Key Note addrees at the DAE/OGA conference in Ljubljana on de role of agricultural economists in policy design with the EU Framework Law on Sustinable food systems as an example

1. Sustainable Food Systems
and the Role of the
Agricultural Economist in
Policy Design
Krijn Poppe
Slovenia, September 2022

2. Challenging times
 The debate seems increasingly being framed as inflation and food security versus
sustainability. Is it a trade-off ?

3. What does this imply for our role?
 Built upon Fresco et al (2021): explore the use of Design thinking
 Illustrate this . Case of the EU Framework Law for Sustainable Food Systems
 I would like to discuss the role of agricultural economists in this debate
 we should not only explain human behaviour and evaluate policy proposals
 but also actively contribute to the design of food system policies.

4. Content
 The call for design thinking
 Case: Framework Law on SFS and advise of the EEAC
 3 stages from design thinking illustrated
 Problem faming
 Design principles
 Solution thinking
(method in this format, case results in green slide format)
 Reflection and Conclusion

5. Conclusions from Fresco et al., 2022 (ERAE paper)
 Economists do not play such a big role in policy as
in the 1950s and 1960s
 Standard Ag. Econ. techniques will survive
 Grand challenges: rethink to remain relevant
 Grand challenges require a food systems approach
 This asks for a better collaboration with other
(quasi-)disciplines and stakeholder engagement
 Multidisciplinary approach does not come
automatically: barriers and partial solutions
 Revolutionary development of ICT helps
 NIE is an attractive framework, also for designing
‘We are not students of some subject matter, but students of problems. And problems
may cut right across the borders of any subject matter or discipline.’ Karl Popper - 1963

6. Raising the impact of Food Systems economists
 Design of institutions and governance of
the food system (desirable futures)
● New institutional economics
● Legislative framework on sustainable
food system (Farm to Fork)
 Big data economics, the data and
platform economy:
● Deluge of data in precision farming
● Sustainability data (FADN >> FSDN)
● True costs of activities and products
● Data food environment, lifestyle and
health (FNH-RI)
● Business modelling in data economy
Digital Twin

7. Design thinking
 Design thinking (aka design science) tries to extend the boundaries
of human and organizational capabilities by creating new and
innovative artifacts.
 Knowledge and understanding of a problem domain and its
solution are achieved through the building and application of a
designed artifact to solve identified organizational problems.
 Artifacts are often material products but can also be software, a
service or a new business concept.
 A policy(proposal) is also man-made - can be seen as an artifact
that is designed
 Designing is a creative process, that benefits from a well organised
approach.
 UK Design Council: Discover (insight into the problem), Define (the
area to focus upon), Develop (potential solu-tions), Deliver
(solutions that work).

8. Design thinking
 Design thinking is especially useful in ill-defined or wicked problems to find new
approaches by using creative methods.
 The wickedness of the problem often asks to pay extra attention to the problem
framing, and often the understanding created in later stages by working on solutions,
provides a better understanding of the problem (Discover) and the problem area to
focus on (Define). Co-evolution of framing and solutions
 Design principles can help in creating (ideation) and evaluating alternative solutions.
Especially in this phase also creative methods and tools are useful.
 In this paper: Design thinking in three steps: Problem framing, design principles and
solution thinking.
 The wicked problem: the grand challenges in the European food system
 The artifact: Framework law on sustainable food systems as proposed by the EU
Commission to tackle the grand challenges

9. Case work by the EEAC Network
 The European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils Network (EEAC
Network) brings together advisory bodies established by national or regional governments or
parliaments. EEAC members offer independent advice to their respective national or regional
governments and parliaments related to climate change, the environment and sustainable
development.
 The work carried out between October 2021 and June 2022 with an ad-hoc group of experts
 Members brought in the national experiences and their national high-level advises on the grand
challenges.
 Due to the Covid-19 situation all meetings were carried out online, with the exception of one
meeting with stakeholders in Brussels.
 The work was not set up as an ideal experiment to investigate the use of design thinking in a
multidisciplinary team – as a rapporteur I underpin our approach and experiences with design
thinking approaches.

10. Problem framing
 Wicked problems: socially complex with incomplete, contradictory, and changing
requirements that are often difficult to recognize.
 Stakeholders typically do not agree on the problem description and they debate the
problem and solutions based on different data, and with different interests and values
(OECD, 2021).
 Interest groups are sometimes tempted to create uncertainty concerning facts, also by
commissioning research, as a tactic
 interaction between facts, interests and values makes the right framing a policy
problem difficult, but also very important and part of the solution.
 We used:
 literature that set out the sustainability issues
 calls for a systemic food system policy
 national work from advisory councils
 lack of interesting designs for a sustainable food system policy.
 The Green Deal proposals of the European Com-mission also lack clarity on this
point. >> partial policy evaluations (e.g. USDA-ERS, WUR)

11. Institutional change and coherent policy package is needed
for a Food System approach
Price
Quantity
Demand
Supply
Current
price
Export to feed
10 bln ??
Less waste
Less (animal)
protein
More sustainable
BioTech, plantbased meat,
vertical farming, insects etc.
(Digital) knowledge / Precision
Agriculture
Less
chemicals
Social policy for food insecure
persons: not a price but an
income problem
Current volume
Create market like
in energy, mobility
Organise platform
economy
True cost

