Jul 26, 2021
In this episode of Handpicked: Stories from the Field, guest producer Harrison Runtz talks with food systems experts Kelly Bronson, Irena Knezevic, and Carly Livingstone about how new digital technologies are changing the ways we grow and get food. They look at how big agri-businesses like John Deere create visions of a technological future of food, examine what Amazon’s entry into online food retailing has meant for small-scale and local food retailers, and argue for a more critical understanding about the impact of technological innovations on food systems. Together, they ask vital questions about who benefits and who doesn’t from new food technologies.
Contributors
Guest-Producer & Host: Harrison Runtz
Co-Producers & Hosts: Amanda
Di Battista & Laine
Young
Sound Design, Research &
Editing: Adedotun Babajide
Support &
Funding
Wilfrid Laurier University
The Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food
Systems
Carleton Food and Media Hub
Balsillie School for International
Affairs
CIGI
Music Credits
Keenan Reimer-Watts
Resources
Moving Beyond Acknowledgments-
LSPIRG
Whose Land
Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food
Systems
Farm Forward with John Deere
Farm Hack
AgBox
Look
twice at the digital agricultural revolution (Bronson and
Knezevic)
From
Online Cart to Plate: What Amazon's Retail Domination Means for the
Future of Food (Livingstone and Knezevic)
Looking
through a responsible innovation lens at uneven engagements with
digital farming (Bronson)
See also the resources linked to the S1E6 episode of Handpicked, "We are all shepherds of the data": Food, tech and data sovereignty
Connect with
Us:
Email: Handpickedpodcast@WLU.ca
Twitter: @Handpickedpodc
Facebook: Handpicked
Podcast
Glossary of
Terms
Big
Data
Large quantities of data gathered by digital
platforms, such as Amazon or Facebook, and other technologies,
such as remote sensing, etc. Big data can be sorted
and analyzed in different ways to uncover important
insights for decision making. For instance, big data can be
used to understand consumer purchasing
practices to inform marketing spending and business
practices to increase profit margins.
Data
Mining
Extracting patterns and key insights from
big data sets, often using statistics and machine-learning
technologies.
Data
Sovereignty
The right of people to have access to
and power over the data and information associated with their
lives, work, or communities.
Digitization
The increasing use of digital
technologies across sectors to make decisions and
enable practices. Digital technologies include
(but are not limited to), local and remote sensing
technologies, digital platforms, big data, cloud-based
solutions, etc.
Farming
4.0
Also referred to as digital
farming, smart farming, or precision
agriculture, this type of farming makes use of
sensing technology and sophisticated computing technologies
to make decisions about all aspects of the farm
including crop choice, inputs, irrigation, and
harvesting.
Food Policy
Food policies are developed by governments at
different scales to guide food-related decisions and actions. They
inform and govern public, private, and non-profit sector actions
related to improving food-related outcomes and can create
opportunities for stakeholders to work together across
sectors.
Food
Security
Food security is the ability to access
safe, nutritious, culturally appropriate, and sufficient food
all year round. A person or community is food insecure when
people cannot afford or have limited or no access
to the food they need to nourish their bodies. The
UN Food and Agriculture Organization state that
“food insecurity can affect diet quality in different ways,
potentially leading to undernutrition as well as. . .
obesity.” http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/2020/en/
Food Sovereignty
"Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples to
healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through
ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to
define their own food and agriculture systems."
https://viacampesina.org/en/
Open
Source Data
A legal protection that ensures that
data that is owned and available for use to everyone in a
particular community. In the case of Open Food Network, all users
have access to all code associated with the platform but must make
any alterations or new code available to all other
users.
Platform
Digital infrastructure or
frameworks for different kinds of exchange. For
example, Open Food Network is a platform that enables
digital food hubs, shops, or farmers
markets.
Producer
A food enterprise which makes, grows,
bakes, cooks, or produces food which it can supply to other
businesses for sale. https://guide.openfoodnetwork.org/glossary-of-ofn-terms
Robotics
The use of machines to
perform tasks previously completed
by waged workers. In agriculture,
robotics include picking and milking
machines, tractors and other farming machines, and packing
machines, among other
technologies.
Supply
Chain
All of the components of a
system—including organizations, producers, suppliers, people,
resources, activities, information, and infrastructures—that get a
product to a consumer.
Sustainable Food
System
Food systems that are “socially just,
support local economies; are ecologically regenerative, and foster
citizen engagement.” https://fledgeresearch.ca/
Discussion Questions