Incentivizing research &amp; innovation with agrobiodiversity conserved in situ: Possibilities and limitations of a blockchain-based solution

Kochupillai, Mrinalini; Gallersdörfer, Ulrich; Köninger, Julia; Beck, Roman

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127155

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 124 publications

(138 reference statements)

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“…With regards to the “FPVI shared traits” framework, this involves reducing the vulnerability of both the ethnosphere and biosphere to save their functionality (the provision of services) and potentiality (by keeping options open). For example, to combat the roughly 75% of genetic diversity lost since the early 1900s, blockchain technologies are being developed and trialed to provide incentives and financial support for Indigenous communities to continue their important work—for example, safeguarding biodiversity from generation to generation—while maintaining their unique cultures (see Kochupillai et al, 2021; Peng & Huang, 2022). These biocultural innovations that blur the boundaries between traditional notions of innovation and conservation have immense value given that over one million of the earth's eight million or so plant and animal species are threatened with extinction (IPBES, 2019), with the ecosystem services provided to humanity by terrestrial species alone worth $75 trillion (IPCC, 2019) and Indigenous people protecting the vast majority of this biodiversity (Sobrevila, 2008).…”

Section: Motivations and Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biocultural innovation: Innovating at the intersection of the biosphere and ethnosphere

Vassallo

Banerjee

Prabhu

2023

J of Product Innov Manag

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Scientists, economists, and politicians increasingly recognize that Indigenous peoples possess invaluable knowledge and practices that have the potential to drive innovation to solve critical global challenges. Indeed, thousands of important drugs—including lifesaving cancer treatments—have their origins in centuries old Indigenous knowledge and practices. Similarly, Indigenous practices have fueled the fast‐growing regenerative agriculture industry that is able to yield windfall profits while sequestering carbon and enhancing biodiversity. Referred to in policy circles as biocultural innovation—a form of innovation that occurs at the intersection of the biosphere and ethnosphere—hundreds of diverse examples from a wide array of industries have been documented outside of the innovation literature. However, innovation scholars have yet to recognize or embrace biocultural innovation. We argue that this major oversight hinders practice and leaves untapped potential for solving issues such as slow or unsustainable economic growth, ecological decline, and inequality. To address this gap, we provide a clear definition of biocultural innovation, differentiate it from other innovation domains, and establish its conceptual foundations. Informed by economic theorizing that views the ethnosphere and biosphere as assets, we propose that these assets share four traits: functionality, potentiality, vulnerability, and inseparability (“FPVI shared traits”). Due to their immense biocultural diversity, we assert that these assets carry an “option value” representing enormous innovation potential that can be converted, conserved, or constructed to solve global challenges (the “3Cs”). We conclude by identifying promising avenues for future research on biocultural innovation and a call for action on how to unlock economic and social value while supporting biocultural assets and Indigenous rights.

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Section: Motivations and Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biocultural innovation: Innovating at the intersection of the biosphere and ethnosphere

Vassallo

Banerjee

Prabhu

2023

J of Product Innov Manag

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“…However, the tracing of the origin of material and the downstream access and usage of the material pose fundamental challenges. This results also from the characteristics of agrobiodiversity: being heterogeneous and variable, making it not eligible for IP protection under regimes such as the plant breeders' rights system (Kochupillai et al, 2021). 4 The scarcity of agrobiodiversity is aggravated by national and regional crop procurement policies that are mostly focused on the procurement of crops produced using high yielding, uniform varieties that give "standard" produce.…”

Section: 22mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are inappropriate or inadequate to recognise, reward and optimally incentivize farmer level (informal) in situ innovations on and with locally adapted agrobiodiversity. Indeed, empirical research has revealed that current IPR regimes, because of their design and based on practical matters of legal enforcement, are only able to incentivize formal (private/public sector) innovations (Kochupillai, 2016;Kochupillai 2019a;Kochupillai et al, 2021;Henry & Stiglitz, 2010). Notably, farmers are the original custodians and generators of agrobiodiversity, i.e.…”

Section: 23mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Blockchains or DLTs, together with cryptocurrencies or other point/reward systems linked to them, can help store and transfer the "value" associated with any underlying data, know-how or material being transferred or traded via a DLT backbone. In fact, blockchain/DLTs can also be designed as an incentive system, and preliminary research suggests that blockchain based systems may be well suited to incentivize and promote in situ conservation, research and innovation with agrobiodiversity (Kochupillai et al, 2021). This can be done, for example, by building smart contracts that work with the DLT system to automatically transfer cryptocurrencies, points or 10 See also Harrison & Caccamo in this volume: "The use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in certification could lead to less cumbersome processes and could in fact increase adoption of certification systems."…”

