The Importance of Citizen Scientists in the Move Towards Sustainable Diets and a Sustainable Food System

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.

Bioactivity of Grape Skin from Small-Berry Muscat and Augustiatis of Samos: A Circular Economy Perspective for Sustainability

“…In this approach, the effort to exploit winemaking by-products, such as wine grape skins, in the North Aegean region offers the Greek islands of the North Aegean a tool for both economic development and public health prevention. This is consistent with recent research presenting that food value chains are widely realized as more fair alternatives to conventional supply networks [27][28][29][30].…”

Pl@ntNet Crops: merging citizen science observations and structured survey data to improve crop recognition for agri-food-environment applications

“…Engaging citizen scientists in food system research keeps on gaining momentum and now covers diverse applications [24]. At the same time, Ryan et al [11] note that the term citizen science has rarely been applied to a long history of public engagement in agriculture and food science.…”

Use of Adolescent “Community Researchers” to Address Obesity Among Mexican Immigrant Families

“…Although most citizen science/community research initiatives involve adults, there are a few examples of projects involving children and adolescents, mostly limited to data collection efforts (Marks et al, 2022). In addition, community research is beginning to be used in the field of nutrition to encourage community-wide dietary changes (Oakden et al, 2021). To date, no such programs have been developed to combat obesity at the community level using second generation immigrant adolescents.…”