This month’s piece of artwork above was chosen because it prominently includes what is surely the classic example of technology: the wheel. Of all the tools on the farm, often the most valuable is the humble two-wheeled dolly!
Several articles in this issue discuss not just the fact that new technologies exist and offer potential benefits to farmers and ranchers, but the idea that we need to be especially careful — even cautious — in whether and how we adopt these new things. John Kempf provides the simplest principle for this matter: we should take on new technologies when they bring us closer in touch with nature and natural processes; we should reject them when they don’t. Novel testing techniques that reveal plants’ nutritional status enable us to grow healthier crops and thus to partner with nature; genetic modification technologies not only play games with biological systems that we will never be able to fully understand — they also lead to the increased use of toxic chemicals that harm the land.
For the sake of a balanced argument, though, let’s consider the one of the critiques of being too cautious in adopting new technologies. This is the “nothing new under the sun” argument: people freaked out about the printing press, about the telegraph, about the radio, and especially about the TV. All were technologies that were going to ruin everything, and now we look back on the pre-internet 1990s as the simpler times. I.e., new technology is nothing to worry about — it’s all worked out before, and it will now and in the future.
There’s certainly some validity to this critique against being overly cautious. It’s always good to know what happened in the past and to keep things in historical perspective. Human nature never changes, but humans are adept at adapting. Things will probably work out alright.
But there are a couple good counterarguments to “nothing new” techno-optimism. One is the speed of change we’re experiencing now. The printing press took thousands of years to develop, and it was more than 400 years after that that the telegraph came along. Today we’ve gone from internet to cell phone to smartphone within less than two decades. We’ve gone from manure and compost to synthetic fertilizers to herbicides, pesticides, and genetic modification in under a century. This gives us little time to adjust to the new realities and to build in safeguards and wise uses for new technologies.
The second thing — one that is more directly relevant to agriculture — is the way modern technologies make it easier for individuals to have a physical impact on a larger scale. A single farmer can spray toxic chemicals on thousands of acres; in the past, one person’s impact — positive or negative — was more limited.
Technologies are rarely put back in their boxes. We need to have better conversations on whether and how to best use new inventions, while being ready and willing to reject some wholescale — genetic modification, pesticides and fungicides at the very least. There’s no way to reshape these things into forms that can work with nature and steward the land.
Like the wheel, some technologies shouldn’t be reinvented.
And that’s the view from the country.
