Food Poverty in the UK: Secondary Research Analysis and Design Fiction

In This Assignment, You Will Be Required To Conduct Secondary Research In Order To Develop Understandings Of a Particular Social Issue Or Context. This Can Involve, For Example, Online Research, Reading Academic Articles, And Reading Books. The Topic Of The Secondary Research For This Assignment Is Food Poverty In The Uk. This Could Include, For Example, Data On Experiences Of Food Poverty And Effects On Everyday Life, Organisations That Provide Services For People In Food Poverty, Food Poverty In The Media, And Adoption And Use Of Ict In Relation To Food Poverty And Organisations/Services Associated With This.

Using Your Secondary Research, You Must Analyse Your Findings To Produce a Rich Picture Of The Design Context. a Rich Picture Is a Diagrammatic Approach To Explore And Understand a Phenomenon Or Design Context. It Uses Graphs, Cartoons, Words, Symbols, Etc. It Can Include In Its Representation Things Like People, Processes, Structures, Issues Expressed By People, Conflict, And Climate. You Must Annotate Your Diagram By Making Reference To Sources From Your Secondary Research And a Short Explanation Of The Relevant Findings From These. Your Report Should Include a Page Of Numbered Annotations Making Citations To Secondary Research, And You Should Label The Parts Of Your Rich Picture With The Numbers Of Relevant Annotations.

Based On The Rich Picture You Developed In Part 1 And The Secondary Research You Have Done, You Must Design a Digital Technology Concept To Bring About Social Change In Relation To Food Poverty, And Create a Design Fiction To Represent And Critically Reflect On How It Might Be Interacted With And Experienced.

Food scarcity or insecurity of domestic food could be produced by the shortage in the funding or any particular circumstances, but it might be long-time experience of not having the ability of accessing any healthy diet or even afford of eating properly. This report intends to analyse the food poverty in UK by developing rich picture of the situation. A brief rich picture along with the discussion of the situation has been provided in this report. A design fiction of poverty situation has been briefly stated in this report that describes how ICT could be used in relation to the use of the digital technology. The report discusses food security term in the relation of sufficient availability of food supplies as well as the access to food supply.

Figure 1: Rich picture

O'Connell, R., Owen, C., Padley, M., Simon, A. and Brannen, J., 2019. Which types of family are at risk of food poverty in the UK? A relative deprivation approach. Social Policy and Society, 18(1), pp.1-18.

Rich Picture

The improper agricultural and the water management system is presently becoming the major issue in UK. The unavailability of proper water management system and the agricultural system leads to the unavailability of the adequate amount of food and water. Due to the unavailability of proper food and proper water in the country, the people of the company are suffering significantly. The health of the people is extensively affected due to improper food and water availability. The people are reporting this issue to the government for the implementation of appropriate measures to eradicate the unavailability of food. The government is presently providing appropriate funds to the governing bodies for implementing the appropriate measures.

The aspect of food poverty involves various negative impacts on the well-being as well as the health of individuals. It is crucial that the assurance is provided to the people regarding the availability of proper diet in any socially satisfactory manner and have the adequate conviction regarding the methods by which the healthy diet would be secured by the individuals as well as their households.

McEachern, M., Moraes, C., Gibbons, A. and Scullion, L., 2020. Research brief update: Understanding food poverty and the transitional behaviour of vulnerable individuals: Research brief update.

Around January 2019, a report was published by the Environmental Audit Committee regarding the supportable development goals around UK and the monitoring on laws. The main discovery of the report was that:

• The aspect of food insecurity has been considered to be substantial and even growing in UK with the levels that are worst among Europe, specifically for the children.
• The government is unable to recognise as well as the respond appropriately and has permitted the issues to be analysed and determine the solutions (McEachern et al. 2020)
• The obesity strategy of the government is completely silent on the issue of the food insecurity
• The minister for Hunger is required to be implemented for ensuring that cross-departmental actions

It has been determined that the introduction of the ICT tools and methods would be helpful for tackling the problem of food poverty within UK and any other country (Beacom et al. 2018). The famine as well as the aspect of hunger have been constantly plaguing mankind all through history and it remains to be among the critical problems.

