Impact of Technology on Agriculture

3 Key excerpts on "Impact of Technology on Agriculture"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Agribusiness

  An International Perspective

  • Julian Roche(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER

  4

  The role of technology

  Introduction: a difference in approach

  I imagine that most readers of this book are interested in the business of agriculture, in one or more capacities of regulator, lender, investor, supplier or adviser. It is always necessary to decide, even for scientists and certainly for business people, what research is needed, and for what purpose, and then to select only the latest and/or most relevant research. Agricultural scientists are often, it must be recognised, not especially well versed or even interested in economics or finance. Even basic concepts such as cost-benefit analysis are often alien, whilst on the other hand scientific jargon is rife. The best way to approach the dichotomy between their vast experience, dedication, research and achievements, and their oft-evidenced disinterest in finance, is to regard agricultural research as a data resource for financial decision-making. Certainly, the application of agricultural science has major financial impacts. This chapter has been written as an introduction to agtech and agricultural science with that aim in mind.

  Principles of agricultural science and technology

  What is agricultural science? Agricultural research – the Australian government tells us – is not an actual scientific discipline in its own right. Rather, it is a broad term to describe the application to agriculture of many different scientific disciplines and endeavours, combined with the objective of achieving improvements in agricultural output, sustainability and, sometimes, profitability. Primarily, but perhaps regrettably, agricultural science integrates scientific disciplines in which research may have been carried out without an explicit end-point application. Traditionally this has involved all of botany, zoology and soil science including, inter alia

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Technology Systems For Small/spec Sale O Issues And Options

  • Abbas M Kesseba(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  Recognition of the complex relationships between technological change and price formation is critical for any poverty-oriented approach to technology development. Technological change tends to occur unevenly across geographical areas and is most likely to succeed where yields are already good. "Therefore, farmers in more prosperous regions are more likely to be favoured. Second, the disparities are likely to be further increased by strong multiplier effects of the new technology on the local economy. Third, if food prices decline as a result of increased production, regions not using the new technology will suffer because absolute as well as relative income declines." (Mellor and Ahmed 1988). These relationships, mediated through market or government interventions, or both, in the food and input markets, particularly shape the outcome of any attempted targeting of new production technology towards the poor -- those poor in developing regions, low-income small-scale farmers or landless labourers.

  Productivity and Employment Focus in Technology Generation and Utilization

  Direct and Indirect Effects on Poverty Alleviation

  Poverty-oriented technology development aims at integration of the poor into a productive growth and development process. Directly, this can be achieved through development of technology and its dissemination into the control of poor small-scale farmers. Indirectly, the employment effects on landless labourers or small-scale farmers with labour surplus are of critical and growing importance. Finally, there could be potentially powerful multiplier effects emanating from increased rural income and employment (Mellor 1988). Increased spending on labour-intensive goods and services in rural areas would increase employment and income among the poor in periurban areas.

  The direct effects of new technology on small farmers is important, but there are equally important indirect effects on the rural nonfarm population and on the increasingly sizable farm population that partly depends on off-farm employment. At programme and project levels, appropriate identification of the target group and its income sources and employment characteristics is critical.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Social Consequences And Challenges Of New Agricultural Technologies

  • Gigi M Berardi, Charles C Geisler(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The analyeie reported, here, conducted for the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress, investigated a series of eocial-equity problems associated with changing agricultural technologies. Three agricultural technologies were examined for their contribution to sustained land productivity and their implications for social equity: (1) center-pivot irrigation, (2) no-till agriculture, and (3) organic farming. The authors suggest that the U.S. agricultural system manifests certain social inequities. By its almost exclusive reliance on economic efficiency and conventional productivity criteria, current agricultural technology is biased against social equity for small farmers and rural communities. Simultaneously, the system masks growing threats to soil and water resources which—being central to community sustenance—are viewed here as social indicators.

  Introduction

  The contribution of technology to changing social well-being is complex, dynamic, and poorly delineated. Isolating the social impacts of agricultural technology is challenging and requires a willingness to rethink long-term “human-land” relationships. Implicitly, this requires a reformulation of much that has been previously analyzed as well as, by extension, much that has been left unanalyzed in the American agricultural system. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the social-equity impacts that result, or are likely to result, from changes in agricultural technology. More specifically, this paper focuses on the social effect of agricultural technologies that affect the sustainable productivity of U.S. croplands and rangelands.

  In this report the distinctive emphasis on sustainable productivity is important because there are other definitions of productivity. Conventional productivity in agriculture has meant the continued ability to increase yields while decreasing the amount of labor used in the production process. According to these criteria, the U.S. system has been extremely successful. As of the late 1970s, 3 percent of the U.S. population grew most of the food which fed the rest of this country, and provided more than 86 percent of the world’s surplus food. Since the end of World War II, total farm output has increased by more than 50 percent, while output per unit of labor has increased more than 250 percent. Today a single U.S. farm worker feeds close to fifty people, in contrast to 1950 when the same farm worker fed only fifteen people.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book