In recent years, new forms of high-tech controlled environment agriculture (CEA) have received increased attention and investment. These systems integrate a suite of technologies – including automation, LED lighting, vertical plant stacking, and hydroponic fertilization – to allow for greater control of temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and light in an enclosed growing environment. Proponents insist that CEA can produce sustainable, nutritious, and tasty local food, particularly for the cities of the future. At the same time, a variety of critics (...) raise concerns about its environmental impacts and energy use, high startup costs, and consumer accessibility challenges, among other issues. At this stage, however, relatively little research has explored actual consumer knowledge and attitudes related to CEA processes and products. Guided by theories of sense-making, this article draws from structured interviews with local food consumers in New York City to examine what people know and think about high-tech CEA. From there, it explores the extent to which CEA fits into consumer conceptualizations of what makes for “good food.” Key findings emphasize that significant gaps in public understanding of CEA remain, that CEA products’ success will depend on the ability of the industry to deliver on its environmental promises, and that concerns about “unnatural” aspects of CEA will need to be allayed. Given the price premium at which high-tech CEA products are currently sold, the industry’s expansion will depend in large part on its ability to convince value-oriented food consumers that the products meet the triple-bottom-line of economic, social, and environmental sustainability goals. (shrink)

At a time when agri-food biotechnologies are receiving a surge of investment, innovation, and public interest in the United States, it is common to hear both supporters and critics call for open and inclusive dialogue on the topic. Social scientists have a potentially important role to play in these discursive engagements, but the legacy of the intractable genetically modified (GM) food debate calls for some reflection regarding the best ways to shape the norms of that conversation. This commentary argues that (...) agri-food scholars interested in promoting a more constructive agri-food biotechnology discussion could do so by blending key insights, as well as guarding against key shortcomings, from the fields of science communication and science and technology studies (STS). Science communication’s collaborative and translational approach to the public understanding of science has proven pragmatically valuable to scientists in academia, government, and private industry, but it has too often remained wedded to deficit model approaches and struggled to explore deeper questions of public values and corporate power. STS’s critical approach has highlighted the need for multi-stakeholder power-sharing and the integration of diverse knowledge systems into public engagement, but it has done little to grapple with the prevalence of misinformation in movements against GM foods and other agri-food biotechnologies. Ultimately, a better agri-food biotechnology conversation will require a strong foundation in scientific literacy as well as conceptual grounding in the social studies of science. The paper concludes by describing how, with attention to the structure, content, and style of public engagement in the agri-food biotechnology debates, social scientists can play a productive conversational role across a variety of academic, institutional, community-level, and mediated contexts. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a conceptual approach and emerging social movement that uses data-driven reasoning to channel social economy resources toward philanthropic activities. Priority cause areas for effective altruists include global poverty, existential risks to humanity, and animal welfare. Indeed, a significant subset of the movement argues that animal factory farming, in particular, is a problem of great scope, one that is overly neglected and offers the potential for massive reductions in global suffering. This paper explores the philosophical and methodological tenets (...) of these “effective animal advocates,” offering empirical qualitative insight into their motivations and perspectives. The work also considers the implications of the effective altruists’ entrance into the arena of animal advocacy, taking note of how various factions within both the effective altruist and animal protection movements have received their conceptual and practical interventions. The research highlights several potential contributions of the effective animal advocates, as their commitment to evaluate and amplify pragmatic solutions to the problems of animal suffering has the opportunity to shift institutional and consumer behaviors in ways the animal protection movement has struggled to do in the past. At the same time, key issues related to the community’s research rigor and measurability biases, its lack of demographic diversity, and its tendency to valorize corporate-driven technological solutions open it up to criticism from internal and external detractors alike. (shrink)

Humanistic Management and Transformative Service Research literatures share the common goal of addressing the increasingly growing global challenges faced by humanity. Recently, organizations have been called to further engage in social innovation in service in an attempt to address these challenges. However, the existing service literature does not offer explicit processes regarding how to manage these social innovation efforts at the human interaction level. By drawing on both Humanistic Management and Service literatures, this paper develops a conceptual framework to guide (...) the social innovation in service efforts. More specifically, this paper aims to answer a key question of: how can organizations manage human interactions to help maximize social innovation in service outcomes? This paper identifies four foundational values that should be at the core of the proposed processes needed in order to achieve the desired outcomes of SIS. Subsequently, a typology of service organizations is offered with different combinations of processes at the human interaction level, highlighting the synergistic effect of the three identified processes. The proposed framework in this paper is a first step in bridging two disciplines to highlight their potential and role in addressing the global challenges. (shrink)