Click here for the complete workshop report and materials

With the Foresight4Food Initiative’s second workshop successfully wrapped up and follow-up activities underway, this post reflects on the event as a whole. Hosted in Montpellier with the excellent support of MUSE, CIRAD, GFAR, and ACIAR, the workshop brought together individuals from a diverse range of foresight institutions, organizations, and projects from around the world.

Exploring what foresight entails formed the foundation of the workshop, exemplified by a set of presentations on past and on-going foresight initiatives by workshop participants on the first day. Participants agreed that ‘foresight’ encompasses a host of different processes and steps, and instead of being solely combined to predicting the future, it provides the opportunity space of accomplishing many things. For example, foresight identifies trends and drivers within the food system (and others), weak signals, tipping points, ‘steam trains’, ‘black swans’, and unintended consequences of actions. It reframes narratives and problems that allow decision-makers to consider broader perspectives that include factors like technological, socio-political, and governance issues linked to the problem. Foresight allows one to acknowledge and understand the existing boundaries and rules of the system, and thus create a well-defined space within which actors can create creative opportunities and solutions.

This discussion on foresight is and what it can be then benefited from an exploration of the issues impacting methodology. A panel with stakeholders from CIRAD, IIASA, and IIED sparked a discussion about choices made in developing foresight methodologies and their impact on developing models and scenarios. Questions around stakeholder expectations, decisions on the timeframe and spatial scale of analyses, and operating with the differing agendas and priorities of the collaborators and stakeholders were raised and discussed. The value of open and accessible communication of foresight models and research was emphasised, but limitations around communicating complicated language to the wider public and policy-makers were explored, along with the underlying assumptions of different models.  While the lack of data in certain contexts can be a problem in creating useful models, the trap of too much data and its role in impacting economic results was also examined. The panel in discussion with the workshop summarized the issues with an emphasis on process instead of tools and results, the inclusion of technological change, social innovation, and the geopolitical dimensions of food system issues, and the value of bridging disciplines and approaches in future foresight approaches. The questions and themes raised in this panel proved valuable in thinking through the themes around the future of the Foresight4Food Initiative on the second and third days.

In discussion with the panel, and with Jim Woodhill’s framework for foresight approaches, ‘solutions’ to the methodological issues were explored. Creating emotional incentives for change, or the increased potential of the ‘emotional economy’, in combination with the difficult questions that foresight actors need to (but might not) engage with can be a useful way of encouraging the use of foresight in decision-making. It is however, important not to keep the focus on policy-makers only, but ensure a rich diversity of stakeholders, such as the private sector and youth groups. The value of instilling ‘future literacy’ in people, to ensure that the underlying anticipatory assumptions are acknowledged and managed at participatory foresight sessions, and to more broadly have the level of future literacy to have foresight oriented decision-making at all institutional and spatial levels. A common underlying theme to the discussions throughout the workshop was the value of food systems thinking. The significance of food system drivers (such as population growth, migration, climate change, etc.), the impacts of system-level shocks in the short and long-term, and the increasing number and magnitude of food system concerns in terms of health, environment, ethics, and economics influence the process and outcome of all major foresight initiatives and projects.

After a series of foundational plenaries and panel discussions, the workshop was focused on advancing the Foresight4Food Initiative. Working from the concept note and the outcomes of the first workshop in Oxford, the workshop organizers were keen on establishing future directions for the Initiative. Going into the working groups for each thematic area, the workshop had determined the following key principles and areas of interest for the Initiative:

• Considering foresight as a process towards achieving broader objectives
• Synthesis is a useful way of underlining differences and alternative approaches and narratives
• The Initiative must ensure that the right questions are being asked for the foresight process
• Interactions in a foresight process are better served by being circular and iterative instead of linear
• Creating ‘safe spaces’ within pathways for actors to find creative transformative opportunities and to reduce risk

The working groups then spent the major part of Day 3 at Agropolis International developing a detailed work plan and objectives for each thematic area. The outcomes from each working group can be found in the Workshop Report. In summary, the working groups concluded that there is great value in the Foresight4Food Initiative in continuing, but shifting its role towards a coordinating body with strong linkages with other convening bodies (such as CFS and GFAR), to accomplish its various stated goals. It was determined that future meetings with Foresight4Food must deliver on one of the objectives and themes and the time in between best served with determining funding sources and establishing a governance structure and advisory board for the Initiative. The workshop report, the outputs from the working groups, and the energy and momentum for the Oxford and Montpellier workshops will be taken forward with the help of the Steering Group towards transforming the Initiative to best serve the needs of the foresight community.

Blog by Saher Hasnain – Research and Community of Practice Coordinator

Knowing what the future holds is never easy, and as often as not our predictions can turn out to be quite wrong.

But some things we do know.  A sugary fatty diet with too little exercise will make us obese, with a high chance of ending up with diabetes.  If many of us follow this path the health costs to society will be sore.  Constantly cropping soils and not returning nutrients will lead to yield declines. Excessively over fishing will cause fisheries to collapse. Poor nutrition in childhood will lead to stunting with lifelong impacts.

If we piece together what we currently know about the ways we are consuming and producing food there are very good reasons to be very concerned, even highly alarmed about the long term implications.  There is growing widespread recognition that a massive transformation is needed in our food systems to tackle hunger, enable good health, protect the environment and ensure long-term food security.

Yet, many aspects of our food systems are trending the wrong way, and our efforts to change this seem badly aligned with the likely future consequences of not taking sufficient action soon enough.

Now already a decade ago, the global food price crisis of 2008 highlighted the social and political risks when things go wrong in the food system. In part, this prompted the UK Governments 2011 Foresight Study on the “Future of Food and Farming”.  The outcomes of which led the UK Chief Scientific Advisor to warn that the world was heading towards a perfect storm of increased demand for food, resource depletion and negative impacts of climate change.

But setting our food systems on a more sustainable and resilient path is a complex challenge with many interacting factors from local to global scales.  Change will require concerted and coordinated efforts from government and business. But what will motivate leaders to drive change and what will motivate citizens to demand change. And if there is such motivation for change how does one know the best thing to do.

This is where foresight comes in.  Not to try and predict the future,  but rather to intelligently engage citizens and leaders in a better understanding of what is currently going on, what the future consequence could be and what might be alternative pathways with more desirable outcomes.

Intelligent perspectives on the future requires science – to get the best data we can on what is currently happening; to explore and understand relationships between different parts of the system; to model how things could change; and, to invent new technologies and ways of doing things that would be an improvement.

However, while foresight needs science, foresight is not only about science.  Foresight requires informed dialogue between people, and it hinges on discussions about values and ethics, what are desirable futures and how these might be realised.

Foresight4Food is an emerging initiative supported by a widening group of international organisations, food systems researchers, business players and civil society organisations.  The collective aim is to enhance foresight and scenario analysis for the global food system.  Those involved recognise that while there is much food systems research, foresight, scenario analysis and modelling going on it is often fragmented.  There is a need for better synthesis, and for improvements in how food system changes are explained and visualised.  And, better connections are needed between science and processes of policy dialogue, business engagement and societal learning.

Jim Woodhill – Foresight4Food Initiative Lead

Honorary Research Associate, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford

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