Discussions around technology and farming tend to go in two polarising directions. The first party, and perhaps the most dominant in now shaping the future of farming, is the industrial techno-optimists that want to automate and and technologise everything from sowing a seed to wiping an arse, believing all our problems, emissions and labour can be overcome through innovation. Evidence and history suggests that technologising a sector at industrial scale tends to mean the financialisation of that sector, and the further centralisation of power into the tech syndicates (tomorrows oligarchs and oppressors). The second party on our polarity is the ‘romantic traditionalists’ who want things to stay the largely the same as they were before (‘before’ meaning an arbitrary period in time usually selected for emotional attachment and nostalgia reasons, see our English love of pasture for one example and the monocultural landscape it has shaped). This gulf between worldviews widens and accelerates in tension, as traditional agricultural practice erodes, land is bought up by tech companies and tech ‘farmers’ such as Dyson (largest landowner in the UK). Remaining land is retained by large indebted farms or estates that cling onto yesterdays agriculture in a world that has moved on quickly. The romanticists stand by and have little power to stop this trajectory but will battle against it all the same with historical wealth and inheritance often going back to slavery days, or relying on modern slavery i.e. not producing much food and therefore relying on commodity agriculture and deforestation/displacement in the Global South. So both of these polarities, albeit oversimplified and generalised in my analysis, are complicit in destruction and clinging onto an impossible future. Techno-optimists ignore the fact of planetary boundaries and sheer resource constraints, without enough lithium or earthly resources to fuel this tech revolution. And romanticists idealising a time when we had a smaller human population, and a less depleted biosphere.
The majority of people, farmers and communities sit in neither extreme camp and do have power to rebalance this course and redirect to a future which actually serves life and humanity. The resounding message to farmers of the 20th century of “Get big or get out” still echoes across our ecological deserts (previously diverse mixed farms and commons), whilst a new more powerful message is communicated in new nefarious ways: “get techy or get out.” Reinforcing the dominant message that skilled human hands cannot compete with the machines, mind cannot compete with AI, and soil cannot compete with artificial chemistry or lab grown food. Most of these messages are warped by the rose tinted glasses of techno-optimists (aka human-pessimists). For example, neurochemistry shows the brain far outperforming our best computers and AI for any real life, complex tasks, and that’s even before we start measuring emotional and spiritual intelligence which come largely from brain, gut and consciousness regions we know little about. The trends that take us away from the heart, head and hands are reason for concern, and yet if we then swing too far away in reaction then we are left with equally dire outcomes. There are other pathways which are open to us, and our ability to hold these nuanced possibilities will determine the future we choose to breathe into being. The techno-industrial messaging that dominates today is just one symbol of just one form of technological futuring, and it highlights the corporate and financial capture of tech, media and farming industries. There is another story, and this is one of human scale technology designed in service to life rather than designed to win a futile war against nature. There is an emerging story of Regenerative Intelligence rather than Artificial Intelligence, a story of Nature-informed, human scale technologies of place that are co-designed to regenerate rather than to profit. We are nature, and we doom ourselves with every decision to go against nature. We must commit to giving back in equal or greater measure with every one of our actions, and more importantly examine the worldviews underlying our decision making which leads to those actions.
This post aims to both throw caution to the extremist techno-optimism worldview, and to shine a light on possibility and hope for a human-scale and life-centric technology relationship, that comes from a different paradigm of power, work and purpose. We are on a tech-driven path in western society, whether we like it or not. There is a certain level of path dependency in this world, whereby investments of today and yesterday (already signed and sealed) are already driving the direction of our world more so than governments, institutions or individual action. The only thing to match this megalith is collective power, modelling, prefiguration, and of course still engaging in the other power centres of politics, media and economics. This writing is not a pro-tech or anti-tech position; it’s not even a position, but a living question and enquiry. Some of the questions in this that are alive for me at the moment:
· What do we stand to lose with the techno-optimist future and what unintended consequences might there be? Such as loss of land relationship, wisdom, purposeful work with the hands, meaning and convivial community, appreciation of life and seasons, human scale work, mental health, spiritual and emotional intelligence, independence and resilience…
· What might the possibility be if technology and appropriate tools are innovated to serve nature, people and life’s regeneration? What forms of appropriate technology might aid a regenerative revolution, excite a new generation to enter farming, and deepen our land connection, knowledge and practice?
· How might we prepare and better understand some of the path dependencies we are on, whilst still shaping and creating a healthy human, land and technology relationship?
· How might these lived questions play out on our farm, in our decision making, and what ethical frameworks will allow us to keep our integrity and help shape the healthy future we believe in?
