WP4: Synthetic Proteins as Disruptors of Global Food Systems

While the scale and style of the challenge to existing food systems from novel artificial proteins seems like a very new phenomenon, it actually has a number of precedents in prior disruptions to food systems. This work package will consider how past disruptions in food systems can inform the way that contemporary industry, sector and policy decision-makers can make sense of and strategically plan for future disruptions.

The work package unfolds in two stages:

  • Historical Cases: using the template deployed by Rob Burton* to examine major disruptions in vegetable dyes and natural flavouring by artificial substitutes, two historical case studies of industry disruption in New Zealand will be explored. First, the transition from wool to synthetic fibres in the decades after WWII, and second the increasing competition for butter from margarine in the 1970s and 80s. Both of these cases can potentially reveal dynamics of appropriation and substitution in agrifood systems.
  • Contemporary strategies and scenarios: using the results of the historical cases of food system disruption, a set of potential scenarios for impact of artificial proteins will be developed for the New Zealand and Norwegian beef, dairy and sheep sectors. The scenarios will form the basis of a programme of in-depth interviews with industry stakeholders, policy-makers and other groups who would be potentially influential in shaping the future response to artificial proteins in the pastoral production sector in New Zealand and Norway.

Results from these interviews will be used to inform some of the modelling choices in other work packages in the Protein 2.0 programme.

WP manager: Hugh Campell

 

*Burton, R. J. F. (2019)’ The potential impact of synthetic animal protein on livestock production: The new “war against agriculture”?’ Journal of Rural Studies 68: 33-45.