Bioethics and community dialogues

Image source.

Today you get a break from climate change in favor of bioethics. I had the chance to learn from some distinguished bioethics scholars from MSU and the University of Michigan, so I’d like to share some of what I learned!

The theme of today’s “words of wisdom” session was community engagement in genetics policy. We often think of elite scientists and policy-makers as the ones who set health policy, but scholars (including philosophers and social scientists) are increasingly realizing the importance of engaging the public in these science policy issues. This goes beyond just educating the public (remember the “loading dock” model from my last blog?). Some engagement models that I learned about are called “rational democratic deliberation,” “community-based participatory research,” and “community-based dialogues.”

Including community members in a dialogue process about genetic policy was spurred by Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project and is now the head of the National Institutes of Health. Collins realized that research on genetics also needed to incorporate the “ethical, legal, and social implications” of this research and how it is used in society. The bioethics researchers at UM and MSU specifically wanted to elucidate some common moral values about reproductive technologies and policies, such as whether genetic testing should be mandatory. First they wanted to hear from a representation of diverse value perspectives on genetic policy, including Right to Life and disability advocates. They held community dialogues on the genetics policy issues and said that even these polarized views has respectful discussions.

Bioethicists are especially aware of the legacy of distrust of genetic research in minority communities, because of past injustices such as the Tuskegee experiments, the eugenics movement, and a more recently uncovered story of Henrietta Lacks. So the bioethicists decided that they didn’t just want diverse interests represented in their discussions; the next step was to bring together communities of color for dialogues. The bioethicists worked with existing African American and Latino community-based organizations (CBOs), and they let the CBOs choose who would participate, where they would hold the sessions, etc. The existing organizational structure of the CBOs also meant that people could more easily decide who and what to advocate once the dialogue sessions were done (the groups actually met with policy-makers in Washington, DC). Information from all of the dialogue sessions was written into academic and policy reports, and community representatives were involved in the writing and review process. A full report of their study is located here, but you need a journal subscription to access it.

One of the great things about these public dialogues about science policy is that people often change their views once they start to consider the complexity of the situation, and to form rational moral values even on highly controversial topics. But there are certainly challenges to this process: issue advocacy and deeply entrenched political polarization can hinder the dialogue process, community dialogue groups can lack legitimacy and credibility in policy settings (or fail to distinguish themselves from other “interest groups”), and especially when working with communities of color, project administrators must be constantly aware of issues of equality between the participants and academic researchers.

The question that I was left with (and that I asked and we briefly discussed) was how to bring this information back to scientists. The community dialogues obviously brought up a lot of discussion about what directions and limits there should be to genetic research: especially with regards to stem cells, cloning, biotechnology and prenatal genetics. It wasn’t really the purpose of this study to bring the dialogue results back to scientists, or to have the community groups involved in shaping scientific agendas, but this seems like an area ripe to explore in the future. “Molding the pipeline into a loop” is a good example of this.

Currently, community members and issue advocates are represented on grant/research review boards and bioethics committees for public research. There is a general faith, even in marginalized communities, that investing in more public research, in combination with government regulations on the limits of research, will result in societal benefits. But some science policy and STS scholars warn about what might happen when advocates don’t see results. What do you think? To apply this to my work with MSU Extension/Kellogg Biological Station, what would happen if we find out that climate models aren’t useful to farmers, or that we can’t solve the problem of climate change using science? This is hypothetical- but we have certainly realized that there are limits to science, unintended consequences, and that stakeholders face a variety of opportunities and constraints in actually using scientific information for decision-making.

2) Science-practice and science-policy boundaries

Image source: Alice Rose Bell, 2010.

My first few posts have been focused on science for decision-making and innovation. This next section will highlight the role of mediators between the spheres of science and policy, or what STS scholars refer to as “boundary organizations.” Like my first post, this will be a brief review of the literature, and in later posts I’ll look at specific examples of boundary organizations at work.

The concept of “boundary organizations” is extremely relevant to- you guessed it- agriculture extension work! The traditional model of extension, of course, is the top-down, “loading dock,” basic-to-applied research model. But complex problems like climate change pose new challenges for scientists, farmers, and extension educators. This is why some scholars are working to reshape this model. Extension is a mediator between science, policy, and stakeholders. It is not simply a provider of information, but rather a decision support system. Incorporating feedback from farmers and other stakeholders is important to the mission of university extension programs, and critical for addressing global challenges of the 21st century.

