Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Agricultural Systems journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agsy Designing future dairy systems for New Zealand using refexive interactive design A.J. Romera a, ⁎ , A.P. Bos b , M. Neal a , C.R. Eastwood a , D. Chapman a , W. McWilliam c , D. Royds c , C. O'Connor d , R. Brookes e , J. Connolly f , P. Hall g , P.W. Clinton g a DairyNZ Ltd, Hamilton, New Zealand b Wageningen Livestock Research, Wageningen, UR, the Netherlands c Centre for Excellence – Designing Future Productive Landscapes, Lincoln University, New Zealand d AgResearch Ltd., Ruakura Research Centre, Hamilton, New Zealand e Department of Marketing, University of Auckland Business School, Auckland, New Zealand f Deliberate, Hamilton, New Zealand g SCION, New Zealand ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Design Refexion Dairy Integral sustainability Territory Stakeholder ABSTRACT Globally, agricultural systems are facing unprecedented challenges. The problems are of systemic nature and will require transformational changes and systemic redesign. In this study, we investigated the redesign of dairy systems in New Zealand, due to their large economic, social and environmental infuence nationally. We did not set the boundaries of the ‘dairy systems’ from the outset, letting this defnition be part of the design process. We applied ‘Refexive Interactive Design’ (RIO), an approach aimed at structurally addressing complex trade-ofs and contributing, by process and design, to change towards sustainable development and integral sustainability (i.e. in all relevant dimensions of sustainability). A detailed system analysis was conducted, followed by two rounds of structured design focused on four main stakeholders (‘actors') identifed as part of the RIO process: the farmers, the citizens, the consumers, and the dairy cows. Our study established design goals related to enhancing the wellbeing of humans and animals, enhancing environmental performance, economics and resilience of dairy systems and reconnecting dairy farming with the rest of society. The process took us beyond the boundaries of a dairy farm and identifed the territorial level as the object of design, arriving at a design concept we have called the ‘Agro-ecological Park’. The name was chosen to convey an analogy with ‘Eco-industrial Parks’. Operating as a multifunctional network, the Park has the goal of delivering multiple benefts for its members, and multiple goods and services for the rest of society. The coordinated network articulates linkages between farmers and many other businesses and people in the territory. The individual dairy farm is redesigned to be a node in that network rather than operating as an isolated entity. That way, much of the weight for the increased complexity and multifunctionality now demanded of farming can be carried by the network instead of the individual farmer. These preliminary design ideas, and the reasoning behind them, should encourage new perspectives on the complex problems facing NZ dairy farming, and agriculture globally, in the upcoming decades. 1. Introduction Modern agriculture has brought tremendous increases in food pro- duction globally (Hazell and Wood, 2007; Pingali, 2012). Today, cropland and pastures for livestock occupy about 40% of the ice-free global land surface (Foley, 2005). Results published in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) show that between half and two thirds of the area of 6 of the world's 14 major terrestrial biomes had been con- verted to agriculture by 1990. Historically, agricultural systems have developed through a focus on production efciency, control of en- vironmental hazards, and labour efciency. Now the focus has shifted, as actors afected by the consequences of modern agriculture are making their voices heard (Prost et al., 2016), and fundamental char- acteristics of the system are being scrutinized (Bos et al., 2009). Foley et al. (2011) summarized the challenge well in their conclusion: “The challenges facing agriculture today are unlike anything we have experienced before, and they require revolutionary approaches to solving food production and sustainability problems. In short, new agricultural systems must deliver https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2020.102818 Received 1 November 2019; Received in revised form 11 March 2020; Accepted 13 March 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: alvaro.romera@agresearch.co.nz (A.J. Romera). Agricultural Systems 181 (2020) 102818 Available online 01 April 2020 0308-521X/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T