Crop improvements for future‐proofing European food systems: A focus‐group‐driven analysis of agricultural production stakeholder priorities and viewpoints

Stacia Stetkiewicz, Jonathan Menary, Abhishek Nair, Mariana Rufino, Arnout R.H. Fischer, Marc Cornelissen, Remi Duchesne, Adrien Guichaoua, Petra Jorasch, Stéphane Lemarié (), Amrit Nanda, Ralf Wilhelm and Jessica A.C. Davies
Additional contact information
Stacia Stetkiewicz: Lancaster University, UON - University of Nottingham, UK
Jonathan Menary: Lancaster University, University of Oxford
Abhishek Nair: WUR - Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen]
Mariana Rufino: Lancaster University
Arnout R.H. Fischer: WUR - Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen]
Marc Cornelissen: BASF Innovat Ctr Gent, Ghent, Belgium
Remi Duchesne: Acta - Les instituts techniques agricoles
Adrien Guichaoua: Acta - Les instituts techniques agricoles
Petra Jorasch: Euroseeds, Brussels
Stéphane Lemarié: GAEL - Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquée de Grenoble - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - Grenoble INP - Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes
Amrit Nanda: Plants FutureEuropean Technol Platform, Brussels
Ralf Wilhelm: JKI - Julius Kühn-Institut
Jessica A.C. Davies: Lancaster University

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Crop breeding is one of the main tools which can assist in future-proofing food systems for more sustainable outcomes. In order to ensure priorities are aligned with the needs and wants of food system actors, it is essential to engage with key stakeholders to understand preferences on plant breeding solutions. This study presents results from a series of online focus groups conducted with agricultural production related stakeholders (i.e. farmers and farmer representatives, policymakers and NGOs) regarding the potential for crop improvement to future-proof European food systems. Stakeholders shared concern around climate change and environmental impacts (particularly drought and heat stress), and general agreement about the need to develop resilient crops which combine multiple positive attributes, while reducing trade-offs and negative externalities. Stakeholders also prioritized plant breeding solutions for areas where they felt they had little agency, and existing alternative solutions, such as improving input use efficiency, or altering diets to be considered where these are available. This highlights the need for the crop breeding community to focus its attentions on the 'most hard to fix' issues, where in-field measures are currently not offering viable solutions, to maximize acceptance and adoption by agricultural production stakeholders. It also highlights that consideration of trade-offs, within plant and within a broader agri-food context, must be integrated into crop breeding research and development, with trade-off analysis an explicit component of breeding research. Understanding broader agri-food system knock-on effects of plant innovation is a non-trivial challenge requiring interdisciplinary research and close partnerships with food system stakeholders.

Keywords: Focus groups; Plant breeding; Stakeholder engagement; Sustainable food systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-mac
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04047917v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Food and Energy Security, 2023, 12 (1), pp.1-14. ⟨10.1002/fes3.362⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04047917v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04047917

DOI: 10.1002/fes3.362

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().