Whether through breakfast with friends, picnic lunches or family dinners, food delivers sustenance, culture and social connection in our lives.
But zoom out a little, and there’s a bigger picture to consider.
Major problems stem from how we produce, distribute and consume food in Australia and other advanced economies. These include release of damaging greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and pollution, plus health challenges such as undernutrition and obesity.
Dr Navoda Liyana Pathirana says with the right knowledge we can reorient our food systems to ensure we nourish people properly while also protecting the planet. Getting there requires taking a fresh look at food policy.
Based in the Deakin Centre for Global Preventive Health and Nutrition (GLOBE) at the Deakin Institute for Health Transformation, Dr Pathirana is developing new techniques to broaden how we measure the success of food policies.
She has been awarded a Deakin University Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to launch a project known as ECHO (short for Evaluating the Co-benefits of food policies on Health, environmental and socio-economic Outcomes).
“In my research I focus on food systems policies, looking at the ways we grow, produce, transport, sell and consume food,” Dr Pathirana says.
“ECHO will allow more sophisticated assessments of food systems policies and how they impact other sectors, including the environment and health.”
Dr Pathirana is using an approach known as environmental economics modelling to develop ECHO.
The value of environmental economics modelling
Measuring the impact of policies in the real world can be time-intensive and costly – and risky if the policy under examination has never been implemented before.
Environmental economics modelling provides an alternative – a kind of ‘try before you buy’ approach. Using this kind of modelling, Dr Pathirana can evaluate likely or potential impacts, costs and effectiveness of policies before implementation.
“What’s unique about my work is that I’m using environment economics modelling to look at outcomes across policy areas that are usually disconnected,” says Dr Pathirana.
“Food is tightly linked with the environment through its production and transport, it’s connected with health due to its impact on our bodies, and it links with broader socio-economic factors through distribution and access.”
“In the long term, this work could support more effective, integrated and sustainable policy decisions to benefit both people and the planet,” Dr Pathirana says.
Dr Parirana’s fellowship funding commences in 2026 and continues for three years.
Plant the seed, and it will grow
A Deakin University seed grant supported Dr Pathirana in the original piloting of her unique policy modelling techniques.
“Thanks to that initial funding, I demonstrated that environmental economics modelling can be applied to measure the health, environmental, and socio-economic impacts of a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in Australia,” Dr Pathirana says.
“I looked at the impact of the tax on greenhouse gas emissions, land use and water use, as well as income and employment.”
Now Dr Pathirana has three years of fellowship funds to extend the work to create ECHO, the first-ever quantitative framework to estimate co-benefits of food policies based on environmental-economic modelling techniques.
The sugar-sweetened beverage tax will still be applied as the policy under examination, but with a broader scope of impacts being measured.
“I’m interested in evaluating trade-offs, including whether consumers change their purchasing or consumption patterns with the tax in place, and whether markets respond – for example, through reformulating the drinks,” she says.
“I will also be estimating regional responses to the policy, with a focus on potential health, environmental and socio-economic impacts across the Asia-Pacific.”
Dr Pathirana also plans to use the ECHO approach to examine other food policies.
“I’m planning to model the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of taxes on unhealthy foods and foods with high environmental impacts,” Dr Pathirana says.
“Finally, I’ll look at likely implications of health and eco-labelling regulations, and marketing regulations in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.”
“Looking into the future, I have plans to incorporate AI technologies to strengthen the predictive capabilities of ECHO as a next step after the fellowship,” says Dr Pathirana.
Dr Pathirana’s research aligns with key policy priorities identified by the governments of Victoria and The Commonwealth of Australia. It will also inform policy development through the WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for the Environment and Health.
Anatomy of a researcher
Dr Pathirana describes herself as a multidisciplinary quantitative researcher, applying data-driven techniques for policy solutions in health and sustainability.
“I started my career in food science and technology, a field that applies the physical, biological and chemical sciences to study the nature of foods,” says Dr Pathirana.
“During my PhD studies I learned about food sustainability, and then as a post-doctoral researcher I developed research skills relating to food policy.”
As a PhD candidate, Dr Pathirana was part of a team that won the 2022 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research. Together the researchers had developed advanced data modelling techniques to trace billions of supply chains, linking food producers and consumers. Their work highlights the drivers of dietary choice and is informing policy for the United Nations and other international bodies.
“Now with the postdoctoral funding I’m morphing again to become an environmental economist, aiming to align food policy with broader goals of health, equity, and environmental sustainability,” says Dr Pathirana.
Deakin University Postdoctoral Research Fellowships support and develop early career researchers to become internationally competitive experts developing groundbreaking solutions to global challenges.
Read more about Dr Navoda Liyana Pathirana’s research
Share