In this perspective paper we consider the implications of a digital transformation for agricultural knowledge, a subject which hitherto has received limited attention. We raise critical questions ...about how digital agriculture will intersect with established modes of knowing and decision-making. We also consider the implications for the wider Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS), specifically the roles and capabilities of those who provide advice to farmers, as well as those responsible for data analytics, and the organizations and institutions that link and support them. We conclude that new data driven processes on farm, as well as the changing AKIS dynamic under digital agriculture, bring new demands, relations and tensions to agricultural decision-making, but also create opportunities to foster new learning by harnessing synergies in the AKIS.
This article argues that ethics is a key driver of change in food chain performance. Critically, multiple stakeholder perspectives need to be understood as being legitimate when developing shared ...norms of what is understood by food supply chain (FSC) performance. To develop this perspective, the article examines the discourses surrounding the performance of FSCs in 12 different national contexts. It develops a multi‐criteria performance matrix (MCPM) composed of 24 attributes that reflect national FSC sustainability discourses. Specifically, it considers the potential role of reflexive governance in encouraging change to the frames by which actors and institutions judge the performance of FSCs. In assessing the links between ethics and reflexive governance, two types of ethical attribute are identified: ‘commonly identified’ attributes, which signify ethical dilemmas routinely discussed yet open to debate and subject to refinement and change; and ‘procedural’ attributes, which describe actions that encourage actors in the FSC to organise and structure themselves so as to more explicitly embody ethical considerations in their activities. The MCPM can be understood as a form of sustainability appraisal, but also as a cognitive tool with which to instigate further deliberation and action, helping to better manage transitions to sustainability within FSCs.
This article discusses the economic dimensions of agroecological farming systems in Europe. It firstly theoretically elaborates the reasons why, and under what conditions, agroecological farming ...systems have the potential to produce higher incomes than farms that follow the conventional logic. This theoretical exposition is then followed by a presentation of empirical material from a wide range of European countries that shows the extent to which this potential is being realized. The empirical data draw upon different styles of farming that can be described as ‘proto-agroecological’: approaches to farming that are agroecological by nature, but which may not necessarily explicitly define themselves as agroecological. The empirical material that we present shows the huge potential and radical opportunities that Europe's, often silent, ‘agroecological turn’ offers to farmers that could (and should) be the basis for the future transformation of European agricultural policies, since agroecology not only allows for more sustainable production of healthier food but also considerably improves farmers' incomes. It equally carries the promise of re-enlarging productive agricultural (and related) employment and increasing the total income generated by the agricultural sector, at both regional and national levels. While we recognise that agroecology is a worldwide and multidimensional phenomenon we have chosen to limit this analysis to Europe and the economic dimension. This choice is made in order to refute current discourses that represent agroecology as unproductive and unprofitable and an option that would require massive subsidies.
•Throughout Europe a range of proto-agroecological practices can be identified. .•Agroecology carries considerable economic potential: it sustains employment levels and increases incomers. .•The VA/GVP ratio helps to explain the strength of agroecological farming.•Agroecological farming is key to the much needed transformation of European agriculture.
In this paper findings are presented from survey work conducted with producers of specialist livestock products in the Scottish - English borders. Using supply-chain diagrams, the paper highlights ...how specialist livestock businesses operate individual or customised supply chains. The heterogeneity of surveyed producer initiatives throws into question both the simple conceptual distinction drawn between the labels 'conventional' and 'alternative' and also what is meant by a 'short' food supply chain. The starting point of the specialist food chain is clearly not the point of production but rather a series of upstream supply links as is found in conventional food chains. Likewise, 'alternative' producers are regularly obliged, or choose, to 'dip in and out' of different conventional nodes downstream of the business, such as abattoirs, processors, and wholesalers. In practice, delimitations between 'alternative' and 'conventional' food supply chains are often blurred and are better characterised as 'hybrid spaces'.
The values associated with food are framed and constructed by market-based systems that assign attributes to different foods across the marketplace. The aim of the paper was to conceptualize the ...range of non-financial aspects associated with food in the literature examined and a typology was introduced to position a new set of non-financial food values, the alter-values, which support the creation of a more holistic approach to visualize and reimagine a more sustainable, resilient food system that readdresses and respects such values. The four alter-values of interest, intrinsic, production-related, supply chain related, and emotio-cultural values, were discussed in the context of changing food environments, and a visualization of the typology was presented to explain them. By focusing especially on intrinsic and emotio-cultural values, an adaptation of the current food environment beyond pecuniary-based emphasis was possible. Such an approach helps to challenge the structure of the conventional food system towards a more citizen-driven sustainable model, altering priorities, with a drive towards embedding values and going beyond perceiving food only in terms of exchange value, to considering food as a vital aspect of life.
Whatever we read about Covid-19, the word unprecedented is not far away: whether in describing policy choices, the daily death tolls, the scale of upheaval, or the challenges that await a readjusting ...world. This paper takes an alternative view: if not unpredictable, the crisis unfolding in the United Kingdom (UK) is not unprecedented. Rather, it is foretold in accounts of successive animal health crises. Social studies of biosecurity and animal disease management provide an “anticipatory logic” - a mirror to the unfolding human catastrophe of Covid-19, providing few surprises. And yet, these accounts appear to be routinely ignored in the narrative of Covid-19. Do social studies of animal disease really have no value when it comes to guiding and assessing responses to Covid-19? To answer this question, we describe the narrative arc of the UK's approach to managing Covid-19. We then overlay findings from social studies of animal disease to reveal the warnings they provided for a pandemic like Covid-19. We conclude by reflecting on the reasons why these studies have been paid minimal attention and the extent to which the failure to learn from these lessons of animal health management signals a failure of the One Health agenda.
This article applies the transition approach to a novel food production context, via an examination of the food production side of permaculture. More specifically, it examines attempts by the ...permaculture community in England to interact and influence the Agriculture Knowledge System of the mainstream agro‐food regime. Strategic Niche Management and Communities of Practice theory are combined to examine the ways in which the permaculture community has evolved and has sought to develop its agro‐ecology message and influence the agro‐food regime. Evidence of second order learning and networking with stakeholders outside the community of practice is limited. A tension between internal activities that reinforce a boundary between the permaculture knowledge system and the wider Agriculture Knowledge System are evident. Some external activities designed to cross boundaries are noted. However, activities designed to translate permaculture ideas into mainstream agriculture have had limited success. There is some evidence of interaction and lateral linkage with sub‐regimes to enhance capacity but this is usually in individual capacities. Examining the evolution of radical niche innovations such as permaculture thus reveals the way that beliefs, values and epistemologies make the process of sustainability transition challenging and complex, particularly when different knowledge systems clash with one another.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Ukraine–Russian conflict, both significant geo-political and socio-economic shocks to the global food system and food insecurity has risen across the world. ...One potential remedy to reduce the level of food insecurity is to move from a lean just-in-time food system to one where there is more resilience through greater agility both in routine supply operations and also in the event of an emergency situation. The aim of this critical perspectives paper was to firstly reflect on the concepts of lean, agility, and ‘leagility’. Then, this study considered the ability of individual organisations and the whole food system to be resilient, adaptive, enable the elimination of waste, reduce inefficiency, and assure the consistent delivery to market requirements in terms of both volume, safety, and quality. Promoting the concept of leagility together with advocating resilient, sustainable practices that embed buffer and adaptive capacity, this paper positions that increasing digitalisation and improving business continuity planning can ensure effective operationalisation of supply chains under both normal and crisis situations, ultimately reducing the risk of food insecurity at personal, household, and community levels.
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