Analogies, metaphors, and wondering about the future: Lay sense-making around synthetic meat

Drawing on social representations theory, we explore how the public make sense of the unfamiliar, taking as the example a novel technology: synthetic meat. Data from an online deliberation study and eighteen focus groups in Belgium, Portugal and the UK indicated that the various strategies of sense-making afforded different levels of critical thinking about synthetic meat. Anchoring to genetic modification, metaphors like ‘Frankenfoods’ and commonplaces like ‘playing God’ closed off debates around potential applications of synthetic meat, whereas asking factual and rhetorical questions about it, weighing up pragmatically its risks and benefits, and envisaging changing current mentalities or behaviours in order to adapt to scientific developments enabled a consideration of synthetic meat’s possible implications for agriculture, environment, and society. We suggest that research on public understanding of technology should cultivate a climate of active thinking and should encourage questioning during the process of sense-making to try to reduce unhelpful anchoring

Highlights from the 9th IAS conference on HIV science, 23-26 July 2017, Paris, France

The 9th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017) took place at the Palais des Congrès, in Paris, France, from 23 to 26 July 2017, chaired by Linda-Gail Bekker and Jean-François Delfraissy. It was organised by the International AIDS Society (IAS) in partnership with ANRS (the French national agency for research on AIDS and viral hepatitis), bringing together more than 6000 leading scientists, researchers and HIV professionals from around the world. The Conference featured more than 1800 abstracts selected for oral and poster presentations out of over 4300 submissions, in addition to plenary sessions and satellite symposia. Prevention was high on the agenda of this year's Conference. Data relevant to children, adolescents and adults with HIV on recent advances in the understanding of viral–host interactions, targeting of the HIV reservoir, new oral and long-acting antiretroviral drugs, strategies for simplification of treatment regimens, immune-based therapies, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to HIV, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines, as well as comorbidities including hepatitis, were presented with an emphasis on translating science into practice and policies

Market intelligence for informing crop-breeding decisions by CGIAR and NARES

Crop breeding by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), in partnership with national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) and privately owned seed companies, forms the backbone of the research and development (R&D) effort needed to ensure future food security in developing regions. Over the past decades, varieties derived from CGIAR germplasm have helped provide food for hundreds of millions living in harsh and vulnerable environments. However, the capacity to deliver increased benefits from crop breeding will depend on effective strategies to address the stubbornly slow rate of uptake of improved varieties. Meeting the challengewill require, among other inputs, deeper insights on the evolving preferences and requirements of farmers, processors and consumers. In short, breeding will need to be led more by demand. Key to the success of demand-led breeding will be the availability of reliable and timely intelligence on the current and future preferences and requirements of farmers, processors and consumers. Although ‘market intelligence’ has existed in various forms in CGIAR’s social science research agenda, an opportunity exists for increased relevance based on shared approaches and tools and new partnerships, both within CGIAR and between CGIAR and its partners. Beginning in 2022, a coordinated effort through the CGIAR Initiative on Market Intelligence looks to build cross-functional and transdisciplinary teams to provide market intelligence in support of crop breeding and seed-system development

Beyond information seeking:Consumers' online deliberation about the risks and benefits of red meat

Successfully engaging consumers in a dialogue may provide opportunities for better tailored and more effective communication about food-related risks and benefits. Using an online deliberation concept and software, VIZZATA™, we explored the validity of a behavioral measure of deliberation in an online environment in the context of consumers’ perceptions and information seeking about the risks and benefits of red meat. Participants from Belgium, Portugal and the United Kingdom (n = 150) were given the opportunity to engage in an asynchronous interaction with the research team about the information provided. Online deliberation was operationalized as an individual metric based on the number of questions asked in relation to the information, the number of comments left, the number of glossary terms accessed, and the time spent on deliberative activity. This operationalization provided a coherent measure of deliberation which was positively correlated with information recall about the risks and benefits of red meat. Participants who perceived the information about red meat risks and benefits as too complex engaged less with the information. The study herewith presents a novel method of investigating consumers’ deliberation about food issues that conceptualizes consumer engagement as more than just information seeking

Use of twitter data for waste minimisation in beef supply chain

Approximately one third of the food produced is discarded or lost, which accounts for 1.3 billion tons per annum. The waste is being generated throughout the supply chain viz. farmers, wholesalers/processors, logistics, retailers and consumers. The majority of waste occurs at the interface of retailers and consumers. Many global retailers are making efforts to extract intelligence from customer’s complaints left at retail store to backtrack their supply chain to mitigate the waste. However, majority of the customers don’t leave the complaints in the store because of various reasons like inconvenience, lack of time, distance, ignorance etc. In current digital world, consumers are active on social media and express their sentiments, thoughts, and opinions about a particular product freely. For example, on an average, 45,000 tweets are tweeted daily related to beef products to express their likes and dislikes. These tweets are large in volume, scattered and unstructured in nature. In this study, twitter data is utilised to develop waste minimization strategies by backtracking the supply chain. The execution process of proposed framework is demonstrated for beef supply chain. The proposed model is generic enough and can be applied to other domains as well

Consumers’ familiarity with and attitudes towards food quality certifications for rice and vegetables in Vietnam

This study investigates consumers’ attitudes towards, and familiarity with, food quality certification in selected urban areas in the South of Vietnam. Cross-sectional data were collected by means of a consumer survey (n = 500). Consumers’ awareness of food quality-related terms was relatively low. Less than half the participants claimed to understand the meaning of good agricultural practices (GAP), organic food and sustainability. Consumers’ familiarity with food quality certification (Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGAP), Global Good Agricultural Practices (GLOBALG.A.P.), organic, and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)) was also low. Familiarity with food quality certification was positively associated with general attitude and food choice motives, namely food safety concern, perceived importance of healthy eating, and perceived importance of environmental consequences relating to food purchase. Food safety concern and perceived importance of environmental consequences were positively associated with consumers’ attitudes towards safe vegetables, as well as high quality rice. Perceived importance of healthy eating was positively related to attitude towards high quality rice. Findings suggest that food safety aspects of safe vegetables and high quality rice should be emphasized during policy and marketing activities for food quality certification. Additionally, an increase in the perceived importance of environmental consequences relating to quality food purchase should be encouraged to enhance positive consumer attitudes towards quality food. Efforts to improve public awareness and knowledge of food quality certification and sustainable agricultural practices in developing countries such as Vietnam are highly recommended