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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Crop improvements for future‐proofing European food systems
T2 - A focus‐group‐driven analysis of agricultural production stakeholder priorities and viewpoints
AU - Stetkiewicz, Stacia
AU - Menary, Jonathan
AU - Nair, Abhishek
AU - Rufino, Mariana C.
AU - Fischer, Arnout R.H.
AU - Cornelissen, Marc
AU - Duchesne, Remi
AU - Guichaoua, Adrien
AU - Jorasch, Petra
AU - Lemarié, Stephane
AU - Nanda, Amrit K.
AU - Wilhelm, Ralf
AU - Davies, Jessica A.C.
PY - 2023/1/30
Y1 - 2023/1/30
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - ORIGINAL ARTICLE
KW - ORIGINAL ARTICLES
KW - focus groups
KW - plant breeding
KW - stakeholder engagement
KW - sustainable food systems
U2 - 10.1002/fes3.362
DO - 10.1002/fes3.362
M3 - Journal article
VL - 12
JO - Food and Energy Security
JF - Food and Energy Security
SN - 2048-3694
IS - 1
M1 - e362
ER -