Food Markets and Society Auckland 3-4 December, 2009 Future foods – who decides? International trends in food governance Lynn J. Frewer and Gene Rowe

Food Markets and Society Auckland 3-4 December, 2009

Future foods – who decides? International trends in food

governance

Lynn J. Frewer and Gene Rowe


What is “public engagement”?

• Need to develop societal trust in the motives of actors involved with developing the products of novel technologies or policy practices

• Identify the concerns of interested stakeholders (including the general public), and to ensure that these concerns are addressed in the process of risk analysis and regulatory enforcement


The decline in public trust

John Gummer, UK Minister of Agriculture, demonstrating the alleged safety of British beef

(6 May 1990)


Some illustrative examples of “food scares” BSE


MAD

COW CAN

KILL

YOU!

Victims face

insanity and certain

death

Europe bans

British beef

Mad cows and

British science

!

Fear of huge

death toll

Nature bites back

McDonalds stops selling British beef

I cannot rule out 500,000 deaths


Imagery of BSE


30

0

10

20

numberof

articles

date

Media reporting about BSE in 1996

Risk Trust and blame

Tabloids

Quality papers

Frewer, Miles and Hunt (2002)


Worldwide reported cases of vCJD

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Country

Nu

mb

er o

f ca

ses

(2007)

Source. OIE 2008


The impact of BSE was more than just economic

Trust in Regulators and Scientists diminished

Why did the UK government deny the uncertainties regarding the potential link between BSE and vCJD in the early 1990s, while simultaneously funding research into the potential link?

Public perception that the government was acting to optimise industry interests and the economy not consumer protection

Institutional perception that the public could not understand scientific uncertainty

Lack of transparency in decision-making practices

Public concern focused on trust and culpability


The assumed benefits of public engagement

• Regaining societal trust in policy makers

• Acquisition of political efficacy

• Enhancement of democracy

• Societal acceptance of decisions associated with policy development and implementation

• Improvement of policy decisions

(Adapted from Walls, Rowe and Frewer, in press)


Risk Assessment• Which hazards?• When are they assessed and with which method?• What consequences are judged important, and with what level of uncertainty?• Who is affected?

Risk Management• How do values influence the selection and implementation of policy alternatives?

• Interactive exchange of information and opinions

Risk Communication and Stakeholder Involvement

Risk Assessment• Which hazards?• When are they assessed and with which method?• What consequences are judged important, and with what level of uncertainty?• Who is affected?

Risk Management• How do values influence the selection and implementation of policy alternatives?

• Interactive exchange of information and opinions

Risk Communication and Stakeholder Involvement

Increased transparency raises more communication needs?


The emergence of new governance models which explicitly include public

participation


Emerging risk identification and improved risks analysis model

Public participation

Adapted from Koenig et al, in press


Public and stakeholder engagement

The public represent a specific stakeholder group

The focus of what follows will be on public, not stakeholder, participation

Other methods may be more appropriate for effective expert stakeholder participation, such as Delphi methodology

Wentholt et al, 2009


Who is involved?

Consultation Participation Communication

Citizens Citizens panel Action planning workshop

Cable TV

Public Consultation document

Citizens jury Drop in centres

Consumers Electronic consultation

Consensus conference Hotline

Stakeholders Focus group Deliberative opinion poll

Information Broadcasts

Experts Opinion poll Negotiated rule making Internet information

Referendum Planning cell Public hearings / Inquiry

Survey Technology Assessment

Public meeting

Telepolling

Delphi

A typology of different societal engagement mechanisms

(Adapted from Rowe and Frewer, 2005)


Criteria for evaluating public participation (1)

Acceptance (fairness) criteria Representativeness

Participants should comprise a broadly representative sample of the affected public.

Independence The participation process should be conducted in an independent,

unbiased way. Early Involvement

The public should be involved as early as possible in the process as soon as value judgments become salient.

Transparency The process should be transparent so that the public can see what is

going on and how decisions are being made. Influence

The output of the procedure should have a genuine impact on policy.


Criteria for evaluating public participation (2)

Process (competence) criteria

Task definition The nature and scope of the task should be clearly defined, so

that participants understand what is required of them, and why. Resources

Participants should have access to the appropriate and sufficient resources (e.g. in terms of time and information) to enable them to fulfill their designated role.

Structured dialogue The exercise should use appropriate mechanisms for structuring

dialogue to ensure fair and accurate information exchange.