In the recent times, extensive attention is being implemented on the issue of the food security, which became one of crucial issue on worldwide agenda (McClelland et al. 2018). The worries over the food security are being encouraged by the impact of the climate changes, severe rise in the prices of food in several countries and the energy policies, specifically on the problem of biofuels.

The implementation of proper methods of food security is particularly helpful in ensuring that the countries do not face the issue of food poverty. The solution for eliminating food poverty in UK is the proper use of the ICT tools and methods. ICT has been considered as the basic need for providing the farmers with the vital information regarding the weather reports and the crop prices. It would be helpful in educating them regarding the new techniques of farming (McEachern et al. 2020). Radio broadcasting has been considered to be the crucial medium for communicating with the farmers, specifically because it is inexpensive and covers vast areas in the developing world.

Description of Rich Picture

The radio is significantly service directed in the developing countries and it features the food channel with programs providing accurate advice on the methods of improving productivity. Due to the swift increase in the use of mobile phone in the developing countries, it has grown to be the most effective method of disseminating information. With the introduction of SMS, the fishers as well as the farmers could gain information directly on the phones. The accurate monitoring of the food supplies all around the world is the initial and vital stage in addressing the food security. It includes the mapping of agricultural production as well as the food shortages along with establishing the comprehensive database. Monitoring the agricultural fields could be effectively done with the help of ICT by using:

Remote sensing infrastructure: The monitoring of the agricultural as well as water assets by utilisation of the high quality radiometers and the moderate quality imaging spectrometers, commonly placed in the abroad aircrafts as well as the satellites.

ICT equipment: Various hardware and software applications are presently utilised for the analysis of food security, that includes various statistics, mapping and modelling. Specifically, the geographic information systems could assist in establishing the cross-sectoral communication by offering the adequate tools for the storage as well as enquiry of the statistical data, and then incorporating the database of various sources in similar format, map projection and structure.

Communication infrastructure: The associated information could be disseminated through the internet along with other channels of communication to the consumers and farmers and could be represented on the web portals, and communicating maps. UK could introduce the various ICT tools for coordinating and for rapidly offering the food sources in any emergency circumstances as well as the crises affecting the basic availability to food. The food poverty issue could be tackled by offering inter-agency telecommunications services and infrastructure for both the security and data communications. The country could eliminate the issue of food poverty by offering the standard, interoperable ICT platforms as well as the processes for avoiding any kind of duplication and guarantee the cost efficient services and also guarantee the easy transition to the post-emergency reconstruction. Monitoring the agricultural conditions over the country could help in eliminating the issue of present food poverty. Monitoring the soil conditions as well as the environmental conditions could make the farming increasingly profitable and extensively sustainable, for example, with the help of improved water management plus disease control. The enhanced operation as well as the water management for the irrigation purposes could lead to the substantial savings and for an increasingly sustainable utilisation of the water resources and improved soil productivity. The ICT tools in the soil monitoring and agricultural includes:

Stand-alone sensors, that helps in monitoring air temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure

USN or Ubiquitous sensor networks, where the sensor nodes have been implemented on field and the data is being transferred to the base. This particular data could be uploaded to the global systems

Telemetry units that that transmits air temperature, data of leaf dampness, humidity, wind speed, soil moisture, solar radiation, through the cellular networks.

