2017 Special Focus - Food Systems: Design and Innovation

Everybody is familiar with the paradoxes that make the agrifood system unsustainable. What is less obvious is the understanding of how to overcome some of the trade-offs that, at least on the surface, make economic (sustainable development, as we understand it today), environmental protection (also in the light of global climate change) and right to food (quality food and appropriate proportions) goals irreconcilable for a constantly growing population. Solutions can be discovered only by applying new perspectives involving experts, decision makers, companies, scholars and academics through a rigorous multidisciplinary approach involving design methodologies.

Design applied to the agrifood sector introduces new management and business models for tackling complex problems with uncertain outcomes entailing decision-making risks. It also allows the use of design techniques and tools to develop innovative projects. The creative process entails the designer working on a problem without a known solution to develop a creative and original idea that responds perfectly to the identified need. This is a systematically applied process.