Supporting food systems transformation: The what, why, who, where and how of mission-oriented agricultural innovation systems

Abstract

Agricultural innovation systems has become a popular approach to understand and facilitate agricultural innovation. However, there is often no explicit reflection on the role of agricultural innovation systems in food systems transformation and how they relate to transformative concepts and visions (e.g. agroecology, digital agriculture, Agriculture 4.0, AgTech and FoodTech, vertical agriculture, protein transitions). To support such reflection we elaborate on the importance of a mission-oriented perspective on agricultural innovation systems. We review pertinent literature from innovation, transition and policy sciences, and argue that a mission-oriented agricultural innovation systems (MAIS) approach can help understand how agricultural innovation systems at different geographical scales develop to enable food systems transformation, in terms of forces, catalysts, and barriers in transformative food systems change. Focus points can be in the mapping of missions and sub-missions of MAIS within and across countries, or understanding the drivers, networks, governance, theories of change, evolution and impacts of MAIS. Future work is needed on further conceptual and empirical development of MAIS and its connections with existing food systems transformation frameworks. Also, we argue that agricultural systems scholars and practitioners need to reflect on how the technologies and concepts they work on relate to MAIS, how these represent a particular directionality in innovation, and whether these also may support exnovation.

Articulating the effect of food systems innovation on the Sustainable Development Goals

“…71,72 No innovation leads to exclusively positive outcomes, and the ends to which innovation is deployed involve choices. 16 These choices frame the direction of innovation activity and reflect the political economy surrounding those choices, with winners benefiting from creative destruction while losers suffer harm to health, wellbeing, environment, and economic opportunities. Food system innovation is therefore far more than merely a scientific, commercial, or technological matter, and requires the incorporation of aspects of social justice and different transition pathways for different actors to be truly sustainable.…”

“…Standalone technical solutions are in many instances unlikely to result in exclusively positive effects, and they are unlikely to be implemented quickly because of pushbacks from players wanting to maintain the status quo. 5 Sociotechnical innovation bundles (ie, appropriately contextualised combinations of science and technology advances that, when combined with specific institutional or policy adaptations, show par ticular promise for advancing one or more SDGs in that setting), combined with policy and institutional reforms, which are guided by an overall mission or intentionality 16 might be able to address these challenges and mitigate any unintended adverse outcomes. 17 Only then can truly sustainable food systems be achieved.…”

Grasping at digitalisation: turning imagination into fact in the sugarcane farming community

“…Although engaging a localised weather smartphone application may now be a common occurrence for the same stakeholder, resulting in transformation (T) whereby the nightly news or daily newspaper weather bulletins becomes far less relevant in determining farm management decision-making. As such, this paper aims to contribute to the nascent scholarship on digital technologies as an opportunity to achieve sustainability outcomes in the agricultural sector (Anastasiadis et al 2018 ; Klerkx and Begemann 2020 ).…”

A Changing Climate for Knowledge Generation in Agriculture: Lessons to Institutionalize Science-Policy Engagement

“…Moreover, addressing challenges within the CGIAR for applying these success conditions including trust deficit, accountability, transaction costs etc., can help the reform process. These lessons also have applicability in the reform of other institutions, amidst the growing call to transform agricultural innovation systems (Fanzo et al, 2020;Klerkx and Begemann, 2020;Steiner et al, 2020). This requires a systemic shift in the institutional landscape, to create a suitable environment to apply the success conditions, by creating a culture of evaluation and reflexivity amongst actors, building capacity and skills to undertake science-policy engagement, transformative leadership that emphasizes boundary work, and transdisciplinary research to address climate change issues.…”

“…We do this by examining CCAFS' efforts to enhance credibility, salience and legitimacy in knowledge generation for its key stakeholders. We aim to provide insights relevant for theories of institutional design (e.g., Biermann, 2007;Young et al, 2008;Ostrom, 2011), not only for the benefit of the CGIAR, but also the wider knowledge system for agriculture under climate change, as there has been increasing focus on transforming knowledge systems to catalyze a transformation in food systems (Fanzo et al, 2020;Herrero et al, 2020;Klerkx and Begemann, 2020;Loboguerrero et al, 2020). We also aim to contribute to the literature on sciencepolicy engagement, addressing a prominent knowledge gap, being the systematic empirical study of knowledge systems for sustainable development.…”