ICTs is presently described as the combined word that involves the communication equipment or application, including cellular phones, radio, television, network and computer hardware along with the software satellite systems. ICT plays the crucial role by effectively by connecting the users to updated information, market and the skills. The ICTs provides unprecedented information regarding the storage, and capacity and also increases in the power of processing along with speed integrated with the dramatic reduction of costs. Cellular phone has offered links with the market for the farmers. In the agricultural sector, the mobile phones has reduced the transaction costs, increased the range by trade network and allowed the searches for employment. The introduction of the mobile phones has led to the revolutionisation of the manner by which the farmers gain exchange as well as manipulate information as it has led to the manner by which interaction among the farmers is being done with the markets and the cities. The data gained from the sensors could be analysed with the help of decision support systems for predicting the most appropriate methods of ensuring that the productivity is high. The food poverty in UK could be eliminated by the proper utilisation of the ICT technologies for ensuring that the production from the agricultural sector is adequate. The geographic information system is being extensively utilised in the sector of agriculture specifically in the precision farming. The mapping of the land is done digitally and then the relevant geodetic data such as the topography and the contours have been integrated with the various statistical data to execute the easy analysis of the soil in the fields. The GIS is being used for the decision making to help in determining what to plant as well as where to plant using the historical data and the sampling. The device used for monitoring is laptop or computer. The suggested system primarily analyses the soil moisture as well as the need of adequate water for the crops. The proper water management system is needed for supplying the correct amount of water for maintaining the level of moisture. Microcontroller has been used for controlling the operation with the help of relay switch as well as pump. The suggested system mainly uses the sensor note that involves the IEEE 802.15.4/zigbee wireless microcontroller plus the JN5121 module. The GPRS gateway has been used for the data transmission over significantly long distance. The mobile unit could be used as the monitoring device. The suggested system utilises the zigbee wireless microcontroller sensor network in the agricultural sector. The energy efficient WSN for the agricultural sector utilises the sensor node equipment along with the CC1110 system on chip with significantly low power RF Trans receiver as well as the 8051 MCU.

The suggested system follows the various tools as well as the methods of ICT and helps in eliminating the issue of food poverty. In the rich picture, it has been illustrated that the people of UK are not gaining the adequate food and major sections of the population are facing this particular issue. The scarcity in the food is mainly happening because of the improper management of the agricultural sector. Without the proper technologies and tools, the agricultural sector is not able to produce adequate goods. With the introduction of the suggested irrigation management system in the agricultural sector, the main issue of lack of determining the adequate amount of water in the fields could be eliminated. It has been illustrated in the rich picture that the introduction of the ICT tools in the agricultural sector helps in ensuring that monitoring of the various aspects in the field is done properly. The dissemination of the sufficient, tailored and efficient technologies associated with the agro-climatic zone, size of the farm as well as the type of soil to the farmers is presently deficient in the UK agricultural sector. The decision support system in the sector could help in the farmers by keeping them updated regarding the present information regarding the weather, agriculture, innovative varieties of the crops as well as the innovative methods of increasing production along with quality control. The suggested ICT design could broadcast the authentic and precise information at appropriate time for the farmers and allow them to utilise the system and gain major benefits. The introduction of the decision support system using ICT allows the farmers in planning the kind of crops, practise the appropriate agricultural methods for the harvesting, cultivation, post harvesting plus marketing the products for improved results.

HCI could be considered as the interdisciplinary sector that inter-relates with the various disciplines, for example psychology, cognitive psychology, computer science, engineering and presently the other disciplines like art science, sociology and the anthropology (Card 2018). As the concept and as it has been demonstrated via the social movements, the social justice mainly attends the methods by which the entities experiences oppression. It involves the methods by which the burdens, benefits, power, obligations, privilege and the opportunity has been distributed equally within the society (Lazar, Feng and Hochheiser 2017). The present efforts in the sector of HCI has made crucial movement towards the implementation of the means for the designers for reflexively posing various questions regarding the practices and the methods by which it engages the system of oppression (Hibbeln et al. 2017). The social justice is not followed when the designing of system has been done on the basis of extensive bias on any one particular section of the society and not the overall society including various groups (Shneiderman et al. 2016). The HCI design of the system that is being suggested for solving the issue of improper production of food in UK follows the rules of social justice and ensures that the complete society is benefitted from the implementation of the improved irrigation system (Grudin 2017). The irrigation system could be used by the farmers for monitoring the moisture level of the land and improve the produce (Haria et al. 2017). The data gained from the sensors implemented in the system would be analysed through the decision support system that would help in taking the most appropriate decisions regarding the produce from the fields (Norman 2017). The design of the improved irrigation system and the decision support system is been done so that the implementation of the system is done all through the country of UK and all the people are benefitted (Weyers et al. 2017). The complete system would be managed by the IT experts and the data generated from the system would be relayed to the farmers for ensuring that the real-time data is provided to the farmers (de Aguiar Pereira, Wang and Moutinho 2019).

