Not coincidentally, deliberative policy analysis has been practiced often in cases that in a very essential sense involve value dissent and major uncertainties: cases of what Beck, Giddens and others have designated reflexive modernisation'. Deliberation, under such circumstances, is to support a synthesising kind of judgment across existing differentiations and distinctions, that is a process of judgement in which assumptions, knowledge claims, distinctions, roles and identities, normally taken for granted, must be critically scrutinised. Thus, existing institutions tend to provide inadequate guidance for such`reflexive design'. In this paper, we shed some light on this challenge by telling and reviewing the story of Programme 348:`Future Livestock Production Systems' for the reflexive modernisation of Dutch agriculture, following major crises in the country's husbandry sector. Although an institutional arrangement had been created that was rather favourable to reflexive design, the programme encountered significant difficulties, which we argue are rooted in the institutions that have emerged throughout agricultural modernisation over the past century. We then use Wenger's insights on`communities of practice', as a framework to both understand how established institutions could manifest themselves in P348's reflexive arrangement, and how these difficulties have been dealt with in more or less successful ways. With the insights thus gained, we wish to contribute to the still underdeveloped literature on reflexive design in the trail of recent work by Forester and Fischer.

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Animal production systems that offer outdoor access to the animals have become increasingly popular in the Western world due to the growing general discontent of consumers with conventional bioindustrial farming practices. These open production systems offer improved animal welfare but may create new problems for animal health, resulting in increased food safety risks from bacterial, viral, or parasitic infections or environmental contaminants. Examples of these new problems include increased Toxoplasma gondii infections in pigs and high dioxin levels in eggs from free-range hens. In this review, the relation between positive and negative points of free-range and organic livestock production systems is discussed with reference to production in The Netherlands. We investigated how proponents of more animal welfare friendly systems deal with potential negative issues in public and whether any risk communication is used. Generally, we found that the existence of a dilemma is disputed or avoided in communication with the consumer. This avoidance could be detrimental for public trust in alternative animal production systems, should problems occur. To prevent future problems, it will be necessary to communicate about the relevant types and sources of the food safety risks to the consumers. The responsibility for protecting food safety should be properly divided among the various parties involved: producers, processors, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and consumers.