Martin Espig

The circular bioeconomy (CBE) is an evolving paradigm that promotes sustainable economic development. Artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as an important enabler within this paradigm, offering capabilities that could significantly enhance operational efficiencies and innovation. Despite its recognized potential, the full value of Al across the diverse areas of the CBE remains underexplored. This paper introduces a novel framework for assessing and harnessing the role of Al to facilitate a transition towards a CBE. The framework was developed through an interdisciplinary literature review and conceptual modeling. The framework maps ten key CBE domains against eight core AI functions (such as prediction, optimization, and discovery) that can be leveraged to enhance the circularity of bioeconomic processes. A case study on biowaste valorization, employing a framework-guided literature review methodology, demonstrates the framework’s utility in identifying research gaps and opportunities in using AI. The case study reveals a current emphasis on AI for prediction and optimization tasks, while highlighting significant underutilization in discovery and design functions. The framework can help guide researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders in identifying and deploying AI-driven solutions that help support a more sustainable bioeconomy.

Current models for the work of science communicators are not always well suited to handling a complex array of different types of expertise and varied stakeholders engaged in wicked problems, such as grand challenges where technology and science are entangled with political, economic, cultural, environmental, and historical issues. When science communicators are called on to increase trust in science and scientific institutions in the eyes of diverse actors, useful insight comes from considering what Irwin (in Routledge Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology. Routledge, 2021) refers to as third-order thinking about science communication. This framing directs attention to messiness, epistemic asymmetries, and reflexivity in a way that resonates with the authors’ experiences as professional science communicators. These conceptual elements are laid out here as a work-in-progress to describe how they help us to comprehend and navigate complex communication challenges.

This Special Issue utilizes a transdisciplinary lens to analyse how environment-related problems are being framed and communicated in different settings

Agricultural and pastoral (A&P) shows have a long history in New Zealand, dating back to the early settler‐colonial period. We approach A&P shows as places where non‐farming publics can experience agricultural activities, which can help to build the trusted relationships needed for a social licence to farm. Drawing on participant observation at five A&P shows across the Canterbury region, we highlight what is visible and invisible in the image of farming life performed through A&P show activities. In doing so, we identify tensions that threaten their future, and opportunities for dialogue that could enhance social licence to farm.

Over the past 50 years, farming practices and public perceptions of farming in Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ) have changed substantially. These changes raise questions over the future relationship between farming communities and the public. Recent research challenges the assumption that perceptions of farming differ significantly between farmers and the public. Using two recent surveys in AoNZ, we apply the social licence to operate concept using the ‘good farmer’ as a foundation. We find perceptions of ‘good farming’ practices held by the public and farmers are relatively aligned, but these groups may have different interpretations despite core messages aligning. Farmers were trusted as a source of information more than mainstream media by both groups. Increasing alignment of ‘good farmer’ perceptions between the groups can lead to an increase in perceived trustworthiness of farmers as an information source by the public. Our findings contribute to the emerging body of literature showing the perceived ‘rural/urban divide’ may not be as large as believed. These insights extend the literature by finding strong alignment of perceptions and nuanced interpretations of good farming practices by the public and farmers. Further investigation can contribute to constructive societal conversations about agriculture's social licence in AoNZ.

Herbicide resistance is increasingly recognised as a challenge for agricultural producers worldwide. International scholarship and practical experiences suggest that collective efforts by diverse agricultural stakeholders are crucial for effective resistance management. In New Zealand, such sector-wide initiatives and strategies remain fragmented, partly due to a lack of state coordination and national extension services. This article synthesises insights from three complementary social research methods involving actors across the country’s arable-crop-growing sector (focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and an industry workshop) to identify pathways to foster collaboration and more strategic resistance management. The presented findings detail challenges, opportunities, and potential actions across four domains: strengths and weaknesses of New Zealand’s farming context, better information and knowledge exchange, improved collaboration and coordination, and targeted education and training. Our analysis highlights that most opportunities described within these domains involve purposely strengthening existing, or forming new, social and institutional relationships as part of establishing resistance management as a shared sector responsibility. A portfolio of multipronged initiatives and programmes is then required for effective whole-industry strategies. We discuss potential next steps to collectively realise identified opportunities, from more immediately feasible steps to long-term activities. These insights conceptually contribute to the international scholarship on herbicide resistance by reinforcing the notion that industry leadership and meaningful farmer involvement are indispensable for more collaborative approaches aimed at strategically managing resistance.

Synthetic herbicides have revolutionised agricultural weed control. Herbicide resistance (HR) is a natural process through which weeds evolve to be no longer susceptible to a herbicide. Repeated use of similar herbicides can lead to the proliferation of resistant weed populations, with detrimental on-farm effects. To date, 267 weed species worldwide are resistant to at least one herbicide. Yet, achieving universal uptake of best practice principles to manage HR remains difficult. Historically not a high priority for New Zealand cropping farmers, resistance may be more prevalent than commonly assumed. This article contributes to emerging national management strategies and the international scholarship on the human dimensions of HR. Regarding resistance as a socio-biological challenge, we draw on qualitative social research with agricultural stakeholders in New Zealand’s main cropping region to outline important psychosocial preconditions for effective resistance management. Our findings show that these preconditions include: influencing awareness and attitudes, knowledge and skills; approaching HR as a shared responsibility; and supporting long-term and holistic thinking. We conclude that these preconditions form the social foundations for agricultural stakeholders’ capacity to enact best practice principles to continuously re-solve HR. This novel framing allows analytical differentiation between the capacity and ability to act, with practical recommendations and future research needing to address both components of effective HR management.

The use of digital technologies in agriculture has received significant attention in the last decade. There is increasing interest in the potential opportunities for digitalization at a broader bioeconomy scale; however, there is limited knowledge of the potential barriers to a digital bioeconomy. This chapter reviews current knowledge on barriers to digital agriculture and uses a case study to relate these barriers to the bioeconomy scale. We found that adoption barriers are not just technical, but include economic, social, and institutional dimensions, and occur at multiple scales involving technology design, farm systems (including supply chains), the agricultural innovation system, and society. Additionally, these barriers can be highly interconnected. For example technical issues around data interoperability cannot be addressed independently of social issues at the farm scale related to perceptions around privacy and transparent use of farmer data. Examining these multi-dimensional and multi-scale issues through a bioeconomy lens highlights the need for directionality in digital bioeconomy innovation and alignment of national policies and initiatives. Rather than assuming that greater use of digital tools is inherently positive for a national bioeconomy, nations should purposely assess and anticipate the potential implications of digitalization. Our review highlights three opportunities for directionality in the digital bioeconomy. The first is for technology design and development to directly respond to and address societal (not only end-user) needs and barriers to uptake. The second is to design and develop data governance, business models, and standards for data, which are transparent, inspire trust, and share benefits of digital technologies among supply chain stakeholders. The third is to considerably broaden the assessment of societal value from digital agriculture. Addressing the adoption barriers to the digital bioeconomy will come from integrated applications of digitalization that are purpose or ‘mission’ led, rather than inherently techno-centric.