Sustainable agriculture. Is that possible?
27 February 2018 (Revised 21 May 2018)
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By Michel Steinecke & Victor M Angulo
This is the first of the four blog posts of this series where we will discuss and suggest pathways for a sustainable transition in the context of the socio-technical system of food production. For that, we will build upon different theoretical approaches for transition to explain how the socio-technical system of food production could have a more sustainable future.
In the first article of our blog we would discuss about the challenges of a transition to a more sustainable agriculture and the role of engineers in the development of the current socio-technical system of food production.
Sustainable agriculture, is that possible? What are the challenges we are facing?
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest on sustainable innovation and socio-technical studies related to sustainability. This interest is grounded in the current challenges that our generation is facing in a local and a global scale. For instance, aspects such as energy supply, excessive exploitation of natural resources, air pollution produced by emission of chemicals, access to clean water, biodiversity loss and, especially, climate change are part of the picture of those current challenges. Due to the complexity of tackling these issues, it is relevant to discuss what a socio-technical system is and how they are stabilized by processes known as “lock-ins”, which reinforce the position of socio-technical systems making them difficult to change (Geels, 2006; Jacobsson & Bergek, 2004). In that sense, we discuss the role of Transition Design as an approach to offer a theoretical framework to sustainable transition challenges, contextualizing it in the creation of a more sustainable agriculture. In addition, we argue the role that engineers have had in the establishment and development of socio-technical systems and how that role should change to tackle the challenges we are currently facing.
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What is a transition challenge?
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A transition can be defined as the process that results in a change from one socio-technical system, or regime, to another. But to explain what transition challenges are, we need also to understand the concept of socio-technical systems and their impacts in society.
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Socio-Technical systems (STS) are systems like energy, transport or health, able to provide societal functions. These systems result from a combination of different elements interacting with each other, such as technology, regulations, infrastructure and cultural aspects being developed and maintained by several groups who share similar interests. To illustrate this concept, we will use the example of the agricultural system as a STS which has its own technologies, regulations, infrastructures and interests groups acting in the same direction (Geels, 2006).
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STS normally develops from leading technologies. When a technology gains a lead, socio-technical systems begin to develop around them, having a tendency to gain stability through the evolution process of some interconnected key elements such as institutional practices, infrastructures and cultural reflections in society (practices and lifestyles) (Unruh, 2002). In the context of agricultural systems, the technologies developed during the industrial revolution were later applied to agriculture (Evenson & Golin, 2003). This application of the new technology enabled the establishment of a STS of food production and consumption with a main focus on increasing the production of food in a large-scale and industrialized way, cultivating one single type of crop at a time, in a practice known as monoculture (Connor et al., 2011). This STS took over small scale and familiar farming, constituting a new systemic paradigm of food production with industries producing seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and facilitate the creation of logistic infrastructures and supermarkets (Geels, 2006).
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The stabilization of Socio-Technical Systems has its positive and negatives impacts in society. From the positive perspective, these systems enable the scale of economies based on massive production, technological and knowledge development, infrastructure and others. The positive impacts of these aspects relate to an easier access to a source of nutrients, more stable food supply and, as a consequence, to a huge population growth all around the world (Evenson & Golin, 2003).
However, the stabilization of STS also creates some societal issues, such as path dependencies and market lock-ins, meaning that STS generate an inertia that makes the development of changes and transitions in a system especially difficult (Unruh, 2002) (Geels, 2006).
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To have a clear understanding of the drawbacks of a stable STS, lock-ins and path dependencies we can refer again to the current agriculture socio-technical system. This system was developed to produce food for the exponential population growth and this role was successfully achieved by the technologies developed. However, this system also created several environmental problems such as water pollution, deforestation and biodiversity loss due the excessive use of fertilizers, pesticides, amongst others (Evenson & Golin, 2003).
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Overcoming these negative consequences of the stabilization of STS represent one of the most important transition challenges, due to the fact that the lock-ins and path dependencies limit the production of changes in the STS. So, to achieve this, we need a new systemic paradigm, a new STS, able to substitute the current one and create another more inclusive and sustainable. For this purpose, a transition process should be created in order to facilitate the transit to the new system (Geels, 2006).
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The graphic below shows STS regarding the agricultural sector and how they develop and later are substituted by other systemic paradigms.
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Graphic 1. Own graphic showing the Socio-Technical System evolution regarding the agricultural sector
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Transition Design
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Transition design is an approach that was developed as an alternative to create solutions towards transition challenges that were discussed before. Transition design suggests that socio-economic and political paradigms need to be radically changed toward more sustainable ways of living. The Transition Design approach understands that social, economic, political and natural systems are interconnected and interdependent and design solutions should embrace this idea. Another central concept of Transition Design is the “Cosmopolitan localism” which means that design should focus in more local solutions taking in consideration global problems (Irwin, 2015).
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The transition design framework presents four areas of knowledge that are mutually influencing each other, shown in the picture below.