David H. Guston, William Clark, Terry Keating, David Cash, Susanne Moser, Clark Miller, Charles Powers. (2000). “Report of the Workshop on Boundary Organizations in Environmental Policy and Science.” Global Environmental Assessment Project. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/gea/pubs/huru1.pdf

• In 2001, the journal Science, Technology, & Human Values ran a special issue on so-called “boundary organizations” (see end of this blog for full references). Dave Guston is renowned scholar of political science and science policy theory. His idea of boundary organizations is that the realms of science and policy are not entirely separate; there are actors who span and negotiate between the two. This report contains a summary of all of the articles published in that journal. Many of the examples of “boundary spanners” deal with issues related to agriculture and climate change. David Cash shows extension’s role in negotiating water use in the U.S. High Plains states. He discusses the history of extension and multiple scales of the science/policy interface in this case. Clark Miller studies the politics of climate science. In this paper he argues that the international “climate regime” doesn’t fit neatly into the boundary organization model, and instead he proposes the term “hybrid management” for the function of organizations like the IPCC.

Cash, D.W. et al. (2003). “Knowledge systems for sustainable development.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/content/100/14/8086.full.pdf+html

• This article ties together some of the theoretical concepts on boundary organizations presented by Guston and others with a set of case studies of global environmental development. The authors represent both STS and “sustainability science” scholars, led by W.C. Clark. It also discusses science policy communication, in which they identify salience, legitimacy, and credibility as the main themes in providing useful information.

Cash, D.W., Borck, J.C., & Pratt, A.G. (2006). “Countering the Loading-Dock Approach to Linking Science and Decision Making.” Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31, p. 465-494. http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5100/Cashetal2006.pdf

• David Cash has another great example of boundary organizations and how they work. He proposes four mechanisms for them to work: convening (bringing people together), translation (communicating between different audiences, for example, science and the public), collaboration (working on a project with multiple interests represented), and mediation (finding mutual ground in conflicts). The “loading-dock approach” is a poor model of communication: it involves just getting the data out there, but not doing any follow up or getting any feedback. Cash et al. use the case study of communicating climate forecasts to show how participation from stakeholders is crucial to the 2-way communication between science and decision-makers. This is sometimes referred to as the “co-production” of knowledge (although other STS scholars use to work co-production in a different way, meaning the co-evolution of scientific knowledge and social systems/order).

Breuer, Norman, Clyde Fraisse, and Peter Hildebrand (2009). “Molding the pipeline into loop.” Journal of Service Climatology.

http://www.journalofserviceclimatology.org/articles/2009/Breuer-2009-JSC.pdf

• Our friends down south are blazing the path for extension’s role in helping farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change. This particular article describes how they used participatory dialogue with farmers and extension educators to create a website to provide information about regional crop outlooks based on climate forecasts. They call this a decision support system. For more information, see their 2010 report here. And for more comments on why agricultural extension needs to move beyond the linear model, read John Gerber's 1994 article here.

[Full articles from the STHV 2001 issue that have free access:]

Guston, David (2001). “Boundary Organizations in Environmental Policy and Science: An Introduction.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 26. http://www.cspo.org/_old_ourlibrary/documents/boundaryorgs.pdf

Cash, David W. (2001). “‘In Order to Aid in Diffusing Useful and Practical Information’: Agricultural Extension and Boundary Organizations.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 26. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/In%20order%20to%20aid%20in%20diffusing%20useful%20and%20practical%20information%202000-10.pdf

Miller, Clark (2001). “Hybrid Management: Boundary Organizations, Science Policy, and Environmental Governance in the Climate Regime.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 26. http://www.cspo.org/_old_ourlibrary/documents/hybrid_management.pdf

I hope this blog post on boundary organizations was useful to you! If you have any questions, recommendations, or if something from the articles is not clear, please leave me a comment!