12. Problem framing
 Transition thinking helps. Four stages
(Simons and Nijhof, 2021):
 Last 75 years the policy incentivized the
actors to produce plenty of food at low
prices, make EU a net-exporter.
 Innovation focussed on higher labour
productivity.
 Negative effects on the environment and
some food and lifestyle related diseases with
consumers
 Food system policy should internalise the
external costs
 Farmers and consumers are not sovereign,
not able to change the food system. They are
economically weak, but politically strong:
polluter pay principle difficult to apply
Stage Government
Inception Subsidise experiments
Competitive
Advantage
Launching customer
Pro-competitive
collaboration
Influence consumer
behaviour
Institutiona-
lisation
Political leadership &
announce regulation for
the new normal

13. Food chain: 2 weak spots – opportunity?
Input industries
Farmer
Food processor
Consumer Retail
• Public health issues –
obesity, Diabetes-2 etc.
• Climate change asks for
changes in diet
• Strong structural change
• Environmental costs
need to be internalised
• Climate change (GHG)
strengthens this
Is it coincidence that these 2 are the weakest groups?
Are these issues business opportunities / market failure?
Or system failure and lack of transformative capacity?

14. Results: Our (re- and re)framing of the problem
 Triple challenge: a healthy diet for all, climate change, biodiversity
 The EU food system is robust, but it does not ensure sustainable diets
 A system approach is needed: there is too much focus on the actors where the problems are observed.
 Rethinking the roles of all the actors is needed: framework law is needed
 Direct the strong innovation capacity of actors away from ever lower food prices towards more sustainable
farming, food processing and food consumption. The true costs of food should be reflected in markets.
 A just transition towards sustainable diets is key. Compensate lack of affordability in income taxes,
minimum wages or social security
 The problem can be framed as the question how to coordinate these
changes and to overcome silos in policy making. This demands a food
system policy with clear objectives that balances economic, ecological and
social aspects.

15. Design Principles
 Helps in thinking about ideas that might be part of the solution.
 It also helps to evaluate different proposed solutions.
 Although it might reduce the solution space
 Part of these discussions took place during the next stages of the design process: a
hotly debated solution hints to a design principle.
 Several more or less creative methods can be used to identify the design principles
 Design principles are the policy principles / considerations (preambles) in a law.
 Article 39 TFEU as an example for the core of a Framework Law on Sustainable Food
Systems

16. Results: Design / Policy princlples
 Relations with third countries inside and outside Europe
 Relations with other sectors using biomass
 Income effects of food system policies
 The need to move to a circular economy
 Income effects of food system policies that effect the standard of living of
farmers or workers
 The rapidly increasing possibilities based on digitalisa-tion for effective policy
instruments
 The major differences in environmental conditions for agriculture between
European regions in terms of natu-ral conditions
 The role of the food environment in nudging the consumer into sustainable
consumption.

17. Results: Design / Policy princlples
 To guarantee a resilient European food system that ensures sustainable diets
with low environmental and ethical impacts that contribute to food and
nutrition security and to a healthy life for present and future generations by
enabling that
1. healthy, sustainable diets are available for all European consumers at prices that reflect their
true cost in coherence with ‘the polluter pays’ principle.
2. food is produced in adequate quantities, with processes that result in environmental and
ethical per-formance that is as best as reasonably achievable and regenerate climate-resilient,
healthy agro-systems.
3. the food system works as inclusively as possible and relations between food chain actors are
balanced which results in livelihoods with fair incomes and working conditions for farmers and
workers.
4. new technologies are developed and best available technologies in relation to climate change
and eco-system services are promoted, respecting the pre-cautionary principle.

18. Solution thinking: policy design
 Ideation for innovative artifacts. Much creativity
can be applied.
 Experience and a mental or more explicit model
on how (in our case) the food system works,
where there are promising new developments
and where there are bottlenecks in innovation.
 Benchmarking with other sectors can be
inspirational.
 A sense of what is politically feasible helps to
come up with realistic policy advise.

19. Results: Main solutions (policy instruments)
 Pricing instruments, with taxes or instruments like the Emission Trading System
 Certification: To redirect innovation, classification of food into more or less sustainable types of
food >> Certification of all farms, based on digitization of paperwork
 Reward sustainable farms (soft interventions): label (niche) products, public procurement, chain
actors report in ESG report, award eco-schemes CAP, support in land market.
 Reward sustainable farms with a blending obligation (include importers, compensate low
incomes)
 Monitoring the impact of sustainable food policies (FSDN to monitor trade-offs and true costs;
certification results of farms in IACS).
 Governance of the EU food system: Commissioners coordinate policies, National Plans,
Coordinate EU and MS, citizen’s assemblies.

20. Reflection and conclusion
 research on human behaviour in the food system
and applied research in policy evaluation should
stay
 But more attention to poicy design is needed,
 To reorient the food system to more sustainable
performance
 We do not have many tools in our toolbox to do
this in a scientific mode.
 Design thinking could help – this was a first
attempt to create a Framework law on
sustainable food systems as an artifact
 Explicit attention to problem framing, design
principles and solution thinking in co-evolution
proved to be useful

21. krijn.poppe@wur.nl
www.wur.nl
kjpoppe@hccnet.nl
Thanks for
your
attention