Place-Based Impact: Accelerating Agri-Technology Adoption in an Evolving ‘Place’

Location-sensitive policies are tailored to the specific characteristics and needs of a place, supporting both local priorities and wider national objectives within a particular time frame. They are developed to deliver key strategic outcomes such as energy security, food security or the implementation of national policies at a local scale. Place reflects the perceptions and physical realities of a space and the sense of what it is to be a person living there. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to determine what policy interventions are of influence in accelerating agri-technology adoption in an evolving ‘place’. The example of accelerating agri-technology adoption in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom (UK) is used as an explanatory case. Spatial consciousness, the ordering and management of space, can conflict with spatial connectedness, the socially constructed relationships that shape place, especially at the interface where national development priorities meet local plans. Distinctions between location-sensitive and place-based policies lie in their strategic intent, the intervention processes used, and the meanings then attributed to outcomes by affected communities. Agri-technology adoption can deliver economic and social impact, but place-specific policy interventions are required to deliver just, inclusive and win–win outcomes.