Main 2023 analysis explores how agrifood is coming into its subsequent sustainable improvement part. By inspecting key insights from previous analysis, the business learns what it means for sector development and evolution in 2024 and past.
Right here, we take a look at three research that set up the position of real-world change processes, the advantage of those in assembly environmental targets and the effectiveness of transferring in the direction of this strategy over future meals targets.
Meals system diversification not but resulting in sustainable meals
Of their 2023 perspective paper on meals techniques, Lamine and Marsden analysed developments in UK and French meals techniques over three durations: agricultural modernisation and intensification based mostly on excessive inputs (1950-1985), ecological modernisation to handle unintended penalties comparable to environmental issues and overproduction (1985-2008), and the emergence and proliferation of radical niche-innovations (2008-2020).
“One essential contribution to higher understanding change processes is that the rising meals system diversification in peripheral niches isn’t but resulting in wider meals system transitions in additional sustainable instructions,” Professor Frank Geels, Professor of System Innovation, IMP Innovation, Technique and Sustainability at Alliance Manchester Enterprise Faculty and Co-Director of the Sustainable Consumption Institute on the College of Manchester, informed FoodNavigator.
As well as, one other essential discovering and contribution is that area of interest improvements that match higher with the prevailing regime, comparable to climate-smart agriculture and sustainable intensification, are diffusing quicker than radical area of interest improvements like agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and various meals networks with quick provide chains.
Consequently, the analysis suggests the transfer away from area of interest improvements to deeper change mimicked in different industries comparable to wind, solar-PV, and electrical automobiles isn’t current in agrifood but. The business, due to this fact, wants to position extra emphasis on socio-ecological and spatial dimensions to progress the sector in the direction of meals system diversification.
New agrifood practices
The paper by Schiller, Klerkx, Centenno and Poortvliet extra deeply explored the emergence and diffusion of agroecology in Nicaragua. The nation, Geels stated “is among the world’s main international locations on this innovation requiring substantial adjustments in farming practices”.
Specializing in information flows over 40 years, the 2023 analysis paper reveals how new concepts and practices emerged by way of native experimentation and trial-and-error initiatives within the first interval (1986-1997).
The examine then confirmed that information and greatest practices stabilised within the second interval (1988-2006) by way of systematisation, standardisation and codification. They unfold extra broadly within the third interval, between 2007 and 2022, by way of nationwide congresses and alliances between corporations, policymakers, and civil society organisations and had been anchored in laws and requirements.
“The paper deepens our understanding of the emergence and stabilisation of radical improvements, displaying that completely different actors play various roles in subsequent durations,” stated Geels. It additionally reveals that middleman actors such because the Nicaraguan Environmental Motion and the Alliance for Agroecology play particularly vital roles in connecting and brokering disparate actors and studying experiences to foster new agrifood practices.
Shifting away from animal agriculture
A 2023 analysis examine by Mylan, Andrews and Maye focuses on the rising ‘protein’ transition, the place animal-derived meals are changed with various proteins. They analysed the event of 4 various protein improvements, starting from Quorn to cultured meat, over the previous three a long time and clarify the current acceleration of their diffusion. “Lots of the environmental issues related to at present dominant meals techniques stem from animal-based agriculture,” confirmed Geels.
Discovering an rising company engagement with various protein improvement and diffusion, the researchers acknowledged this “may doubtlessly be an indication for a wider company reorientation of regime incumbents, as a consequence of rising pressures on the animal agriculture system due to a scientific consensus and societal consciousness of the hyperlinks between local weather change and animal-produce intensive diets”.
Regardless of these pressures for change, political, regulatory, and cultural limitations stay and inconsistently have an effect on the prospects of the 4 improvements within the evaluation, Geels famous. “The paper reveals a partial destabilisation of the at present dominant animal meals regime and a tentative reorientation throughout Europe and the US,” Geels added.
Nonetheless, a possible various ‘protein’ transition continues to be in its early phases. It, due to this fact, hints on the significance of niche-regime interactions and their timing. Geels stated: “To what extent does regime destabilisation result in a speedy transition, which is partly based mostly on the event of options?”. The present limitations to various protein applied sciences, affect the likelihood to advance the animal-based “protein transition”.
