With a background in analysis, ecology and farm systems Ben Hancock found himself increasingly disturbed by the surging wave of regulatory demands hitting farmers, including his own parents’ on the family property in Martinborough.
“And the sheer volume of regulatory demands coming along were proving unrelenting, from zero carbon, water quality, biodiversity and health-safety, there has been a lot in a relatively short period of time.”
That concern prompted the Beef + Lamb analyst to pursue a Nuffield Scholarship to find tools to help build greater societal trust between farmers and consumers.
In the process he hoped to see farmers better understand the mindset and thought processes that result in parts of society objecting to some or all aspects of modern farming.
With his own background in ecology at doctorate level he has had discussions with beekeepers and farmers well able to understand relatively high-level concepts and systems as part of their work.
But that appreciation or understanding of why they do certain things in their system does not always translate to consumer understanding. The result is a lack of trust and regulation to fill the resulting gap between society and farmers.
“The best approach for agriculture to deal with such issues is to try to front foot them but I soon found the usual approaches we may take are not necessarily the best.”
The popular go-to tool for explaining aspects of farming to consumers is the expert or farmer-led discussion.
“This comes up time and time again as a means to convey a certain approach by agri groups.”
But, like most approaches he examined, the top-down, experts-know-best one usually fails to understand the motivations and thought processes of lay consumers – why it matters to them.
“It is difficult to engage the public on a technical level and it also becomes very arduous. Expertise is important but it is only a fraction of the decision-making process.”
While attending a California University Davis conference he stumbled across a presentation on bio-ethics given by renowned bio-ethicist Anne Barnhill of Johns Hopkins University. Her work focuses on the ethics of food and agriculture.
Bioethics is the study of ethical challenges that arise from biology and medicine, dealing with the ethical questions that crop up in the crossover between sciences, politics, law and philosophy.
But bio-ethics can extend well beyond typical medical dilemmas facing health providers.
“We began a conversation on the benefits of bio-ethics, looking not at what are ethics, but as an outcome of the belief, values and morals held by a group.
“A farmer will assess benefits of a technology on their system in terms of production, business or lifestyle. However, this is through their own perspective or values and they may not align with those held by the wider society and affected parties.”
One of the potential bio-ethical tools is the ethical matrix.
It comprises scientific and economic data on the challenge being dealt with. But it also includes assessments of risk and uncertainty, the intrinsic value of different life forms and knowledge levels including folk and tacit.
Including the last two softer parameters gives the ability to get deeper into the minds of consumers while including the farmer’s experience.
“If you were to apply it in a New Zealand context that last point about knowledge could include tikanga Maori farmer knowledge, something not held necessarily in a quantified form.”
He was given a relevant example by Professor Carl Kaiser of Norway’s Bergen University. Kaiser was examining the acceptability of transgenic salmon farming.
“He had brought in the views of consumers, processors, farmers and interest groups when they were examining the acceptability of this fish. This contrasted with the far more fact and expert-driven, technical stance taken by the United States Food and Drug administration.”
Hancock said the salmon approach has a lot of relevance for NZ as the industry starts to again debate the application of genetic technology in farming.
“It is about identifying values and issues and incorporating them before issues arise later on and have to be untangled.”
Hancock knows some farmers can be dismissive of what consumers think about a practice because of their lack of knowledge and experience.
“But now more than ever farming is prominent and part of society and that is why it features so high in society’s values and why wider society cares. Using these tools is not just solving issues for farming, it’s solving them for society.”
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The report is at Nuffield Ropert 2019 – Ben Hancock
