Riesma Andiani

Candidature

PhD candidate

Thesis Title

A new framework for adopting genetic technologies within integrated pest management

Research Project

Emerging pathogens in agriculture can transit across countries and may require a rapid biosecurity response. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is the current gold standard framework for crop protection and has recently diversified to include genetic technologies involving artificial DNA modifications. Not only to create rapid solutions to the frequent emerging pathogens, adopting genetic technology in agriculture is also part of the frontier technologies. However, the public’s prejudice, industry practices, and poorly defined vocabulary for the terms related to genetic technologies complicate the decision-making process in genetic technology adoption.

This research aims to understand how the genetic technologies can be adopted in IPM to provide solution for the rapidly emerging pathogen that threaten agriculture industries. Since the adoption process involves multiple stakeholders, including consumers, producers (farmers and product developers), and regulators, we will start our first phase with building a controlled vocabulary that can provide knowledge reference for decision-making. In the second phase we will create a method to design a product that can be used for the producers by involving the public’s personal values. Using the results from previous phases, our third phase will create a novel extension model that serves as a valuable guidance for various related stakeholders, such as researchers, product developers, regulators, extension workers, and farmers, in adopting genetic technologies.

Supervisory Panel

Associate Professor Alexie Papanicolaou, Associate Professor Dilupa Nakandala (School of Business)