Farms into Factories: Our Agricultural Revolution

The old, the new, or the old made new? Everyday counter-narratives of the so-called fourth agricultural revolution

“…Our study has used the lens of the everyday to look beneath popular academic, policy and media discourses of a so-called agriculture 4.0 powered by emergent agricultural technologies (Barrett and Rose 2022 ; Duncan et al 2021 ). In a bid to bring forth counter-narratives inspired by historical and sociological research on agricultural change, we tried to look past the visible and headline-grabbing markers of change (McWilliams 1941 ; Glover et al 2019 ), instead focusing on what agricultural technology means to farmers and how they are experiencing and influencing the pace and directionality of change. We acknowledge that this is a relatively small study given aforementioned constraints, but we hope that it inspires further research to compile everyday encounters between farmers and technology to produce counter-narratives in an assumed period of revolutionary change.…”

“…While some research, for example by Lowenberg-deBoer and Erickson ( 2019 ), argue that adoption of some technologies like autosteer in tractors has been relatively quick, the overwhelming conclusion from the historical literature is that technological change in agriculture is characterised by steady evolution, and rarely, if ever, revolution (van der Veen 2010 ). Change is often marked by steady improvement, for example characterised by additions to existing technologies like adding better tyres to all-purpose tractors (McWilliams 1941 ), and cul-de-sacs or dead-ends of innovation (Kerridge 1969 ).…”

“…In trying to understand how the myth of agricultural revolution pervades, Kerridge ( 1969 ), Pielke Jr. and Linnér ( 2019 ), Mcwilliams ( 1941 ), and others, take us to the idea of the ‘everyday’ without using the terminology. Kerridge ( 1969 ) and Pielke Jr and Linnér ( 2019 ) set out the purpose of revolutionary myths.…”