Creating trust through digital traceability: sustainable food chains and new ways to connect producers and consumers.

Digital tools have the potential to address key challenges to make food and farming in Britain more sustainable, but only if they are quick, cheap, easy and specific to users' needs.
A shopper is wondering what to buy for Sunday dinner but concerned about where their food comes from. Can they trust what it says on the label? Was that meat reared locally and ethically? What chemicals were used to grow those potatoes? Can buying them support small businesses in the region and also ensure a healthy, nutritious meal for their family? To find out, they scan the product's QR code with their smartphone to access free, clear information, including perhaps a map or webcam link to the farm where it was produced.
A farmer at a cattle auction is wondering which bull to buy as part of expanding their herd. Can they trust what they see - is the animal as healthy as it looks? Which bloodlines will be most productive? Can they be sure that the animals have been well cared for and not exposed to damaging diseases? They scan the ear-tag of the animal for sale and access data about its pedigree, genetics, health and previous movements across the country.
In these situations and many others, digital technologies can promote more sustainable production and consumption through reconnecting consumers and producers, but we need to know more about how best to involve diverse users, what information they need and in what form and how to promote new technologies in the face of information overload and increasing public distrust. What stories should food be able to tell us and how can these stories be told digitally?
This project will create and test digital tools to link food consumption and production through the traceability of specific products and animals. These tools have one important thing in common: specificity. By scanning QR codes or RFID ear-tags, consumers and farmers gain more than the simple provision of generic information on websites - they can access an 'Internet of Things', where physical objects (products, animals) are embedded with digital technologies and interlinked by flexible networks of information for diverse purposes. The project will use in-depth, qualitative social science field research techniques to engage users and secure their input through live testing 'in the wild' (online, on-farm and in-shop). It will evaluate how digital technologies can forge new and improve existing relationships between farmers and shoppers. The research will address questions such as :
1. How effective can digital technologies be for the food and farming sectors and for consumer-producer reconnection?
2. How can the capabilities and accessibility of existing technologies be developed and enhanced to exploit the potential for reconnection and information exchange?
3. How can digital technologies support farm and food business sustainability, consumers' quality of life, sustainable consumption practices and a sustainable future countryside?
The researchers will work with a set of food chain and rural development project partners. They will have continuous input into the research process and benefit from its findings. Partners are: Defra; English Beef and Lamb Executive; Red Tractor Assurance; Yorkshire Agricultural Society's Food, Farming and Rural Network; a Local Action Group of the EU LEADER rural development programme, and the Economic Development Department of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
The research will generate impact by making extensive use of the project partners' networks to disseminate and discuss research findings; by making findings available through the farming and food trade press; by the extensive involvement of user groups in the research and by conducting research in the field at agricultural shows and food festivals. The project will develop and trial apps relevant to the user groups involved, testing these both live online and live 'in the wild', in fields with farmers and shops with consumers.

This project will have national and potentially international economic and social impacts. It will create new digital tools for wider exploitation that can then be adapted for use by diverse companies and consumer groups, and will address the geographical and social digital divide, experimenting with ways of making digital technologies accessible and useful to all.
. The involvement of a diverse set of project partners will enhance the research's design and success, and directly enhance the research capacity, knowledge and skills of those partners, so that they can more readily respond to the demands and opportunities of new technologies. Full details of how impact will be generated are provided in Pathways to Impact.

Economic impact.
The research will be of benefit to the following groups of institutional stakeholders, all of which are represented by project partners.

1. Farming/food businesses and institutions. The research will support sustainable economic development through exploring the potential for digital technologies to foster better communications between food chain actors and better producer-consumer relations. This will enable UK food businesses to operate more efficiently and to adapt more readily to consumer needs. It will support the developing 'green economy', local food networks and the 'quality' food market nationally, especially in small British companies, as food 'provenance' is increasingly marketable and thus a niche opportunity for business. Representative partners: Eblex (The English Beef and Lamb Executive); Yorkshire Agricultural Society.

2. Rural development and policymaking institutions. These stakeholders will benefit from research examining how digital technologies can contribute to sustainable rural development via enhanced rural business capacity and job creation. Creating jobs and growing companies in the food sector is highly important in the UK today, as it underpins rural development and regeneration more generally (see policy activity such as Defra's Green Food Project and the EU LEADER programme). Policy reports (for example BIS (2010) High level skills for food. Report to the Food Research Partnership) emphasise that the UK needs to expand its highly skilled and motivated workforce in food and farming, and the greater use of digital technologies in this sector will make it more attractive to potential new entrants. The research will contribute directly via training to developing skills in this sector. Representative partners: Defra; an EU LEADER rural development programme Local Action Group; Economic Development Department of East Riding of Yorkshire Council

3. Food certification institutions. These stakeholders aim to reconnect food producers and consumers and thus to foster trust in the food chain. They ensure that food production meets set standards and use certification on packaging to assure consumers that food is produced to those standards. Digital technologies potentially enhance the ability of these stakeholders to reconnect producers and consumers by providing a means to communicate more information and be more open about food production. Representative partner: Red Tractor Assurance.

Social Impact
In addition, the research will benefit consumers. The transformational impact of successful digital tools will support a more sustainable economy through better consumer-producer relations and trust, thus enhancing consumer choice and personal motivation to engage with food production. This will have societal impact in two ways. First, by promoting sustainability in food consumption and production, it will have wider social benefits for human, animal and environmental health, quality of life and well-being generally amongst the UK public. Second, by promoting consumer knowledgeability and empowerment, it will promote both greater public awareness and understanding of agriculture and food science and greater confidence in future policy and governance of both areas.