Agricultural innovation: the threat of global climate change

Image source: Josh Haner/New York Times

A front-page feature of the New York Times this weekend is all about global food and the predicted impacts of climate change. The need for innovation in a warming, higher-CO2 planet was one of the key themes. The take-home message was that the impacts of climate change will be worse for agriculture than previously predicted. Extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and increased weather variability are potential "deal breakers" for entire crops. The more gradual aspects of climate change, such as average temperature increase and sea level rise, may be more manageable, but disasters exacerbate crop losses through a convergence of environmental and economic factors.

So what do disasters have to do with innovation? According to the New York Times and many others, we need to innovate crops that can withstand these weather extremes. The article states,

Leading researchers say it is possible to create crop varieties that are more resistant to drought and flooding and that respond especially well to rising carbon dioxide. The scientists are less certain that crops can be made to withstand withering heat, though genetic engineering may eventually do the trick.

A lot of the narrative about how agriculture can respond to a changing climate relies on this scientific concept: using plant breeding and biotechnology for better, more resilient crops. Plant breeding, or selecting crops based on the positive traits of the parent generations, led to some of the fundamental advances in crop science during the past century. Check out this graphic for a synopsis of the gains made in food production during the Green Revolution (coincidentally, produced by a colleague of mine at ASU). In fact, during the "Green Revolution" that started in the 1940s and continued to very recently, some plant breeders were international celebrities, especially in the science policy and international development circles. However, other economic and political factors pushed for more fertilizer, mechanized labor, and irrigation. Without these "packages" of technologies, the better seeds alone would not have done much.

So what are some fundmental lessons we can learn from innovation during the Green Revolution to apply to innovation in a post-normal climate?

1) Agricultural innovations are shaped by a variety of factors, not just "fundamental breakthroughs." These include private industry, public agricultural research, economic, and political factors. Two famous Green Revolution agricultural economists, Hayami and Ruttan, studied the agricultural history of the U.S. and Japan and created a theory called the "induced innovation hypothesis." This hypothesis explains how technological change is based on economic factors of supply and demand, rather than spontaneous discoveries (Ruttan, 2006a). For example, Hayami and Ruttan demonstrated how agricultural technologies in Japan were based on a “biological” innovation track, while the United States was more focused on “mechanical” innovations (Ruttan, 2006a). Factors such as availability of land and cost of inputs (fertilizer, labor, and mechanical power) influenced the technological trajectory of each country (Ruttan, 2006a). Institutional factors (policy, research systems, and other social rules and organizations) also play a role in innovation, and these institutions respond to supply and demand forces to innovate themselves (Ruttan & Hayami, 1984; Ruttan, 2006b).

2) Supply and demand factors will likely influence how different agricultural innovation systems respond to climate change. However, unlike most agricultural inputs, “climate is not priced, so it is difficult to provide clear examples of climatic inducements to agricultural research based on price signals” (Easterling, 1996, p. 19). Although climate does not have a market price, prevailing policies seek to reduce greenhouse emissions. Therefore climate mitigation will require farmers to adapt to these economic limits as well as a changing climate (Smith & Olesen, 2010).

3) Let's not view plant breeding and biotechnology as a panacea to climate change. There are many other factors in global agriculture that are not related to climate change. Improved plant varieties can be difficult to translate into direct benefits, especially in developing countries, because farmers must use new management techniques and buy into the higher-input system. This is why extension education is critical for agricultural development, in all parts of the world. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, farmers would just benefit from using more fertilizer, which is the main barrier to higher crop yields (Vitousek et al., 2009). However, fertilizer prices are exorbitantly high (Otsuka & Kijima, 2010). Thus, technology is not the easy answer that we wish it were. Otsuka and Kijima write that, "we should not overlook the fact that rice yield increased by roughly 50% and non-rice yield increased by nearly 100% in SSA over the last three decades since around 1970 despite the absence of major technological breakthroughs" (Otsuka & Kijima, 2010, p. ii66). Even in the Green Revolution, it was not a straightforward path from science to technology to application.

Sources:

Easterling, W.E. (1996). Adapting North American agriculture to climate change in review. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 80, l-53.

Gillis, J. (4 June 2011). "A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself." New York Times.

