Book in progress workshop “Social justice and agricultural innovation”

The book “Social justice and agricultural innovation” seeks to incorporate the use of theories of justice in the systematic assessment of new technologies and methods in food production. Influenced by the discussion on environmental justice and its later applications to the fields of energy, food and climate, I have developed a framework to discuss the social justice issues we can find in agricultural innovation in terms of six categories. I hereby depart from the traditional emphasis on distributive justice, justice in exchange and procedural justice by including three additional dimensions: contributive justice, intergenerational justice and restorative justice. In addition to the classic problems of access and availability of innovations, and processes to reduce harms and involve stakeholders, this framework also allows to analyse key contemporary problems such as participation, long-term sustainability and reconciliation measures.

After discussing the introduction and the general framework of the book, in the workshop we will examine in details two chapters:

Distributing research attention: In this chapter research attention is understood as a distributive good. An overview of inequalities in research attention is provided, together with justifications and conflicts of redressing these inequalities.

Intergenerational justice and science for long-term agricultural sustainability: This chapter introduces the link between innovation and the interests of future generations, it discusses the opportunity to live in harmony with the natural environment as a special interest, and argues for the need to offer compensatory public goods for future generations and its limitations.Cristian Timmermann