Dedeurwaerdere Tom

Food retailers are powerful actors of the agro-industrial food system. They exert strong lock-in effects that hinder transitions towards more sustainable agri-food systems. Indeed, their marketing practices generally result in excluding the most sustainable food products, such as local, low-input, small-scale farmers’ products. Recently in Belgium, several initiatives have been created to enable the introduction of local products on supermarket shelves. In this article, we study three of those initiatives to analyse if the development of local sourcing in supermarkets opens up an opportunity for a transition towards more sustainable agri-food systems. We conceptualise transitions as a shift in governance and ethical values and adopt a pragmatist approach of ethics combined with the systemic perspective of transition studies, to evaluate the impact of these initiatives. Our analysis shows that they mainly contribute to the reproduction of the incumbent agri-food system. It also highlights that first, to be a driver for sustainability transitions, food ethics need to be systemic i.e. relate to a systemic understanding of problems and perspective of sustainability, including social justice. And second, it highlights that governance arrangements involving not only representative organisations of the various agri-food and non-agricultural actors, but also actors upholding ethical values that are currently missing in conventional supply chains and representing excluded and marginalised interests, favour the uptake of such systemic ethics by incumbent actors. Hence, systemic ethics and inclusive governance are key features for initiatives to contribute to a sustainability transition.

Recent work by Piers Stephens has established axiological pluralism as the common element between various strands of theorizing in environmental ethics. However, a tension still exists in contemporary theories between the need for practical convergence among the values through rational argumentation and the experience of the motivational power of the value orientations in living human experience. The pragmatist phenomenological foundation for a pluralist environmental ethics developed in the philosophy of William James is consistent with the contemporary theories, while potentially solving some of their tensions. In particular, the proposed approach of James adds a deeper layer of experiential values, which are not always considered in the public discursive practices and which often mobilize non‐scientific and not explicitly rational motivations and beliefs (including the environmental as well as the psychological, social, and cultural). In doing so, the phenomenological pragmatism of William James opens up an avenue for integrating experiential values into a broadened pluralist environmental ethics.

Focused on the impact of stringent intellectual property mechanisms over the uses of plant agricultural biodiversity in crop improvement, the article delves into a systematic analysis of the relationship between institutional paradigms and their technological contexts of application, identified as mass selection, controlled hybridisation, molecular breeding tools and transgenics. While the strong property paradigm has proven effective in the context of major leaps forward in genetic engineering, it faces a systematic breakdown when extended to mass selection, where innovation often displays a collective nature. However, it also creates partial blockages in those innovation schemes rested between on-farm observation and genetic modification, i.e. conventional plant breeding and upstream molecular biology research tools. Neither overly strong intellectual property rights, nor the absence of well delineated protection have proven an optimal fit for these two intermediary socio-technological systems of cumulative incremental innovation. To address these challenges, the authors look at appropriate institutional alternatives which can create effective incentives for in situ agrobiodiversity conservation and the equitable distribution of technologies in plant improvement, using the flexibilities of the TRIPS Agreement, the liability rules set forth in patents or plant variety rights themselves, and other ad hoc reward regimes

This chapter examines the role of social learning in the governance of the forest ecosystem service through a case study that involves forest groups in Flanders, Belgium, where social learning has generated significant results within a short period. The case study specifically focuses on three social learning mechanisms extensively used in managing social-ecological systems. These mechanisms include a monitoring strategy based on sustainability criteria and indicators as a liberal learning device, experimenting with disruptive action strategies, and involving new stakeholders in the learning process. The forest groups focus on instrumental and social trust to create trust between the government and the forest owners. Multifunctional forest management is the most effective strategy of extending forest-based services in Flanders. These strategies have produced significant results in Flanders in a short period.