INRAE FAO seminar: sharing practices to strengthen methods

A day combining theory and case studies

The operational nature of foresight was underlined in the introduction to the day. Foresight is not just an intellectual exercise; it must give rise to action and enable shared objectives to be achieved, working, for example, on both biophysical and socio-economic issues. It is also a good tool for encouraging dialogue between stakeholders, as its dynamics are iterative and plastic, adapting to contexts and interlocutors. A theoretical review, defining prospective scenarios and methods as a function of context, and presenting the link between qualitative, or narrative, elements and quantitative aspects through modeling, then set the scene for practical case presentations.

The FAO "Future Of Food and Agriculture - Drivers and Triggers for Transformation" (FOFA-DTT) foresight project provided examples of how foresight exercises can be articulated at different scales. It was shown, for example, that the global scale enables the coherence of evolutionary hypotheses at world level, while the local scale enables the emergence of trans-regional interdependencies which, when fed back to the global level, enrich the scenarios.

The presentation of INRAE's "Pesticide-free European Agriculture in 2050" (AEsP) foresight study helped illustrate the methods presented in the day's introduction: scenario development on a European scale, downscaling, backcasting and modeling. In addition, the results of modelling carried out as part of the AEsP project showed that, provided there is a change in diet, doing without pesticides is associated with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and has an effect on Europe's position in agricultural trade. The backcasting of a scenario developed by AEsP in Italy enabled stakeholders to understand the reduction in pesticide use by putting the scenario to the test. In this way, the result of the exercise is not only the production of a transition trajectory for a scenario applied to a region and a crop, but it is the concrete application of the foresight exercise, thus changing the practice of stakeholders.

The rest of the day emphasized the importance of the participative aspect of foresight exercises, using tools such as serious games to put foresight into practice. The day ended with a round-table discussion bringing together various players (representatives of the OECD, EU, United Nations, Vienna University of Technology), who were invited to reflect on the day's presentations and the major issues at stake, namely multi-scale approaches, the transformation of agri-food systems, the use of foresight by public authorities and ways of communicating about foresight exercises.

Foresight, a discipline between science and politics

In conclusion, it was recalled that foresight can be used to inform decisions from the local to the global scale. At the interface between science and politics, foresight can be used to analyze the political economy factors that stand in the way of change. The temporal dimension of foresight has given rise to reflection on the relationship between decision-making and its impacts: some are irreversible in the very long term, so what seems to be today's emergency must be part of a long-term vision. Last but not least, integrating the various stakeholders, including the younger generations, is fundamental to foresight as a tool for transformation. 

We wish to thank the experts from the FAO, the European Commission -DG AGRI and JRC-, the OECD, WUR, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, IIASA, the United Nations SDSN (Sustainable) program, the Austrian Institute of Technology and INRAE for sharing their views on the global and local dynamics of transitions in agrifood systems.