Negotiating the Social Legitimacy of Governing Novel Agricultural Biotechnologies In Turbulent Times

The bioeconomy is emerging as a strategic arena of geopolitical competition. Global governments invest an estimated $45-60 billion in agricultural and biological innovation, with 70% of funding concentrated in the EU, USA and China. Additionally, countries resistant to earlier agri-biotech innovations are updating new regulations. This context reflects the fact that the bioeconomy is a matter of economic competition, strategic resilience and geopolitical influence.

In a turbulent world, advancing agri-biotech is not just about food security or ecological resilience, but has much implication for biomanufacturing, waste remediation and new materials.

However, advances in agricultural biotechnology are entangled with a long history of socio-economic dispossession, unequal benefit-sharing and disempowerment. Developing socially legitimate governance mechanisms is therefore critical not only for the robust advancement of agri-biotech, but also for realising its promised societal and environmental benefits.

In the Global North, Macnagthen and Chilvers (2014) identified five key spheres of public concern in science governance, while Middelveld, Macnaghten and Meijboom (2023) called for greater attention to how such concerns can be meaningfully incorporated into governance processes. Global North-Global South scholarly collaborations have highlighted conceptual and empirical barriers of equity, inclusion and collective benefit in the development of bio-based economies’ development (Zhang and Srinivas, 2023).

This panel seeks to bring these parallel conversations into dialogue, welcoming papers that contribute to: (1) strengthening connections between public engagement and policy in agri-biotech governance; (2) advancing comparative and cross-regional perspectives on agri-biotech governance, particularly in contexts characterised by differing socio-economic priorities, development trajectories and environmental vulnerabilities.