Why are agri-food systems resistant to new directions of change? A systematic review

Conti, Costanza; Zanello, Giacomo; Hall, Andy

doi:10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100576

Cited by 81 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 139 publications

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“…These ideas are in line with thinking on system transition and transformation, where global crisis such as COVID-19 may trigger fundamental and transformative change, much alike other large- scale events or processes such as climate change ( Gaitán-Cremaschi et al, 2019 ; Dinesh et al, 2021 ). The resilience of some agricultural systems (as mentioned above) may in this respect also be seen as ‘negative resilience’ as even large shocks as the COVID-19 have not created tipping points that induce transitions to fundamentally different systems ( Oliver et al, 2018 ; Conti et al, 2021 ). ‘Build Back Better’ as a mission and the role of societal trust in resilience ( Lenton et al, 2022 ) may hence need to be more central in policy and innovation support efforts for agri-food systems transformation ( Klerkx and Begemann, 2020 ; Baudron and Liégeois, 2020 ), also to address long term costs and vulnerabilities of current systems.…”

Section: Emergent Themes From the Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

The immediate impact of the first waves of the global COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural systems worldwide: Reflections on the COVID-19 special issue for agricultural systems

Stephens

Timsina²,

Snow³

et al. 2022

Agricultural Systems

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Section: Emergent Themes From the Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

The immediate impact of the first waves of the global COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural systems worldwide: Reflections on the COVID-19 special issue for agricultural systems

Stephens

Timsina²,

Snow³

et al. 2022

Agricultural Systems

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“…The agri-food industry is embedded into a historical trajectory of resistance to change [100]. According to Conti et al ( 2021), there are six thematic explanations of this resistance which are closely related to those three groups of challenges [101]. Technical challenges come from "technological persistence" and "infrastructure rigidities"; once a technology is chosen and farmers develop the skills to employ that technology, it turns into a deeply embedded procedure [102].…”

Section: Rq4: What Are the Challenges Of Implementing Industry 40 In An Afsc?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Study and Analysis of the Implementation of 4.0 Technologies in the Agri-Food Supply Chain: A State of the Art

et al. 2021

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Industry 4.0 is changing the industrial environment. Particularly, the emerging Industry 4.0 technologies can improve the agri-food supply chain throughout all its stages. This study aims to highlight the benefits of implementing Industry 4.0 in the agri-food supply chain. First, it presents how technologies enhance the agri-food supply chain development. Then, it identifies and highlights the most common challenges that Industry 4.0 implementation faces in agri-food’s environment. After that, it proposes key performance indicators to measure the advantages of this implementation. To achieve this, a systematic literature review was conducted. It combined conceptual and bibliometric analyses of 78 papers. As a result, the most suitable technologies were identified, e.g., Internet of Things, Big Data, blockchain and cyber physical systems. The most used indicators are proposed and the challenges of implementation were detected and classified in three groups, i.e., technical, educational and governmental. This paper highlights and exemplifies the benefits of implementing Industry 4.0 facing the lack of knowledge that exists nowadays. Moreover, it fulfils the gaps in literature, i.e., the lack of information about the implementation of technologies 4.0 or the description of the most relevant indicators for Industry 4.0 implementation.

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“…An example is blending public and private finance to reduce risk and mobilise capital rapidly, as in the case of the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance and the Agri Business Capital fund (Zougmoré et al, 2021). Sustainability transitions are highly political (Avelino et al, 2016), and structures of power and vested interests create path-dependency and lock-in situations which make incumbent systems inert and difficult to change (Conti et al, 2021;Leeuwis et al, 2021). Therefore, the political economy has been highlighted as a key area of research for a food systems transformation (Béné et al, 2020;Leach et al, 2020;Turner et al, 2020).…”

Section: Unpacking Priorities For Food Systems Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, a reconfiguration does not mean only addressing new areas (e.g. by stimulating niches), but also addressing structural issues in the current food system as well as knowledge and innovation system which may also be an effort including incumbent players (Conti et al, 2021;Turnheim and Sovacool, 2020). A food systems approach requires action from production through to consumption, and this implies both stimulating novelty but also phase-out of some activities across the system (Klerkx and Begemann, 2020;Leeuwis et al, 2021).…”

