Communication to Bridge the Gap Between Food Production and Nutrition and Health: Proceedings of a Workshop (2024)
Chapter: 1 Introduction
1
Introduction
Consumers are increasingly interested to know where their food comes from. However, they are simultaneously inundated with messages about food, some of which may contain misinformation and perpetuate misconceptions about food production, creating a gap in trust. At the same time, food producers may benefit from knowing the diet and health needs of consumers. To explore this bidirectional communication between the producers of food and consumers, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (the National Academies) Food and Nutrition Board convened experts to discuss this and related topics at a virtual workshop on May 30, 2024. The speakers and participants encompassed a broad range of disciplines, including agricultural researchers, journal editors, social scientists, communicators, journalists, and nutrition researchers. They discussed their perspectives on the challenges and successes in communicating about food sources, food production, and food composition as well as about the health and nutrition needs of consumers across the food system.
The workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service and featured invited presentations and discussions with academic researchers, journal editors, and science communicators. Box 1-1 provides the statement of task for the workshop. The workshop was divided into three sessions. Each session began with opening remarks from every speaker and was followed by a moderated panel discussion that included questions from the moderator and members of the audience.
BOX 1-1
Workshop Statement of Task
A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize a one-day, interactive public workshop exploring issues related to communication on agriculture and farming and its impact on nutrition. The public workshop will feature invited presentations and discussions that will explore both traditional and non-traditional communication techniques and methodologies with regard to:
- Identifying ways to communicate to the public about the influence of agriculture supply chains, and agriculture and farming practices on nutrition and health, specifically:
- Approaches to communication about emerging agricultural technologies and discoveries;
- Translation of agricultural research into farming practices and strategies to enhance food quality; and
- Application of food safety standards to enhance benefits to health and well-being.
- Communicating and educating both professional colleagues and consumers about key discoveries from other disciplines that can benefit from food and nutrition research.
- Communicating information from researchers and consumers about their diet, and nutrition and health needs back to food producers.
- Exploring ways to connect agricultural and farming systems with nutrition and health systems, including identifying gaps between nutrient composition of foods at the production level and diet quality.
The planning committee will organize the workshop, select and invite speakers and discussants, and moderate the discussions. A proceedings of the presentations and discussions at the workshop will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Rodolphe Barrangou, the Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University and interim standing committee chair, welcomed participants and said the workshop would explore issues related to the challenges inherent to communication about food, diet, and health at a time when, for many researchers, policy-makers, government agencies, journalists, the public, and others, talking about science and data can be difficult in this age of skepticism and variable and elastic confidence in expert advice. He noted that even with the best data, the best messages, and the best insights possible, organizations such as the National Academies have a duty to help scientists communicate their data effectively enough to bridge the gap between food production and nutrition and health.
ORGANIZATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS
This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes the day’s presentations and panel discussions. The speakers, panelists, and participants presented a broad range of views and ideas. Following this introductory chapter, Chapter 2 summarizes the discussions around ways of communicating to the public about the influence of agriculture and farming practices on health and nutrition. This chapter also offers discussions on communication between farmers and researchers. Chapter 3 presents discussions about ways to convey messages to the public about the composition of food and diet quality. Chapter 4 reports on the discussions of ways to communicate information from researchers and consumers about their diet, nutrition, and health needs across the food system, including back to food producers. This final chapter also presents the standing committee interim chair’s synthesis of the workshop’s key ideas for communicating more effectively to the public on matters of food production, nutrition, and human health. Appendixes A and B contain the workshop agenda and biographical sketches of the speakers and session moderators, respectively. The speakers’ presentations (as video files) have been archived.1
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1 Available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/42591_05-2024_communication-to-bridge-the-gap-between-food-production-and-nutrition-and-health-a-workshop (accessed June 19, 2024).
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