacts of food align with consumer information-seeking behavior?
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Description
Global food supply has substantial impacts on nature including environmental degradation from chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss through agricultural land conversion. Over the past decade, public demand for information on sustainable consumption choices has increased. Meanwhile, development and expansion of the life cycle assessment literature has improved scientific evidence on supply chain impacts on the environment. However, data gaps and biases lead to uncertainty and undermine development of effective impact mitigation actions or behavior change policies. This study evaluates whether scientific research into the nature-related impacts of agri-food systems aligns with the needs of the public, as indicated by patterns of information seeking. We compare the relative volume of public Google queries to scientific articles related to agri-food systems and three major impacts: chemical pollution, greenhouse gas emissions or biodiversity loss. We discover that biodiversity is systematically overlooked in scientific studies on agri-food system impacts in favor of research on emissions and to a lesser extent chemical impacts. In contrast, total relative volumes of public queries on agri-food systems and biodiversity equal those for emissions impacts at global and Australian scales. Public interest in biodiversity impacts of agri-food systems increased significantly between 2009 and 2019, despite no significant change in the relative volume of biodiversity-focused scientific articles. Global public attention on chemical impacts declined significantly over this time period, with no significant change in the relative representation of this topic in scientific outputs. We recommend strategic investment into the biodiversity impacts of agri-food systems to build a knowledge base that allows the public to learn about the impacts of their choices and be inspired to change to more sustainable behaviors.
Impact and interest:
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These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
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| ID Code: | 232186 | ||
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| Item Type: | Contribution to Journal (Journal Article) | ||
| Refereed: | Yes | ||
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| Additional Information: | Funding Information: AITT was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Datasets created and used to perform analyses in this research are deposited in the Figshare repository, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12616799, and are freely available for reuse according to FAIR data principles. Due to their sensitive nature, raw Twitter data are not publicly available but can be accessed under application from the QUT Digital Observatory (digitalobservatory@qut.edu.au). | ||
| Measurements or Duration: | 15 pages | ||
| Keywords: | Agriculture, Biodiversity conservation, Climate change, Food consumption and production, Organic food, Sustainability | ||
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11625-021-00920-3 | ||
| ISSN: | 1862-4065 | ||
| Pure ID: | 110928140 | ||
| Divisions: | Current > Research Centres > Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy Current > Research Centres > Centre for a Waste Free World Current > Research Centres > Centre for the Environment Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Academic Division Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Faculty of Science Current > Schools > School of Biology & Environmental Science |
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| Funding Information: | AITT was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Datasets created and used to perform analyses in this research are deposited in the Figshare repository, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12616799 , and are freely available for reuse according to FAIR data principles. Due to their sensitive nature, raw Twitter data are not publicly available but can be accessed under application from the QUT Digital Observatory (digitalobservatory@qut.edu.au). It is unlikely that scientific and public interest in topics will ever align exactly, but it is also difficult to know what the “ideal” level of scientific literature is to ensure the public can access sufficient scientific evidence-based information on issues that concern them. Certainly, if relative scientific interest is negligible or dominated by a particular topic (as was found in this study), this can have ramifications not only for the ability to provide the public with information but also on future science. Scientific focus on particular topics is influenced not only by scientists’ interests, but also by the availability of research funding on those topics, public policy, research environments, institutions, and by other research and researchers (Gardner et al. ; Veríssimo et al. ). If scientific interest is the research motivator, there will likely be a lag between the production of science, communication of results, and spurring of public interest. If public and policy interest is the motivator of research, there will again be a lag between the setting of the research agenda by the public or policy, and resulting research outcomes that may take years to be published. Regardless, it is concerning that the relative research interest in biodiversity in agri-food sustainability studies has been maintained at such a low level throughout the decade, whilst relative scientific interest in climate change has remained unchanging and twenty times that of biodiversity (Fig. ). Our results support previous expressions of concern that the growing prominence of climate change in public policy and media overshadows other critically important environmental issues such as biodiversity loss (Gardner et al. ; Veríssimo et al. ). Funding for climate change research from the World Bank and National Science Foundation vastly outstripped funding for biodiversity research over the past 2 decades (Veríssimo et al. ). Climate change has dominated biodiversity in the media (Legagneux et al. ) and in political discourse (Gardner et al. ), and public concern for climate change has soared. The increase in public attention to climate change over the past decades has begun to influence policy at all levels (Gardner et al. ). We cannot expect a similar level of interest and action in biodiversity conservation to that of climate change in recent years unless the field of biodiversity conservation becomes more proactive, for example using public and policy interest in climate change as a flagship to leverage more awareness, support, and action to prevent further biodiversity loss (Veríssimo et al. ). AITT was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Datasets created and used to perform analyses in this research are deposited in the Figshare repository, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12616799 , and are freely available for reuse according to FAIR data principles. Due to their sensitive nature, raw Twitter data are not publicly available but can be accessed under application from the QUT Digital Observatory (digitalobservatory@qut.edu.au). | ||
| Copyright Owner: | 2021 The Authors | ||
| Copyright Statement: | This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the document is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to qut.copyright@qut.edu.au | ||
| Deposited On: | 05 Jun 2022 23:36 | ||
| Last Modified: | 26 Jul 2024 15:16 |
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