Conclusion

Therefore, it could be concluded that the design of the improved irrigation system would help in improving the methods of monitoring the soil moisture level and the quality of the soil. The water management in the agricultural fields of the country would be improved significantly. The designing of the system has been done in the proper manner that would ensure that all the people are able to use it properly. The implementation of proper methods of food security is particularly helpful in ensuring that the countries do not face the issue of food poverty. The solution for eliminating food poverty in UK is the proper use of the ICT tools and methods. ICT has been considered as the basic need for providing the farmers with the vital information regarding the weather reports and the crop prices. ICTs is presently described as the combined term that includes the communication devices or application, including television, cellular phones, radio, network and computer hardware along with the software satellite systems. ICT plays the crucial role by effectively by connecting the users to updated information, market and the skills.

References

Beacom, E., Furey, S., Hollywood, L. and Humphreys, P., 2018, March. Perspectives on food poverty definition and measurement in Northern Ireland. In Multi-disciplinary research conference on food and poverty in the UK: Taking stock, moving forward (pp. 27-28).

Caplan, P., 2016. Big society or broken society?: Food banks in the UK. Anthropology Today, 32(1), pp.5-9.

Caplan, P., 2017. Win‐win?: Food poverty, food aid and food surplus in the UK today. Anthropology Today, 33(3), pp.17-22.

Card, S.K., 2018. The psychology of human-computer interaction. Crc Press.

de Aguiar Pereira, M.H., Wang, W.C. and Moutinho, L., 2019. Human-computer interaction: The Effect of Voice Emotion Response on Brand Recall by Gender.

Grudin, J., 2017. From tool to partner: The evolution of human-computer interaction. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Interaction, 10(1), pp.i-183.

Haria, A., Subramanian, A., Asokkumar, N., Poddar, S. and Nayak, J.S., 2017. Hand gesture recognition for human computer interaction. Procedia computer science, 115, pp.367-374.

Hibbeln, M.T., Jenkins, J.L., Schneider, C., Valacich, J. and Weinmann, M., 2017. How is your user feeling? Inferring emotion through human-computer interaction devices. Mis Quarterly, 41(1), pp.1-21.

Knight, A., O'Connell, R. and Brannen, J., 2018. Eating with friends, family or not at all: young people's experiences of food poverty in the UK. Children & Society, 32(3), pp.185-194.

Lazar, J., Feng, J.H. and Hochheiser, H., 2017. Research methods in human-computer interaction. Morgan Kaufmann.

McClelland, N., Furey, S., McKenzie, P. and Hollywood, L., 2018, March. Rural poverty: The impact of rurality on consumers’ access to food services, using a food poverty risk index. In Multi-disciplinary research conference on food and poverty in the UK: Taking stock, moving forward (pp. 39-39).

McEachern, M., Moraes, C., Gibbons, A. and Scullion, L., 2020. Research brief update: Understanding food poverty and the transitional behaviour of vulnerable individuals: Research brief update.

Norman, K.L., 2017. Cyberpsychology: An introduction to human-computer interaction. Cambridge university press.

O'Connell, R., Owen, C., Padley, M., Simon, A. and Brannen, J., 2019. Which types of family are at risk of food poverty in the UK? A relative deprivation approach. Social Policy and Society, 18(1), pp.1-18.

Shneiderman, B., Plaisant, C., Cohen, M., Jacobs, S., Elmqvist, N. and Diakopoulos, N., 2016. Designing the user interface: strategies for effective human-computer interaction. Pearson.

Weyers, B., Bowen, J., Dix, A. and Palanque, P. eds., 2017. The handbook of formal methods in human-computer interaction. Springer.

Knight, A., O'Connell, R. and Brannen, J., 2018. Eating with friends, family or not at all: young people's experiences of food poverty in the UK. Children & Society, 32(3), pp.185-194.

McClelland, N., Furey, S., McKenzie, P. and Hollywood, L., 2018, March. Rural poverty: The impact of rurality on consumers’ access to food services, using a food poverty risk index. In Multi-disciplinary research conference on food and poverty in the UK: Taking stock, moving forward(pp. 39-39).

Beacom, E., Furey, S., Hollywood, L. and Humphreys, P., 2018, March. Perspectives on food poverty definition and measurement in Northern Ireland. In Multi-disciplinary research conference on food and poverty in the UK: Taking stock, moving forward(pp. 27-28).