Section: Reconfigure Incumbent Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, several issues have been identified, especially in public agricultural research systems including poor scaling logic and directionality, lack of understanding of the role of the private sector, misleading narratives, short term funding cycles, fragmentation, poor evidence base to support transformation, insufficient focus on novel approaches and mission orientation (Hall and Dijkman, 2019;Klerkx and Begemann, 2020;Steiner et al, 2020). Therefore, there is an imperative to transform knowledge and innovation systems, in the absence of which a transformation in food systems will remain a distant dream as several connected changes are needed to break out of lock-in and path dependency situations (Conti et al, 2021;Leeuwis et al, 2021). Hence, here several bundled or coupled system innovations are needed (Barrett et al, 2020;Elzen and Wieczorek, 2005;Leeuwis et al, 2021;Meynard et al, 2017) in which both the food system and the knowledge and innovation system are simultaneously restructured and transformed (den Boer et al, 2020;Kok et al, 2019;Pigford et al, 2018) Several recent studies connected to global agricultural research for development establishments, intended to inform policies on food systems transformation, have focused on the 'What', for food systems transformation (Barrett et al, 2020;Campbell et al, 2018;Herrero et al, 2020;Loboguerrero et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stepping up science-policy engagement to accelerate climate action in food systems

Dinesh¹

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Science-policy interactions, interfaces and engagement in the context of climate change 1.2 Climate change, agriculture and food security 1.3 Science-policy engagement to accelerate a transformation in food systems: main challenges and knowledge gaps 1.4 Research aim, questions and relevance 1.4.1 Research aim and questions 1.4.2 Societal relevance 1.5 Research design, selected case study and methods 1.5.1 Case study 1.5.2 Data collection and methods 1.5.3 Data analysis 1.5.4 Research ethics and positionality 1.6 Outline of the dissertation 2.1 2.4.1 Navigate towards specific points of leverage 2.4.2 Allocate resources in three thirds 2.4.3 Join in external processes 2.4.4 Use research products to build scientific credibility 2.4.5 Sustain co-learning throughout policy engagement and implementation 2.4.6 Tackle power and influence 2.4.7 Invest in, and monitor, capacity enhancement 2.4.8 Mainstream higher-level goals 2.4.9 Create mechanisms for internal learning 2.4.10 Communicate strategically and actively 2.4.11 Explanatory factors for successful science-policy engagement 2.4.12 Challenges in science-policy engagement efforts 2.4.13 Quantitative analysis and contextualisation of principles 2.5 Discussion 2.5.1 Engagement 2.5.2 Evidence 2.5.3 Outreach 2.6 A revised and improved programme theory 2.7 Conclusion 3.1 3.4.5 Adverse power dynamics 3.4.6 Lack of institutional capacity 3.4.7 Inductively derived fail factors in science-policy engagement 3.4.8 Fail factors contextualised in examples 3.5 Discussion 3.5.1 Credibility, salience and legitimacy 3.5.2 Institutional arrangements and capacity 3.5.3 Navigating power dynamics 3.5.4 Funding uncertainties 3.6 Failing intelligently at the interface between science and policy 3.7 Conclusions 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Conceptual approach and methods 4.2.1 Conceptual approach: institutional analysis for AR4D 4.3 Methods 4.4 Results 4.4.1 Accountability 4.4.2 Use of boundary objects 4.4.3 Participation across the boundary 4.4.4 Mediation and a selectively permeable boundary 4.4.5 Translation 4.4.6 Coordination and complementary expertise 4.4.7 Additional success conditions identified 4.5 Discussion 101 4.5.1 Success conditions for institutionalising efforts to enhance salience, credibility and legitimacy 101 4.5.2 Creating an environment for 'enlightened' boundary work 102 CHAPTER 4: A changing climate for knowledge generation in agriculture: Lessons to institutionalise science-policy engagement 8 4.5.3 Opportunities for institutional analysis 4.6 Conclusion 5.1 Introduction 5.2 A theory of change to catalyse a transformation in food systems under climate change 5.3 Methods 5.4 Results 5.4.1 Biggest issues facing the food knowledge and innovation system 5.4.2 Priorities across themes 5.4.3 Empowering farmer and consumer organisations, women and youth 5.4.4 Digitally enabled climate-informed services 5.4.5 Climate-resilient and low-emission practices and technologies 5.4.6 Innovative finance to leverage public and private sector investments 5.4.7 Reshaping supply chains, food re...

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Why are agri-food systems resistant to new directions of change? A systematic review

Cited by 81 publications

References 139 publications

The immediate impact of the first waves of the global COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural systems worldwide: Reflections on the COVID-19 special issue for agricultural systems

The immediate impact of the first waves of the global COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural systems worldwide: Reflections on the COVID-19 special issue for agricultural systems

Study and Analysis of the Implementation of 4.0 Technologies in the Agri-Food Supply Chain: A State of the Art

Stepping up science-policy engagement to accelerate climate action in food systems

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