Across the globe, new technologies are transforming the way we farm.
From smart irrigation systems to genetically improved seeds, these innovations promise a future where agriculture is both profitable and sustainable. Programs around the world from nonprofit organizations, such as the Gates Foundation and World Bank, are pitching them as win-win solutions for farmers and the planet–but are they really working?
“Despite this new packaging,” said Odum School of Ecology professor Sechindra Vallury, “there’s a common problem that all of these [programs] have: they tend to focus on initial adoption as the metric–sometimes as the only metric–for their success.”
“Initial adoption” in this case means farms who installed, signed up for or began using a new technology or method with the help of the program. It sounds great at first, but by focusing on the beginning, these programs that are meant to help may be missing a bigger part of the story.
In a new paper, Vallury and UGA Anthropology co-author Don Nelson argue that when programs fail to consider the human dynamics of green tech implementation, they make assumptions about the sustainability of these changes.
“The technology focus is nothing new. It was part of the original Green Revolution and it continues to pervade current thinking,” explained Nelson. “But, many of the Green Revolution outcomes were disastrous for people and the environment.”
This failure to consider the big picture hurts more than crops: the authors argue that these interventions that are supposed to reduce inequalities may actually end up exacerbating them.
Vallury presented a hypothetical example: a farmer invests $40,000 in buying and installing a new technology, and finds it doesn’t work for them. A week later, it’s a dead investment, but with the right financial safety net, they can call it a loss and move on. Few farms around the world have that big of a risk tolerance–a farmer that paid that $40,000 by taking out loans or selling off emergency food stores would have a much harder time recovering.
“You have this adoption that actually deteriorated their economic situation further, which is completely the antithesis of the intended outcome,” Vallury said.
In the paper, Vallury and Nelson call for agricultural intervention programs to be designed with greater care for the long-term and human-centered dynamics of the program. The article was submitted for review earlier this spring, and between the submission and initial feedback from reviewers, the authors found validation for their ideas on the other side of the globe.
They travelled to India for two weeks, meeting with the Professional Assistance for Development Action group (PRADAN). The nonprofit is working on implementing regenerative agriculture techniques in rural India, and asked Vallury and Nelson for help trying to understand the low adoption rates they were seeing in communities.
“Farming is tough. For many, farming is the main source of food and income.”
“Every decision a farmer makes about what, where, and how they will plant has implications for the whole family,” said Nelson. “We visited 12 villages and talked with multiple farmers–sitting in their homes, and walking their fields–about what they do and why. It’s clear that farmers aren’t averse to new technologies. However, the stakes are high and there are trade-offs in the decisions that farmers make.”
In the agricultural states of Jharkhand and West Bengal, where PRADAN has active projects in place, the pair noticed real-world confirmation of the paper they had just submitted: the new agriculture techniques were implemented, but usually at small scales.
“There’s a lot of uptake on the plots that farmers are using for their own consumption, but when it comes to scaling up to their entire farms, it’s too labor intensive, or too risky,” said Vallury. “When you think about effectiveness, where it gets to a scale to make meaningful changes to global food production, we have to think about the conditions that are facilitating scaling up from these micro-experimental tracts to entire plots.”
Their experience during the trip helped add some real-world experience to the idea that Vallury and Nelson had claimed in their paper. Enhancing resilience and livelihoods for agricultural production is a central piece of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and researchers at IRIS are helping bring that goal to life.
The paper has since been published in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability and is available here.