These last years, the development of AI robots for agriculture, livestock farming and food processing industries is rapidly increasing. These robots are expected to help produce and deliver food more efficiently for a growing human population, but they also raise societal and ethical questions. As the type of questions raised by these AI robots in society have been rarely empirically explored, we engaged in four case studies focussing on four types of AI robots for agri-food ‘in the making’: manure collectors, weeding robots, harvesting robots and food processing robots which select and package fruits, vegetables and meats. Based on qualitative interviews with 33 experts engaged in the development or implementation of these four types of robots, this article provides a broad and varied exploration of the values that play a role in their evaluation and the ethical questions that they raise. Compared to the recently published literature reviews mapping the ethical questions related to AI robots in agri-food, we conclude that stakeholders in our case studies primarily adopt a relational perspective to the value of AI robots and to finding a solution to the ethical questions. Building on our findings we suggest it is best to seek a distribution of tasks between human beings and robots in agri-food, which helps to realize the most acceptable, good or just collaboration between them in food production or processing that contributes to realizing societal goals and help to respond to the 21 century challenges.

The interest in cultivating seaweed in European seas as source of food, feed and feedstock for the biobased economy is growing. Amongst the species investigated is kelp, also known as sugar kelp, Saccharina latissima or Laminaria saccharina. The European kelp sector is relatively small, compared to the global production and use, yet growth of the sector is aimed for. An inevitable question for European seaweed producers is how they can compete in the global seaweed value chain. This paper assesses to what extent the European strategy for growing the kelp sector matches with the dynamics of current kelp value chain. The global value chains (GVC) framework is applied to study how the global kelp sector is organized, including analysis of trends in science and patents. The upgrading strategy deployed by the European sector is critically evaluated against this framework. The analysis points towards various dividing lines between the established kelp cultivation and processing industry in Asia and the (far smaller) nascent cultivation and processing industry for high-value applications. These represent two unconnected worlds. Chain or intra-sectoral upgrading to spur the European kelp sector could occur if European food sector engage more closely with the European producers. Those bring financial power and a broader client base to the table and are instrumental in linking production to the demands of end-users.

The European seaweed sector transitions from harvesting wild stocks only to harvesting and farming seaweed. This transition comes with the need to rethink the role of the European sector on the global scale; insight is needed into the organization of, and innovation in, the global seaweed value chain. This article presents results from our study on value chains using Gereffi’s conceptual framework. A systematic review of scientific publications published between 2010 and 2020 was executed for five markets: pharmaceuticals, bioplastics, biostimulants, alginate and cosmetics. It is concluded that innovation in the use of seaweed takes place across the globe and thus that a focus on high-value applications alone will not set the nascent European seaweed sector apart from established producing regions such as Asia. The studied global value chains are organised around strong lead firms that require suppliers to produce according to codified product characteristics. The European seaweed sector needs to increase the collaboration and develop joint efforts to develop safe and sustainable products that meet the demands of regulators, lead firms and consumers. Stronger coordination in the value chain will facilitate further business development, by stimulating collaboration and innovations.

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Digital Twins are conceptualized as real-time digital representations of real-life physical entities or systems. They are explored for a wide array of societal implementations, and in particular to help address fundamental societal challenges. As accurate digital equivalents of their real-life twin, Digital Twins substitute their physical twin in knowledge production and decision-making processes. They raise high expectations: they are expected to produce new knowledge, expose issues early, predict future behavior, and help to optimize the physical twin. Data play a key role here because they form the building blocks from which the Digital Twin representation is created. However, data are not neutral phenomena but products of human-technology interaction. In this article, we therefore raise the question of how a Digital Twin data collection is created, and what implications does this have for Digital Twins? To answer this question, we explore the data collection process in three cases of Digital Twin development at a university. Connecting to Jasanoff's theoretical framework of regimes of sight, we approach the creation of a data collection as acts of seeing and recording that influence how reality is represented in data, as well as give a certain legitimacy and authority to the data collection. By examining the acts of seeing and recording and their respective roles in producing the data collection, we provide insight into the struggles of representation in Digital Twins and their implications.