A Rocky Road to Precision Grassland Farming? Socio-Technical Transition Processes in German Pasture Systems

Agricultural grasslands provide important positive externalities in biodiversity conservation, animal welfare, and climate change mitigation (Bengtsson et al. 2019). However, agricultural intensification processes have resulted in a decline in grassland areas in Germany over recent decades, mainly driven by a shift of livestock husbandry from pasture-based to stable-based management systems (Medeiros et al. 2022). Novel technologies such as virtual fencing and remote sensing could make pasture-based systems more relevant again in the future by increasing their economic viability and positive externalities. However, the current legal and policy framework in Germany and the EU creates many barriers to the establishment of such precision grassland farming technologies. This paper adopts a sustainability transition perspective to analyze the governance of innovation processes in precision grassland farming. Grounded in social construction of technology theory (Sörensen 2014), the analysis of Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) investigates the structures and functions of innovation systems as factors determining an innovation’s pathway and success (Hekkert et al. 2007). This paper combined the TIS framework with the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on socio-technological transitions (Geels 2002) to identify systemic problems that hinder the adoption of sustainability-oriented innovations and changes in agro-food systems (cf. Vermunt et al. 2022). Our research interest is to identify the enabling and constraining factors that influence the use of virtual fencing and remote sensing in grassland management in Germany (and the EU). On this basis, systemic instruments are derived and combined into a consistent policy mix that strengthens the functioning of the TIS (Wieczorek and Hekkert 2012) through a co-design process with stakeholders and policy experts. Building on the GreenGrass research project which has established an ongoing Living Lab for more than six years, this study combines the analysis of systemic functional problems with participatory co-design of policy mixes that address shortcomings of the innovation system. The empirical analysis combines a mixed-method approach and the TIS framework. Data has been gathered via systematic reviews of academic and grey literature and expert interviews with relevant TIS actors. The findings from the structural and functional analysis are collaboratively reflected upon and further developed in focus groups from three different agricultural regions in Northern Germany. The focus groups were also used for co-designing (Hakkarainen et al. 2022) a policy mix, aligning with the final step of the TIS analysis. The results provide empirical evidence of systemic functional problems in the precision grassland farming TIS and collaboratively designed systemic policy approaches to address them. We discuss the implications of the findings to understand the effects of the governance framework on sustainability-oriented innovations in agricultural systems in Germany and Europe, and derive conclusions with a view to the long-term evolution of the European Union ‘s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) towards post-exceptionalism (Daugbjerg and Feindt 2017) and its recent reversal to a dominantly productivist policy paradigm.