A vision about the farming sector’s future: What is in there for farmers in the time of the second machine age?

Rizov, Marian (2016): A vision about the farming sector’s future: What is in there for farmers in the time of the second machine age?

Abstract

Recent technological advances both on the farm and in the lab have made farming more independent form nature than ever before. Arguably, the new and accessible technologies are helping us to better understand and ‘manage’ nature and thus for first time in history farming is becoming as any other industry, susceptible to specialisation and economies of scale. This in turn, besides increased productivity, leads to fundamental organisational change away from family control towards corporate forms with associated implications for employment and rural livelihoods – automation in farming replaces both ‘muscles and brains’.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: technology, farming, agriculture, industrial organisation, employment,welfare
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty > I38 - Government Policy ; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs; L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior > L23 - Organization of Production; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences ; Diffusion Processes

References

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Cowen, Tyler (2013). Average is Over: Powering America beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation. New York: Penguin.

Fraser, Evan and Charlebois, Sylvain (2016). Automated farming: good news for food security, bad news for job security? The Guardian, Accessed online on 19 February: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/18/automated-farming-food-security-rural-jobs-unemployment-technology?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-2.