Graphic 2. Own graphic based on Irwin (2015)
-The first concept of the framework is the Vision for Transition that proposes an entire re-shape of lifestyles. This concept refers to the “Cosmopolitan Localism” that was explained before.
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-The second concept is the Theories of change which is based on the idea that designers need to understand the dynamics of social and natural systems in order to propose transition design approaches.
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-The third concept is Mindset and Posture, this concept explains that designers need to review their own assumptions and ideas and focus in more holistic and collaborative ways of designing. This approach reinforces the importance of understanding complexity and including different perspectives.
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-The final concept, the new ways of designing, combines the other three previous explained concepts. New ways of designing requires new societal visions with a deep understanding of dynamics of change, using also a new mindset and posture. It also requires more iterative approach to creation processes to understand how to tackle wicked problems (Irwin, 2015).
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To exemplify a transition design proposal, we will use the concepts of Permaculture and organic food labelling as new paradigms that offer alternatives to the current socio-technical system of food production and consumption. In the last decades, the problems related to the current large-scale and industrial agricultural STS have started to raise some sustainability concerns, generating a growing movement which searches for new solutions for food production, a new paradigm, such as organic food or, even further, permaculture farming (Holmgren, 2017).
Permaculture Design proposes a completely new paradigm as a solution for food production in the place of large scale monoculture farming. The concept suggests a holistic understanding of the interconnection of people, energy flows, earth, and food. Permaculture also proposes more collaborative and iterative ways of farming, producing and consuming food.
Regarding organic food labelling, customers are starting to take into consideration sustainability aspects when it comes to purchasing food products. For instance, sustainability-related food labels are increasing their sales every year (Elliott, 2012). In addition to that, there is a growing interest for consuming more local and fresh products and a bigger concern about the health implications of the food we consume (Akhtar et al., 2016).
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So, in the way towards sustainable transitions, it is important to see innovations projects such as the permaculture movement or organic food as alternatives to restructuring the STS of agriculture. This transition should be seen as the possibility of generating a more sustainable food production and consumption, leading to maintain a balance between human activities and nature. For that, we should keep a more systemic approach towards the socio-technical system of food production and consumption, due to the fact that focusing only on increasing productivity and consumption can limit the impact of these innovations towards that needed sustainable transition.
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As we stated before, the establishment of socio-technical systems and their development are the result from a combination of different elements interacting with each other, such as technology, regulations, infrastructure and cultural aspects facilitated by several groups who share similar interests (Geels, 2006). As part of these groups, engineers have played a relevant role in the development of STS along history. So, to generate transition processes it is also required a shift in the practices of engineers. To understand how those practices have to change to support sustainable transitions, we need to analyze the role of engineers.
Graphic 3. Own graphic showing the differences between two STS within agricultural sector.
Images sources:
What roles have had engineers in the development of technological systems?
Along the history of the human evolution, the systemic paradigm grounding the engineering practices enabled the development of modern and industrialized societies. This paradigm represent Earth as an scenario of unlimited resources, a sort of a business playground and a place where a constantly growing population could take complete advantage of every resource the planet had to offer, exploiting them and ignoring the existence of limits or even consequences of the degradation of the environment (Bartlett, 1994).
It was not until the 1970s, when different perspectives about sustainability and human practices started to be discussed though articles such as The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972). It presents a future scenario based on computer calculations, concluding that it was impossible to continue with the incremental growth of human activities in the finite system of our planet.
In the last decades, the awareness around sustainability has become more evident and the appearance of concepts such as Planetary Boundaries (Rockström et al., 2009) began a shift in the way we perceived the planet and how we relate to the environment we live in, calling for a transition to a more sustainable paradigm that could facilitate a more sustainable future.
Furthermore, the challenges that human society faces today require a shift on the practices and ways of thinking of engineers and the rest of society. This shift has to lead to more interdisciplinary driven processes where engineers are active participants and facilitators of both sustainable transition processes and solutions to wicked problems, through profound analysis of their complexity. For this purpose, one of the available approaches is having design-led long term transitions based on new sustainable paradigms in the socioeconomic and political dimensions (Irwin, 2015).
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Conclusion
In this first article of our blog we have discussed about the current challenges related to sustainability and built an understanding about the notion of socio-technical system and the processes that reinforce its position, making it hard to change. In that sense, we have debated about the transition to a more sustainable agriculture, putting as examples the permaculture movement and the organic food labelling (topics we will develop in our second and third blog post, respectively). We have used Transition Design in this article as an approach to generate valid solutions for the challenges of that transition. In addition, we have discussed the role of engineers in the development of the socio-technical systems and how that role and its related practices should change to facilitate the needed transition for a more sustainable future.
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In our next post, we will discuss the transition to a more sustainable socio-technical system of food production, focusing in the protection and empowerment of the niche represented by the permaculture movement building upon the theoretical framework of Strategic Niche Management (SNM).
References:
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Connor, D. J., Loomis, R. S., & K. G. Cassman (2011). Crop Ecology: Productivity and Management in Agricultural Systems. Cambridge University Press
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