Governing agricultural innovation: A comprehensive framework to underpin sustainable transitions

Boon, Auvikki de; Sandström, Camilla; Rose, David Christian

doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.07.019

Cited by 54 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 121 publications

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“…Although our focus was on the why, who and how of engaging harder to reach farmers in the co‐design of ELM, our findings contribute to several important, related, strands of research and speak to an international audience. Challenges such as demographic change, loss of labour, climate change, soil erosion and biodiversity loss require a transition towards more sustainable forms of agriculture globally (de Boon et al, 2022). Tightening legislative and regulatory baselines will not be sufficient to bring about these transformations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐designing the environmental land management scheme in England: The why, who and how of engaging ‘harder to reach’ stakeholders

Hurley

Lyon

Hall³

et al. 2022

People and Nature

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Agriculture around the world needs to become more environmentally sustainable to limit further environmental degradation and impacts of climate change. Many governments try to achieve this through enrolling farmers in agri‐environment schemes (AES) that encourage them to undertake conservation activities. Studies show that AES can suffer from low uptake, meaning their environmental objectives remain unattained. To succeed for people and nature, policy‐makers are increasingly adopting multi‐actor approaches in the ‘co‐design’ of AES to make them more attractive and inclusive of a full range of stakeholders, including ‘harder to reach’ farmers. To address why some land managers (principally farmers) may be harder to reach in the context of co‐designing England's new Environmental Land Management (ELM) approach, we undertook a quick scoping review of the literature, conducted 23 first‐round and 24 s‐round interviews with key informants, and held a workshop with 11 practitioners. We outline why farming stakeholders may be harder to reach and how policy‐makers can adjust the engagement process to make co‐design more inclusive. Based on the results, we make recommendations that could help policy‐makers to design better, more inclusive AES that would attract greater uptake and increase their chances of success. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐designing the environmental land management scheme in England: The why, who and how of engaging ‘harder to reach’ stakeholders

Hurley

Lyon

Hall³

et al. 2022

People and Nature

Self Cite

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“…Using systems thinking to consider the consequences of an innovation within social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental contexts (Figure 1) may be an effective tool in making improvements to the innovation itself prior to widespread dissemination [30]. With the predominately positive outlook on AI in agriculture, few themes specifically addressed the potential drawbacks of the innovation, revealing a lack of systems thinking practice within innovation development and dissemination.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Systems thinking can be used as a tool for thinking through the potential consequences of an innovation. Sustainably governing agricultural innovations requires comprehensively understanding every component of an innovation and how it interacts across cultural and societal levels [30]. The unintended consequences of previous technological revolutions have demonstrated that agricultural innovations are not inherently positive and value-free endeavors; rather, the success or failure of an innovation is driven by worldviews and diverse visions of the future [4], limiting the social sustainability of the innovation over time [31].…”

Section: Systems Thinking Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Twitter Discourse around the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Advance Agricultural Sustainability

2021

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This paper presents an exploration of public discourse surrounding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in agriculture, specifically related to precision agriculture techniques. (1) Advancements in the use of AI have increased its implementation in the agricultural sector, often framed as a sustainable solution for feeding a growing global population. However, lessons learned from previous agricultural innovations indicate that new technologies may face public scrutiny and suspicion, limiting the dissemination of the innovation. Using systems thinking approaches can help to improve the development and dissemination of agricultural innovations and limit the unintended consequences of innovations within society. (2) To analyze the current discourse surrounding AI in agriculture, a content analysis was conducted on Twitter using Meltwater to select tweets with specific reach and engagement. (3) Seven themes resulted from the analysis: precision agriculture and digital technology innovation; transformation and the future of agriculture; accelerate solutions, solve challenges; data management and accessibility; transforming crop management, prioritizing adoption; and AI and sustainability. (4) The discourse on AI in agriculture on Twitter was overwhelmingly positive, failing to account for the potential drawbacks or limits of the innovation. This paper examines the limits of the current communication and outreach across environmental, economic, social, cultural, political, and behavioral contexts.

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“…People, depending on the ways they understand their own existence within the changing socio‐technical environments (i.e. their digi‐grasping), develop varying normative beliefs and orientations (de Boon et al., 2021), form different perceptions of how they must respond to new demands, what types of practices should continue or start using, what skills they need to develop (Marsico, 2012) and initiate professional identity (re)formation processes (Dobrow & Higgins, 2005). This premise led us to our second question: How do Greek advisors change basic elements of their professional identities to cope with the challenges posed by Agriculture 4.0?…”

Section: Conceptual Framework and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farm advisors amid the transition to Agriculture 4.0: Professional identity, conceptions of the future and future‐specific competencies

et al. 2022

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The transition to Agriculture 4.0 creates new responsibilities for farm advisors and initiates changes to the professional trajectories. In this work, following a mixed research design, we examine how Greek advisors experience the transition to and anticipate the future of Agriculture 4.0. We also aim at identifying what elements they are changing in their professional identities to respond to the challenges associated with Agriculture 4.0, which are the new responsibility‐related competency needs that this transition generates, and how conceptions of the future of farming impact upon these needs. Our findings suggest that the transition to Agriculture 4.0 urges the emergence of a new culture, in which data and technology are considered more reliable than human advice, and creates new responsibility gaps. To cope with these changes, advisors add new roles in their professional identities, emphasising the principle of beneficence and paying limited attention to the societal externalities of transition. Advisors view Agriculture 4.0 as a threat or disruption more than as evolution or promise. In parallel, they prioritise different sets of competencies needed to responsibly facilitate agricultural digitalisation, depending on how they grasp the future of Agriculture 4.0.

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Governing agricultural innovation: A comprehensive framework to underpin sustainable transitions

Cited by 54 publications

References 121 publications

Co‐designing the environmental land management scheme in England: The why, who and how of engaging ‘harder to reach’ stakeholders

Co‐designing the environmental land management scheme in England: The why, who and how of engaging ‘harder to reach’ stakeholders

Exploring Twitter Discourse around the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Advance Agricultural Sustainability

Farm advisors amid the transition to Agriculture 4.0: Professional identity, conceptions of the future and future‐specific competencies

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