Agriculture

University NC Agricultural Productivity Planning

A large group of multidisciplinary university researchers gathered for a two-day systems thinking workshop to articulate a big-picture systems view of the supply of food protein in the US system, and to identify current and anticipated dynamic challenges. Several causal maps were created to explore the impacts of labor shortages, competing land uses, public health needs, and economics, especially industry consolidation.
Though the problems were not solved during the two day workshop, these interrelated factors were able to be synthesized into a high level map on one 8.5″ x 11″ page, and the workshop resulted in several new research priorities for the future.