Mission-oriented innovation (eco)systems for food systems transformation

Multiple calls have been made for food systems transformation, since food systems contribute to exceeding several planetary boundaries, including impacting climate, changing biochemical flows and causing resource degradation and biodiversity loss.
Simultaneously, advances in technology fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology open new technological possibilities and opportunities.

As a response to these problems, challenges, and opportunities, multiple public, private and third sector actors, including farmers, grassroot NGOs, ‘Big Food’ companies, start-ups, think tanks, financiers, and policy makers in agrifood innovation systems are working on shaping different pathways for food systems transformation.

These pathways are underpinned by a variety of names, concepts, technologies, business models and value systems. These include agroecology, nature-based or nature-positive farming, circular agriculture, and permaculture on the one hand, and Agriculture 4.0 and Food 4.0 concepts such as vertical farming, cellular agriculture, and precision fermentation on the other hand. It also includes hybrids such digital agroecology.

In view of the transformative ambitions and actions needed for food systems transformation, agrifood innovation (eco)systems have become increasingly mission-driven.

In this seminar, Professor Laurens Klerkx will talk about how mission-driven agrifood innovation (eco)systems have emerged, touching on aspects such as the shapes and boundaries of mission-oriented agrifood innovation (eco)systems, the role of transformative innovation policies for both innovation and exnovation, and the politics and limitations of mission-driven agrifood innovation (eco)systems. Klerkx will give a few examples of what emerging mission-driven agrifood innovation (eco)systems look like in practice, from experiences in countries such as The Netherlands, New Zealand, and Chile.

About the speaker

Laurens Klerkx is Full Professor of Agrifood Innovation and Transition at the University of Talca, Chile, and visiting full professor at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Initially trained in plant production systems science, he moved to doing social science on innovation in and transformation of agrifood systems. His interests and expertise are in agricultural advisory services, agricultural innovation systems, transformative innovation policy, agrifood system digitalization, and most recently agrifoodtech start-up ecosystems. With his team of PhD and postdoc researchers, as well as international colleagues, he has published widely on these topics over the past 20 years. He was editor-in-chief of The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension and is currently editor of Agricultural Systems.