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An inclusive and socially legitimate governance structure is absent to address concerns over new agricultural biotechnologies. Establishing an agricultural bioethics commission devoted to inclusive deliberation on ethics and governance in agricultural and food biotechnology is urgent. Highlighting the social and ethical dimensions of current agricultural bioengineering disputes in the food system, we discuss how a nationally recognized policy forum could improve decision-making and increase public understanding of the issues. We clarify ways the concepts that are used to categorize food and frame governance of food affect consumer choices, and how dissemination of information and the mode of dissemination can contribute to social inequities. We cite the record of medically-oriented bioethic commissions and the history of international bioethic commissions in support of our argument, and end by discussing what such a commission dedicated to agriculture and food issues could reasonably be expected to achieve. 

This special issue reflects a variety of methodological and critical perspectives on contemporary issues regarding social concerns, public engagement, and governance of gene editing in agriculture. 

Sociotechnical imaginaries of gene editing in food and agriculture reflect and shape culturally particular understandings of what role technology should play in an ideal agrifood future. This study employs a comparative media content analysis to identify sociotechnical imaginaries of agricultural gene editing and the actors who perform them in five countries with contrasting regulatory and cultural contexts: Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United States. We find that news media in these countries reinforce a predominantly positive portrayal of the technology’s future, although variations in which imaginaries are most mobilized exist based on the regulatory status of gene editing and unique histories of civil society engagement around biotechnology in each country. We argue that by granting legitimacy to some narratives over others, the media supports gene editing as a desirable and necessary component of future agrifood systems, thereby limiting consideration of broader issues related to the technology’s development and application. 

Abstract This study investigates how proponents and critics of gene editing in agriculture and food (GEAF) employ expectations—discourses with future‐oriented impacts—as they compete to secure desired futures and mobilise social processes and resources towards their goal of influencing GEAF (re)regulation and agro‐food systems within the EU. We draw on 27 semi‐structured interviews and 53 Euractiv media articles to identify and analyse GEAF proponents’ and critics’ responses to the 2018 European Court of Justice regulatory decision that GEAF will be regulated as genetically modified organisms. Despite similar themes of environmental sustainability, food security and winners and losers in agricultural innovation systems, proponents’ and critics’ discourses reflect divergent expectations of GEAF. We argue that both groups link their expectations with concerns about path dependencies in technological innovations and agro‐food systems, which serve to influence emerging political, public and elite perspectives on GEAF. Although to some extent performative, these concerns offer important insights that should be problematised and engaged within GEAF governance spaces. This study is conceptually framed by the socio‐technical futures, path dependency and political economy of food and agriculture literature.