Transformation, disruption and plurality in agrifood systems: emerging directions for research on extension

Abstract

This presentation sets out a future research agenda for research on agricultural extension and advisory services, under influence of sustainability transitions and disruptive technologies such as digital agriculture technology, and synthetic foods.

For a recording of the presentation see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03V7zSD63pw

Full text

Transformation, disruption and plurality in
agrifood systems: emerging directions for
research on extension
Laurens Klerkx –Knowledge, Technology and Innovation
Group - Wageningen University
Opening keynote, 24th ESEE, 18-21 June 2019, Acireale

An anecdote to start with...
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Good news: research on and attention to
extension seems alive and kicking!
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Current understanding of extension
Broad range of advisory,
facilitation and intermediation
roles (innovation support
services)
Provided by public, private,
farmer organization and NGO
actors
Provided as a core business or
as part of a broader package of
goods and services
Focused on agriculture, but also
rural areas and communities and
also urban areas
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Consolidated streams of work in recent
years
Renewed attention to AKIS
development, performance and
inclusion, public/private/collective
roles
Documentation of a wide range of
(new) intermediary roles fulfilled by
extension/advisory services
Continuous attention to development
of methodologies, tools, pedagogy
Critical studies on role advisory
services within policy and practice
Behaviour change and adoption
continue on the agenda
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Does this mean we can sit back and relax?
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No, there’s work to be done!
We need to critically assess
current paradigms (e.g. multi-
actor approach)
We need to keep abreast of fast
changing agri-food environments
We need to engage with new
theoretical orientations and
methodologies to renew/refresh
the field
What follows are some ideas and
suggestions....
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Several major challenges, developments
and trends are influencing agriculture
Growing demand for food, fibre and energy
Climate change, resource degradation
Growing middle class and more critical consumers
Ageing rural population and decline (in some
places), rural population growth (in other places) –
but farm succession issues virtually everywhere
Corporatization of agriculture versus family
(smallholder) farms, specialization vs
multifunctionality
Shift towards food systems approach and new
technologies and perspectives coming in (vertical,
circular, regenerative, digital, synthetic ...)
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Transformation and disruption
Transition and
transformation are key
pillars of policy agendas
worldwide
Different drivers: both
natural, economic, and
technological
Some of these have a
(potentially) disruptive
nature
May affect both
agricultural and advisory
‘regimes’
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Plurality
Transformation and disruption are not value free and
have (competing/collaborating/co-existing) networks of
actors and underlying values, visions and paradigms:
sustainable intensification, ecological intensification,
agriculture 4.0, etc., etc., etc.
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What do future(s) of agriculture imply for
our extension research agenda?
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Understanding transformation and
extension
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Understanding transformation and
extension
Looking at questions such as:
●How do advisory systems respond to
and connect to different transition
pathways?
●How do ‘grassroots advisory
movements’ develop?
●How are value dilemmas managed?
●What shapes the “politics of policy
attention” to different transition
pathways (niche AKIS/ regime AKIS)?
●How are (dis)continuities managed in
the advisory profession?
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Understanding plurality and extension
Recent work on ‘sub-AKIS’ and
‘micro-AKIS’
Depending on farming
style/orientation & transition
pathway, great diversity in
advisory networks
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Understanding plurality and extension
Need for understanding better:
●Advice consumption styles: reasons for
choosing independent advisors, agribusiness,
‘one-stop-shop’, etc. – strategic combinations
●How advisors switch between advisory styles
●‘Average’ and ‘rockstar advisors’: how
reputation is built
●Advisory synergies and ‘advisory bubbles’:
advantages and risks of closed networks
●How different advisory networks engage with
different ‘back-offices’
●Age/experience/gender composition of
advisory organisations and collegial &
generational interaction
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Understanding disruption and extension
Digitalization, circularity, synthetization,
urbanization, financialization, corporatization, etc.
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Emerging work: Digital AKIS
Macro–level: e.g. work on DAIS
(Fielke et al.), ‘Digiware’ (Ayre
et al.), PA innovation systems
(Eastwood et al.), SMART AKIS
(Knierim et al.)
Meso–level: e.g. work on
farmer-advisor interaction,
apps, social media (Eastwood
et al., Inwood and Dale,
Choudhury et al., Munthali et
al.)
Micro–level: cyber-physical-
social systems (Lioutas et al.,
Brunori et al.)

Example: Digital citizen & data science and
social media
Apps used by citizens to
monitor agri-ecosystems (e.g.
biodiversity) or by farmers to
monitor
water/crops/pests/weeds
(biosecurity, etc)
Social media to measure
sentiments of farmers or the
public (social license to
produce)
Social media as exchange and
connection strategy
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Understanding disruption and extension
Answering questions such as:
●How do extension providers adjust?
Start-ups, new business models?
●New advisory alliances for cross-
sectoral systems and emerging issues
(e.g. data cooperatives)
●Interaction data-farmer- advisor, the
rise of the ‘augmented advisor’, virtual
advisory encounters?
●Data science on extension
●Advisory platform technologies?
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The human/organisational side of
transformation and disruption and extension
Financialization, scale increase,
disruptive technologies, migrant
labour, multifunctionality etc.
impact on the farmer and workers
Questions:
●How does extension deal with
finance, worker management,
succession planning?
●How does extension engage with
the human side of farming, e.g.
joy, stress and mental health
issues? What does this mean for
the professional profile?
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The international dimension of extension
Internationalization of extension in
view of global transition pathways
Global flow of extension models
versus context specificity
Global social media networks
Questions such as:
●How do (formal and informal)
advisors operate cross-
culturally?
●What adaptation dynamics (do
not) take place? In terms of
technologies and
methodologies?
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The eco-material side of extension
Different farming styles and transition
pathways have different and new (im)material
contexts
Sometime also ‘hybrid’ material contexts (e.g.
agroecology + digital)
Raises question such as:
●How do farmers and advisors engage with these
hybrid material contexts?
●How does it affect their advisory encounters?
●What does it imply for tool affordances and
method design?
●What does it imply for advisor training?
●The influence of data vs. the human advisor in
advisory encounters?
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Education and training
Renewed attention to advisor training
and learning. Emerging questions:
●Digital natives and advisory
services: what does it imply for
training next generation advisors?
●What about advisory ethics in view
of diversity and power dynamics?
●How do social and natural science
graduates and different sorts
students at technical schools
perceive and enact transition
pathways?
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Global comparison
Phenomena of transformation,
disruption and plurality occur across
the globe
However, timing, nature and pace of
change may differ
Questions:
●What similarities and
differences can be seen in
terms of how changes unfold?
●What are the underlying
determinants?
●Do we see new ‘grand models’
emerging (within diversity)?
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Which theories can help us?
Extension science has always been pluralist in terms
of theories (psychology, sociology, economics, etc.)
Expanding the toolbox, a few possibilities:
●Practice theories
●Organization studies: organizational identity
●ANT and assemblage theory: actors and actants,
socio-material flows
●STS: innovation cultures
●Economics and management: e.g. digital
business model theory
●Social network analysis
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Does this have any practical and policy
relevance?
Informing adjustments in advisor
training (initial and continuous)
Supporting organizations to make
sense of change dynamics
Highlighting inclusion and exclusion
effects
Counteracting power imbalances in
advisory systems
Taking into account the diversity of
systems in policy targeting
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Where to publish all this great new work?
JAEE will be
indexed in
Thomson
Reuters Social
Sciences
Citation Index!
Impact factor
will be released
later this week
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Thanks for your attention and have a great
conference!
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