Section: Blockchain/dlt For In Situ Innovations With Agrobiodiversity...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Creating a Digital Marketplace for Agrobiodiversity and Plant Genetic Sequence Data: Legal and Ethical Considerations of an AI and Blockchain Based Solution

Kochupillai

Köninger

2022

Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage: Data Challenges for Agricultural Research and Development

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The EU regulation on ‘Organic Production and Labelling of Organic Products’ opens the door for the creation of an EU-wide marketplace for agrobiodiversity contained in so-called “heterogeneous materials”. However, the creation of such a marketplace presupposes the existence of optimal demand and supply of agrobiodiversity, linked plant genetic sequence data and local/traditional knowledge on how best to use agrobiodiversity. Farmers’ tendency to prefer genetically uniform “high yielding” seeds and the adoption of chemical intensive farming have compromised the supply of agrobiodiversity. At the same time, regulatory regimes have disincentivized the use of agrobiodiversity in research and breeding programs, resulting in a lack of demand for agrobiodiversity. This chapter argues that these trends result from (inadvertent) inequities in existing regulatory frameworks that primarily support uni-directional data/knowledge flows from the formal sector (academia, industry) to the informal sector (farmers). We propose ways in which rapidly evolving technologies like blockchain/DLTs and AI/Machine Learning can (and should) diversify the direction of scientific research as well as of data/knowledge flows in the agricultural sector. The chapter thus provides food for thought for developing novel regulatory frameworks and ethical business models for robust digital marketplaces for agrobiodiversity for the benefit of farmers, researchers, and the environment.

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“…[99], Patel et al[100]) through data as well as the potential increase of farmers' income[101]. Regarding indicator 2.4.1 (Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture), several papers underscored that food safety traceability systems which are backed up by big data and the IoT ensure agility, transparency, integrity, reliability, and safety of traceability information (e.g., Feng et al[37], Vivaldini[102], Zheng et al[103]…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Operationalizing Digitainability: Encouraging mindfulness to harness the power of digitalization for sustainable development

Gupta¹,

Zeballos²,

Castro³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Digitalization is globally transforming the world with profound implications. It has enormous potential to foster progress toward sustainability. However, in its current form, digitalization also continues to enable and encourage practices with numerous unsustainable impacts affecting our environment, ingraining inequality, and degrading quality of life. There is an urgent need to identify such multifaceted impacts holistically. Impact assessment of digital interventions (DIs) leading to digitalization is important specifically for Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). Action is required to understand the pursuit of short-term gains toward achieving long-term value-driven sustainable development. We need to understand the impact of DIs on various actors and in diverse contexts. A holistic understanding of the impact it creates will help us align it with visions of sustainable development and identify potential measures to mitigate negative short and long-term impacts. The recently developed Digitainability Assessment Framework (DAF) unveils the impact of DIs with an in-depth context-aware assessment and offers an evidence-based impact profile of SDGs at the indicator level. We performed the impact assessment of diverse technologies using DAF. This paper summarizes the insights from the Digitainable Spring School 2022 on "Sustainability with Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence," one of whose goals was to operationalize the DAF as a tool in the action learning process with diverse professionals in the field of digitalization and sustainability. The DAF guides a holistic context-aware process formulation for a given DI. An evidence-based evaluation within the DAF protocol benchmarks a specific DI’s impact against the SDG indicators framework. The operationalization of the DAF was carried out by looking at four different DIs: smart home technologies (SHT) for energy efficiency, blockchain for food security, artificial intelligence for land use cover and changes (LUCC), and big data for international law. Each of the four studies addresses different DIs for digitainability assessment using different techniques for a diverse group of indicators, demonstrating the potential of the DAF but also outlining the existing data gaps that limit a comprehensive analysis.

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Incentivizing research & innovation with agrobiodiversity conserved in situ: Possibilities and limitations of a blockchain-based solution

Cited by 15 publications

References 124 publications

Biocultural innovation: Innovating at the intersection of the biosphere and ethnosphere

Biocultural innovation: Innovating at the intersection of the biosphere and ethnosphere

Creating a Digital Marketplace for Agrobiodiversity and Plant Genetic Sequence Data: Legal and Ethical Considerations of an AI and Blockchain Based Solution

Operationalizing Digitainability: Encouraging mindfulness to harness the power of digitalization for sustainable development

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