Navigating the green growth -post-growth continuum: Implications for agricultural economics and food system transformation

Samenvatting

The necessity of continuous economic growth and the contested role it plays is an ongoing debate among scholars, particularly within the post-growth and inclusive green growth paradigms, also within our food system. Therefore, our study explores the relevance and contribution of the post-growth school of thought for food system transition compared to inclusive green growth reasoning. We do so to bridge the disconnect between mainstream agricultural economics and post-growth scholarly thinking. We focus specifically on 1) the distinguishing characteristics of post-growth and inclusive green growth 2) the role of different food system stakeholders in both paradigms 3) specific strategies, policy actions or instruments that belong to both paradigms, and 4) the paradigms specific implications for food system transformation. We found that there is overlap between both paradigms in the recognition of the negative welfare impacts of exceeding planetary boundaries due to overuse of finite resources and that current global production patterns are not ecologically sustainable. However, the main difference between green growth and post growth is the trust in decoupling through technical change and whether the existing economic framework is able to address the challenges of securing decent living conditions for the world population with finite resources. While green growth thinking more often emphasizes the role of innovation and incentivizing green behaviour through the right prices, postgrowth thinking more strongly emphasize behavioural changes due to changes in norms, values and institutions, next to a more pronounced focus on localising production and consumption. We propose a research agenda that further investigates the potential of applying post-growth solutions in the current food system.