It is widely observed that perennializing agriculture in the Upper Midwest United States could increase agricultural productivity across a wide array of ecosystem and economic indicators. However, perennial system adoption has been slow for a myriad of reasons ranging from the genetic and agronomic performance to social acceptability and economic viability of perennial species. Work at the University of Minnesota has sought to address the technical, social, and institutional challenges associated with perennializing agriculture by developing a system of innovation termed collaborative geodesign (CG). CG is a social and technical process that allows diverse groups of stakeholders to “try-on” different land use scenarios in a collaborative process. Embedded within this process is a geodesign tool that has an intuitive “Google Maps” style interface that enables groups to access biophysical and economic models, and iteratively test new landscape designs. Work with diverse stakeholder groups in the Seven-mile Creek watershed utilized CG to consider potential pathways for incorporating perennials in the landscape that could produce win-win opportunities for environmental and economic outcomes. Surveys were administered throughout the process that asked stakeholders to self-report the impacts of information, communication, and the process on their perceptions of the feasibility of biomass production using perennial vegetation. Additionally, individual interviews and focus groups were done with participants, and the designs produced during the sessions were collected. Interviews and designs were analyzed to identify themes at the scales of the individual meeting and the overall process.
Results/Conclusions
Results indicate that CG 1) encourages stakeholders to move toward a consensus understanding of incorporating perennials on the landscape in the form of biomass production, 2) addresses the tension between how relevant and unbiased information is, and how scientifically adequate such information is, and 3) enables diverse groups of stakeholders to move through an iterative design process that incorporates perennials into the landscape in a way that improves environmental and economic performance. When considered together, results indicate that CG is a way to empower diverse groups of stakeholders to consider means to incorporate perennials on the landscape for enhanced food production and ecosystem services. Future work will consider how such processes engage users in design thinking, which we hypothesize supports the emergence of tightly interconnected cognitive and affective states in multistakeholder groups. Such new mental states may transform individuals’ mindsets from defensive "zero-sum game" thinking about production and conservation toward mutual, creative, and innovation-focused thinking about the food/water/energy nexus.