Genetically modified foods in Europe – consumer protest


The societal pressure for public participation into the UK GM debate

The coming to an end of a de facto moratorium on GM crop cultivation

The Blair administration’s ‘Modernising Government’ programme A pre-occupation within government about a “perceived” loss of

public trust A major review of the regulatory framework for biotechnology The establishment of the Agriculture and environment biotechnology

council The House of Lords report on Science and Society The impact of BSE and the Phillips report


What the sponsors of ‘GM nation?’ required

To allow the public to frame the issues Representativeness (‘grassroots’) To create new opportunities to debate about the issues. To enable (through dialogue with experts and other activities) access to the

evidence To create widespread awareness in the UK population of the debate, and give

opportunities to register views To allow mutual learning between the public and experts. To complement and inform the economic and science strands and utilise their

outputs To calibrate the views of organisations who have already made their views

known by contrasting their views with other participants in the debate To provide intelligent qualitative information about public views emerging from

the debate in a report to Government

Generic and non-specific requirements which are difficult to measure!


Foundation Discussion Workshops Nine large ‘focus groups’, eight with ordinary citizens pre-selected to represent a spread of socio-demographic characteristics, one with GM stakeholders.Exploratory ‘framing’ of issues in preparation for the main debate process the following summer.

Steering Board Final Report (24th September 2003)

Open MeetingsTier 1Major ‘national‘ meetings organised by Steering Board executive (n=6)Tier 2Meetings organised by local councils or national organisations and supported by Steering Board executive (n= 40 estimated)Tier 3Local meetings organised by community groups, educational centres etc. (n=629 estimated) estimated)

Debate WebsiteIncluding information on GM, and the opportunity to register views in qualitative and quantitative form.

Closed ‘Narrow-but-Deep’ Groups10 re-convened focus groups held with 77 ordinary citizens pre-selected to represent a spread of socio-demographic characteristics.Each group met twice to deliberate on GM issues, with a period in between to gather information.

November 2002

MAIN DEBATE June-July 2003

Transcripts and Questionnaire Emails/ Qualitative AnalysisRapporteurs’ Responses Letters of Participants’Reports Discourse


Distribution of perceived risks and benefits of GM crops (MORI

2003) (n=1,363)

12

34

5

1

2

3

4

5

0

5

10

15

20

25

Count

Perceived risks

Perceived benefits

(n=1,363)Pidgeon et al, 2005


Distribution of perceived risks and benefits of GM crops for GM

Nation? open questionnaires

12

34

5

1

2

3

4

5

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

Count

Perceived risks

Perceived benefits (n= 36,557)

Pidgeon et al, 2005


Impact on public awareness

Know a lotabout

Know a fairamount about

Know a littleabout

Heard of butknow nothingaboutNever heardof

Don’t know

How much do you know about ‘GM Nation? The Public Debate’, the National Debate on Genetic Modification of Food and Crops that has been going on recently? (n=1,363)

Pidgeon et al, 2005


Impact

• Level of impact on wider public uncertain

• Impact on Government

• International and legal requirements undermine its relevance of the exercise

• Cynicism among both participants and the wider public about the likely impact of the debate on government policy


Conclusions - GM nation

There were significant flaws with the event e.g. extent of outright opposition to GM food and crops amongst the UK population is probably lower than indicated in the GM Nation?

Public participation is still potentially useful in a governance structure, but needs to be conducted and independently evaluated

Need to use results of the evaluation to inform improved events in future

Rowe et al (2005)


Recommendations

• Independent evaluation of both the process and impact of a specific public engagement or consultation exercise against theoretically underpinned criteria

• Willingness to re-specify direction and goals of research and development based on the outcomes

• Identification of the most appropriate mechanisms to apply to public

engagement given the context of the exercise


How to do it?

Combine public engagement (for example, consensus conference) with public consultation (representative polling)

Methods for conducting and evaluating such exercises available

Identification of values, not policy options per se, unless this is done early enough in the process of policy development and formulation to make a difference?

Quantification of individual differences

What is the topic of interest?


Conclusions

Past failures in managing food-related hazards (and in other policy domains) has undermined public trust in policy makers

The traditional one-way model of communicating to the public is no longer appropriate

A new tradition of public (and/or stakeholder) engagement has arisen

Many mechanisms have been developed to enable such involvement

Evaluation has lagged behind practice

Systematic evolution of the benefits of engagement are scant

Further research is needed

to define what is a good outcome of engagement to develop ways to measure outcomes (and processes) to evaluate real-world examples


Thank you!Any

questions?

Documents

Food Markets and Society Auckland 3-4 December, 2009 Future foods – who decides? International trends in food governance Lynn J. Frewer and Gene Rowe