Firstly, to explore the cautions and hesitancy around techno-optimist futures in farming. Reviewing the literature and media on the pro-tech arguments, the vast majority come from those not directly farming or connected to the land. The few farmers and landworkers that have inputted into this position are ones already a generation removed from the land, usually operating large monocultural land parcels with tractors, sprays and GPS. Not enjoying their job, their farming livelihood, or making ends meet, so desperately seeking a way out and a quick fix miracle solution. Similar positions unfold in the climate and carbon world with the largely unproven technologies of Carbon Capture and Storage offering the big polluters a ‘get out of jail free card’. There are also farmers calling for greater tech focus, based on an understandable disillusionment with farming, and a belief that no young people want to get into the industry and farming has just become stress and debt. It has indeed become largely these things for many farmers, as an outcome of industrial profit-driven farming, corporatisation, emptiness of scale, and an economic system that values food, farmers, soil and nature at the bottom.
Many of the issues do not require high tech solutions but a change in approach to agriculture, food and land. Farming can be the most exciting, rewarding, soulful and joyful work. Not without its real-life challenges, seasonal flows and emotional rollercoasters, but altogether a meaningful and connected livelihood, providing real value for community. Physical work with the hands could be perceived as something ‘backwards’ to eliminate in the modern world, orsomething to actually grow and revive, as the nature-human disconnection is the root of so many interweaving crises: mental, social, climatic, ecological, spiritual and cultural. There is an unusual emotion I and many growers face when it comes to the techno-future of farming, one of anticipated nostalgia cocktailed with apprehension. A slight unease in the pit of the stomach, a similar one that early critics of nuclear and fossil fuel energy alluded to, intuited far before the dire consequences of these technologies came to pass. A similar unease that the chemical company workers may have felt when manufacturing the products that would poison tomorrows soil. The solutions of yesterday are so often todays problems, and many of our challenges in agriculture now, from soil loss to pesticide resistance to polluted nitrate rivers, are outcomes of actions that were seen as solutions in their time. So we must take a precautionary principle when it comes to tech, AI and the future of farming. I trust the majority of farmers to do this, but I don’t trust tech companies to take this into account, for it is not their land or life’s work that stands to be taken away through ‘unintended consequences’. Farmers are so often at the mercy of these adverse outcomes and a power shift is needed, and possible - if we stand together.
Sometimes it is not necessarily the technology itself, but the parallel trends and effects that may arise through it, such as the further financialisation of farming, fewer people on the land, less people working humbly with their hands, a trend towards soil free farming, the further specialisation and industrialisation of the landscape, and the hollowing out of rural communities. To take just one of these, the growing trend towards soil free farms, guided by advanced technology, is throwing out billions of years natural innovation that has created complex soil food web functions. The soil beneath us is far more intelligent, efficient and cyclical than we could make any technology. Nothing compares with the complexity, quorum sensing, symbiosis, adaptability, resilience and productivity of a healthy soil. Furthermore, plants grown without soil cannot reach the levels of overall health and nutrition that our bodies need to thrive. John Kempf in ‘Quality Agriculture’ has evcidenced the science of plant and soil health to staggering detail, and highlighted 4 levels of plant health. The first 2 levels can just about be achieved by the right hydrophonic or soil-free set up if the nutrients and photosynthesis is managed perfectly (requiring great energy and inputs). But levels 3 and 4, which includes the plants aliveness, systemic health, micronutrients and medicinal properties for humans and animals, cannot be reached in a soil free system. These high levels of plant health require healthy soil, diverse microbial communities, enzymes, sugars and micronutrients that cannot be replicated in laboratories or chemical solutions. Real plant (and human, and planetary) health requires an active relationship with living systems, for a plant to be so healthy and resilient to disease, and for it to in turn transfer that health to the beings that eat it. There is much we still do not know about the wonderous complexities of the soil and the guy microbiome, but the current evidence points towards the need to eat a diversity of foods as direct as possible from a healthy ecosystem, soil and biosphere. This in turn creates new levels of energy, mood, health, resilience and thriving. This is just one microcosm of what we might stand to lose in the macrocosm of the purely techno-optimist worldview.
The question for me is not whether technology is good or bad, pro or anti… the question to live and explore is: what sort of relationship with technology will cultivate a more beautiful world and thriving biosphere? What sort of technology relationship will actually aid reconnection and return to right relationship rather than further driving disconnection and exploitation? There are some that argue technology will not lead to this, that it is inherently divisive, too easily controlled/co-opted and simply leading to more efficient destruction. But what if this reaction to technology is just to a certain style of technology, just like the backlash against economics is often a response to a crude form of economics, called neoliberalism, rather than true economics which is defined as care and stewardship of the household/earth (Raworth 2016). Technology is a form of tool, a way of knowledge in action. As with economics, we can re-story our understanding of and relationship to technology in order to move forward in this world and steer ourselves back on course to a regenerative tomorrow.