Otsuka, K. & Kijima, Y. (2010). Technology Policies for a Green Revolution and Agricultural Transformation in Africa. JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ECONOMIES, VOLUME 19, AERC SUPPLEMENT 2, p. ii60–ii76 doi:10.1093/jae/ejp025

Ruttan, V.W. (2006a). Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technology Development. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ruttan, V.W. (2006b). Social science knowledge and induced institutional innovation: an institutional design perspective. Journal of Institutional Economics, 2(3), 249-272.

Ruttan, V.W. and Hayami, Y. (1984). Toward a theory of induced institutional innovation. Journal of Development Studies, 20(4), 203-223.

Smith, P. & Olesen, J.E. (2010). Synergies between the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change in agriculture. Journal of Agricultural Science, 148, 543-552.

Vitousek, P.M. et al. (2009). Nutrient imbalances in agricultural development. Science 324, 1519-1520.

The importance of innovation: stories of sugar beets and soybeans

Sugar beets: not the prettiest sight. Image source.

In my last post I highlighted the "myth" of the linear model of science policy, and how this impedes progress in energy policy and ultimately making climate models applicable to local settings (i.e. science for decision-making). An alternative to the linear model is a more nuanced view of innovation. The "innovation approach" is a possible solution to the policy gridlock over climate change and energy. Innovation has been historically important to economic growth in the U.S., and is a more politically palatable solution (investing in clean energy technologies) than setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The Breakthrough Institute has some great scholarship on this topic, so check out them and their blog.

So how does innovation actually work? I've already implied that it doesn't follow the linear model of basic to applied research. Interestingly, on Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending a U.S. Senate Agricultural Committee Field hearing at MSU's campus. Many of the speakers called for renewed investment in "basic research," especially at the university. There is certainly a place for basic research at universities, because they often take on more risky research projects than the private sector. For example, I learned that MSU is the only place that researches sugar beet genetics. Sugar beets are an economically important crop to Michigan farmers, and MSU research, coupled with outreach by MSU Extension, is an important asset for improving the productivity of sugar beets.

As you can see from this video (here's the related article), private and public partnerships can yield "sweet success" for farmers. Involving end-users, such as farmers, can improve the social outcomes of scientific research through what Dan Sarewitz and Roger Pielke, Jr. call "reconciling the supply and demand of science." Download their article, which overviews many of the issues I've discussed on this blog, here.

Innovations aren't just serendipitous discoveries in the lab. They are often discovered and shaped by user-needs and preferences, by available technology, and market prices (such as energy, raw materials, market demand, and financing options). Scholars are now investigating the role of climate in inducing technological innovations in agriculture. One of the best examples of this is a study published in 2001 by John Smithers and Alison Blay-Palmer (download here).

These authors aim to open the "black box" of climate-induced technological innovation in the Canadian soybean industry. They link several innovations in soybeans to climate-related factors since the 1970s. Improvements in technology helped farmers manage the risk of normal climate variation (not necessarily related to climate change) and of adapting soybeans to new climates while the growing region expanded. One of the most important innovations in soybeans is the development improved crop varieties from plant breeding, for example, cold-tolerant crops.

Contrary to much of the technological optimism in agriculture towards climate change, the authors list some biological and economic constraints to future climate-induced innovations, specifically the limits of biotechnology and plant breeding. Plant breeding for new crops takes several years, and it can be difficult to predict future local climate conditions. They also list the narrow focus on crop yields as a possible constraint to innovation, as new varieties of crops for future climates may not have higher yields, but rather will help farmers adapt to new conditions. This is why it's important to involve farmers in the research decision process; because it is ultimately up to them whether to adopt a new crop.

The authors also discuss the prospects of public and private research (and the need for alliances), patents and intellectual property rights, and changing markets. In the past, public-private research partnerships had lower transaction costs, but these have risen because of gene patents that are often held by private companies. Addressing these barriers is crucial to future agricultural innovations for a changing climate.

They conclude with the provocative question, “Which adaptations seem likely given the current scientific limits and institutional constraints on innovation, and the competing influence of various other innovation needs in agriculture and society?” (Smithers & Blay-Palmer, 2001, p. 193). Climate change adaptation in agriculture is embedded in a complex social, political, economic, and technological system in which researchers, extension educators, and farmers must make decisions.

Source: Smithers, John and Alison Blay-Palmer. Technology innovation as a strategy for climate adaptation in agriculture. Applied Geography 21 (2001): 175–197.