Policy design for resilience? An assessment of the bioeconomy policy mix addressing the maize bio-based production system in Italy

Over the past two decades, more than fifty countries worldwide have published bioeconomy policies to facilitate the transition from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy in response to resource depletion, environmental degradation, and climate change. This transition, however, is likely to increase already high demands on bio-based production systems and exacerbate social, environmental, and economic challenges. Nevertheless, there is a lack of empirical research on how bioeconomy policies affect the resilience of bio-based production systems. Presenting an exploratory case study which builds on the Resilience Policy Design Framework, this paper analyzes the bioeconomy policy mix that addresses the maize bio-based production system in Italy and assesses how it enables or constrains three distinct dimensions of resilience — robustness, adaptability, and transformability. Data include a detailed content analysis of relevant agricultural and bioeconomy-related policy documents and semi-structured expert interviews. The analysis finds diverging resilience orientations within the policy mix. While agricultural policies are mainly oriented toward robustness and adaptability, nominal bioeconomy policies prioritize transformability. The paper thereby contributes to current discussions about the governance of the bioeconomy, policy design and the resilience of social-ecological systems.