Defining 'high quality' for food production: Evidence review

2 Methods

Initially, a snowballing approach to reviewing documents was taken. References cited within the Rural Affairs and Island Committee meeting minutes and the draft Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill were reviewed for mentions of ‘high quality’ to give a comprehensive overview of Scottish policy. In total, seven references were reviewed, further details of which can be found in the appendix.

Following this initial search, an advanced search of the FAOLEX database (FAO, 2024) was then conducted. FAOLEX is a comprehensive online repository of legal and policy documents pertaining to areas of agriculture and rural development, cultivated plants, environment, fisheries and aquaculture, livestock, food and nutrition, forestry, land and soil, mineral resources and energy, sea, water, and wild species and ecosystems.

For this review, only texts relating to agriculture and rural development, livestock, and food and nutrition were reviewed. All types of text (constitutions, polices, legislation, regulation, international agreement and miscellaneous (such as acts)), including the term ‘high quality’ for multiple jurisdictions including the devolved nations (Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland), the UK (at a nation level), Ireland, and the European Union, between 2018 and 2023, were downloaded.

Initially the terms ‘high quality production’ and ‘high quality food’ were searched for but this yielded only 11 results in total. Therefore, the term ‘high quality’ was searched for in all texts. The broader search term produced more results as it included terms such as ‘high quality data’ and ‘high quality workforce’. Thus, these documents were omitted from the review. We primarily focused on high quality food quality as it relates to agricultural outputs rather than consumer preferences. The use of ‘high quality’ beyond the farm gate was out of scope for this project.

In total, 109 documents from the FAOLEX database were reviewed, but only 28 texts pertained to agriculture and rural development (n = 9), livestock (n = 11), and food and nutrition (n = 8). Of these, only 11 texts related to high quality food and/ or production, dominated by texts within agriculture and rural development (n = 6), and food and nutrition (n = 5). The search yielded no results for Northern Ireland texts, suggesting that Northern Ireland does not refer to ‘high quality’ in legal documents or that there was no mention of it the last five years.

Through the initial snowball review, and FAOLEX database review, a total of 18 texts have been included in this analysis. Table 1 shows these broken down by jurisdiction. Further details of the texts can be found in the appendix.

FAOLEX and snowballing overview of agriculture and rural development, livestock, and food and nutrition texts, including the term ‘high quality’ pertaining to production and food, across multiple jurisdictions, between 2018 and 2023.

Jurisdiction: Scotland

Type of text: Legislation, policies

Source: FAOLEX

Snowballing

Number of texts reviewed

Agriculture and rural development = 3

Food and nutrition = 3

Unspecified = 3

Jurisdiction: United Kingdom

Type of text: Consultation

Source: Snowballing

Number of texts reviewed

Agriculture and rural development = 2

Jurisdiction: Ireland

Type of text: Policies

Source: FAOLEX

Number of texts reviewed

Food and nutrition = 1

Jurisdiction: European Union

Type of text: Legislation, policies, regulation, miscellaneous

Source: FAOLEX

Number of texts reviewed

Agriculture and rural development = 4

Food and nutrition = 2