Future food technologies and resilience of rural regions: Livestock farmers' perspectives on cellular agriculture

Description

Food production is one of the main sectors in rural areas. Tightening efficiency requirements and increasing production costs impose new demands on livestock farmers in addition to a wide range of existing challenges. Innovations in food technologies also question conventional food production methods. One of these future solutions is cellular agriculture, which refers to producing food and feed using cell-cultivation technologies, and bioreactors. In this study, we examined the 22 Finnish livestock farmers’ perceptions of cellular agriculture collected via thematic interviews. The analysis drew from the resilience assessment framework and the purpose of the study was to assess the adaptability of livestock production to anticipated future food technologies. The results describe the potential changes that cellular agriculture may bring to rural regions and the related resilience requirements from the perspective of Finnish livestock farmers. The most significant changes were the changing position of livestock, the possibilities, and threats of novel technologies, and the required transformations imposed on livestock farmers as the technology readiness level of novel solutions evolves. Interviewed livestock farmers doubted the possibility of large-scale market penetration and adoption of cellular agriculture technologies. Cellular agriculture was anticipated to offer previously unknown opportunities for livestock farmers although they recited several challenges that could stretch the resilience capabilities of conventional agriculture beyond the surviving limits.

Period	7 Jul 2023
Event title	XXIXth European Society for Rural Sociology Congress: Crises and the futures of rural areas
Event type	Conference
Conference number	XXIX
Location	Rennes, FranceShow on map