Technology, AI and data need better governance, shared understanding and distributed power if they are to serve people and planet. We can achieve this by engaging with these issues (and not turning away), calling for the systemic changes needed whilst also building the systems of value from the ground up, where real change begins. I believe in appropriate scale, human technology, which is designed and used from an ethical basis. Unfortunately, tech worlds are dominated by investment, which requires technology to be incredibly profitable, and more ethical designs are generally not as profitable in todays economy, as we are at the end stage of fossil fuel era and linear economy. But there is hope, and some promising signs in creative pockets of the tech world that are genuinely helping farmers and society to tackle social and environmental challenges, and even freeing up space for greater land connection, regenerative practice and right relationship. Some of these technologies do not require re-inventing the wheel, or high tech specialisation, but can upgrade and retrofit old kit for new tricks. One example is the adapted industrial tractor sprayers being repurposed for natural biofertilisers, compost teas and organic biostimulants. The Haggerty farm in Australia is using such appropriate technology to bring back to life 18,000 hectares, from monoculture arid land to ecological diversity, soil health and abundance.
Other examples of appropriate human scale technology are new emerging softwares and even some AI assisted online tools that are allowing regenerative projects to upscale to an impactful scale, seriously offer alternative food systems to the supermarket, and actually do this more efficiently, with effectively a super-efficient and customised online farmers market linking direct consumers to producers and giving full information, practices and nutritional content, all the while cutting out the many inefficient steps of global food supply chain, replacing this with a web of relationships, supported by grassroots technology and software.
A key skill of our time is to cultivate the ability and mindset to hold multiple truths, and walk the path holding all these realities and pathways of technology, all the while discerning, inquiring and living the questions. I do hold a sense of optimism and vision around appropriate, human-scale technology in farming, albeit with a large pinch of discernment. I envision on our farm an evolving relationship with technology. We already utilise many tools and human scale technologies, from drill-powered min-till bed cultivators (charged from the sun), to a 3m long electric delivery bike – one of a kind, and tailored to meet our multiple needs such as harvesting, moving farm materials, delivering 200 veg boxes and serving as a market stall.
I envision this relationship with technology unfolding, consciously and gradually, with intentionality and discernment. I notice myself opening to some options I did not consider a few years ago, in part from understanding the work and farming context more fully now. Tools such as automatic robot weeders could be a game-changer for small-medium scale organic food production, and yet they are something I recoiled at a few years ago in reaction to broader concerns with tech trajectories. Our friends at Farringtons already use one of these weeders and grow great carrots in an economic way, freeing up time to steward land better, pay growers well and have better farm-life balance and improved mental health. Not an easy feat in the organic world and todays economy. A lightweight electric powered tool for automatic weeding can free up farmers time to grow better, be kinder to the soil, replace some tractor cultivation, redirect labour to ecological stewardship and more balanced farming lifestyles. This can serve to renew relationship to the land, bring in more new growers, support more wages per acre, earn better income for underpaid farmers, and make regenerative organic food more accessible to wider markets, enabling and catalysing the transition to this produce which is healthier for people and planet. I envisage a farm free from fossil fuels. We use relatively little fuel, but the tractor and van would be two easy low hanging fruits to replace with electric versions powered from our solar panels, if we can find the upfront capital to invest in these systems. Similarly an upgrade of our solar panels from 5kW to 35kW on the farm would allow for electric powered hand tool. Electric hot water heater (replacing our gas), electric cool room storage, greater quality/freshness of produce, more efficient workspace, more resilience in heatwaves and a better functioning enterprise. Using apps, AI and softwares to map our farm and aggregate our ecological, soil and intuitive information into one place could free up a lot of brain space and notes, or support these processes to be able to communicate the positive impacts we are having on the land and build the case for the roll out of regenerative organic farming more widely.
Trak Trak market garden tractor and fruit harvester from Organic Tools (stall at Groundswell)
I recently attended a demo of a lightweight two wheel electric market garden tractor, run on one lithium ion battery and able to do all of the usual bed cultivation, mowing, prep, weeding and market gardening jobs. Many of these jobs we do with a noisy petrol 2 wheel tractor, or we employ hundreds of labour hours to do tasks which only yield us a smaller percentage of income… The potential of intermediate technology to free up farmers, backs, noise and fuel pollution could be a gamechanger. It required some up front investment : £10-15k for the small tractor, and over £100k to do everything else on the farm to be fully fossil fuel free and regenerative in all our supply webs. We will dig into the detail of this and how technology relationship plays out on the farm level in the next blog post. These lived examples , and living the questions with curiosity (rather than polarisation) has opened my mind to the possibility of what we could do when we balance discernment with a sense of pragmatic possibility. Marrying these two, and going beyond the polarities mentioned at the start of this post, has potential to cultivate a right relationship with technology, one that can support the flourishing of life and the reconnection of people, land and nature. With an eye on the past and an eye on the future we can find a way to navigate the now with curiosity, active hope and possibility. In technology discussions and decisions we must keep an eye on the past; on the ancient and proven technologies of old cultures and nature developed over millennia - trees, plants, beavers, rivers, communication. And we must also keep an eye on the futures, on the potential of human-scale innovative technology that could actually make it viable, enjoyable and regenerative to farm for future generations in a changing world. Holding both truths and navigating today with both eyes, we can transform our tipping points of planetary boundaries into positive tipping points of ecological and social regeneration.
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