Home / The social implications agri-genomics: Ensuring a just transition to climate-resilient agricultural and food systems in Canada
The social implications agri-genomics: Ensuring a just transition to climate-resilient agricultural and food systems in Canada
Generating solutions
Status
Competition
Genome Centre(s)
GE3LS
Project Leader(s)
- Stefania Pizzirani (University of the Fraser Valley) and Robert Newell (Royal Roads University),
Fiscal Year Project Launched
Project Description
Emerging agri-genomics technologies, such as cellular agriculture and gene editing, can make Canada’s food system more climate resilient, sustainable and secure. They might even help Canada reach its 2030/2050 emissions targets in food systems by increasing agricultural production efficiency, sequestering carbon and reducing food waste.
However, agri-genomics technologies exist in an unequal world and the social impacts of these technologies must be understood and considered. They bring benefits but also drawbacks, particularly for marginalized groups like farmers and fishers who face livelihood disruptions, precariously-employed migrant farm and food workers, Indigenous communities, food insecure consumers and remote communities.
To be an agri-genomics leader, Canada must prioritize social justice across the innovation process, from research to implementation. This project will generate guidelines and resources to promote inclusivity, address social equity concerns for marginalized communities and ensure a just transition to new technologies.
This project will study how new farming technologies like agri-genomics can help economies grow while making sure nobody gets left behind. It will use assessment tools like comprehensive literature reviews, a national survey, value supply chain optimizations for plausible transition scenarios and three case studies. The goal is to ensure that social justice considerations are considered as we begin to use these new technologies. The research findings will be used to create tools that inspire the wider agri-genomic community to prioritize social justice as Canada’s food system adopts these technologies.