Sustainable Decision-Making for Future Foods

Project Description

The overall aim of this research is to It fits with the SET portfolio strategic priorities (Theme 2, priority 2) by addressing the need for NZ to enable economic and technological development by making informed, resilient and socially responsive decisions for future technologies. A sustainable pathway to economic transformation will create innovation benefits while avoiding social, political and economic costs: community conflict, challenges to science, regulatory compliance and opportunity costs of not identifying viable markets/alternatives. It contributes to the SET target outcome of enabling sustainable technological development by understanding how NZ can achieve improved well-being and enhanced economic growth through sustainable decisionmaking for future foods. The research will benefit NZ by anticipating the types of future food technologies that can support economic transformation and innovation while enhancing NZ values and national identity; identifying the underlying drivers of societal and market responses to a range of future food technologies and linking that understanding into government, science and industry policy and investment decisions; anticipating which future food technologies may require policy/regulatory responses; identifying alternatives, opportunities and barriers early, rather than downstream in the innovation cycle when risk perceptions are entrenched leading to social conflict and consumer resistance; improving capacity for stakeholder engagement in decision-making; and building capacity in NZ RS&T ‘future-watch’ and technology assessment. The research will ask The research approach will use innovative stakeholder engagement (`Issues Mapping’ and ‘Strategic Choice’) to identify risk acceptance profiles for a range of future food technologies through deliberative dialogue between developers and consumers. It will create an ‘upstream’ engagement process early in the technology innovation life cycle that will then be directly linked into strategic planning processes in science, government and industry. The research team comprises: with key collaborators Prof. Lynn Frewer (Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group, University of Wageningen, The Netherlands), and ESR social scientists Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll and Virginia Baker. The end users supporting and intending to use this research include: CFR and ESR, industry (Fonterra, Zespri, the Baking Industry Research Trust, Hort NZ, Organics New Zealand), and government (MoRST, MAF, MFE, MoH, NZFSA and ERMA). Wider uptake will be achieved through planned relationships with the National M āori Organic Growers Assn and Vegetable Growers Collective, growers/retailers/marketers, restaurateurs, NZ Slow Food Movement, community/ health/environmental groups and news media personalities. Special characteristics of the research area unique partnership between social and biophysical scientists in CFR, ESR and Victoria University of Wellington, personal involvement of end users of the research as participants in stakeholder dialogue workshops, and collaboration with the : Māori research project Te Hau Mihi Ata: M ātauranga Māori (COUOWX0701) to incorporate insights from M ātauranga Māori into end user deliberations.Dr Karen Cronin (Victoria University of Wellington 2002-07), Professor Gerald Midgley (ESR) Dr Nigel Larsen (CFR) if social and market risk aversion can be avoided through early engagement with key stakeholders, leading to better informed and more socially responsive investment decisions by science, industry and government. Given the importance of food to the NZ economy, enhancing decision-making in this area is a national priority. investigate social, cultural and consumer responses to a range of emerging future food technologies (particularly in intragenics, nanotechnology and functional foods) in the NZ and international context, and demonstrate how this understanding can be used to support sustainable decision-making for technology development.