Participation and e-Participation:
Involving Stakeholders in the Management of Food Chain Risks in the Rural Economy
Simon French1,2, Gary Barker3, Clare Bayley1, Emma Carter1, Andy Hart4, John Maule5, Christoph Mohr6, Richard Shepherd7

1 Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB
2 Corresponding Author: email simon.french@mbs.ac.uk; tel. +44-161-275-6401; fax. +44-161-275-7134

3 Institute of Food Research, Norwich, NR4 7UA, UK

4 Central Science Laboratory, York, YO41 1LZ, UK

5 Leeds University Business School, Leeds, LS7 9JT, UK

6 DFIU-IFARE, University of Karlsruhe, Hertzstrasse 16, Karlsruhe, D-76187, Germany

7 Food Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK

Abstract 
The handling of food safety and agriculturally related issues by the UK authorities has often been found wanting, particularly in relation to wider impact on rural communities and environments: e.g. BSE, E. coli and salmonella contaminations.  In particular, the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 had very wide impacts that went far beyond the agricultural sector.  This paper reports on the early stages of a project which aims to design and evaluate decision support tools and processes for an approach to participatory risk management and communication which ensures that the views and values of all stakeholders, particularly those in the rural community, are fully integrated into the management process.  The project thus forms a first step towards a substantive e-participation system tailored to a particular context and one in which the ultimate decision remains the responsibility of the authorities, but in which considerable stakeholder and citizen involvement is encouraged at all stages of the risk and decision analytic process.
We discuss the general context of social risk management, including issues of trust building and risk communication.  Then we briefly survey the literature of participation and e‑participation with particular emphasis on stakeholder involvement.  With this as background we describe how we designed the participation processes which we will implement and explore during the project.
keywords:  Cynefin; e‑participation; food chain risk; public risk communication; social risk management; stakeholder involvement.
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