#AgTechTakeback Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Rural Dialogues | What are the 3 A’s of Feeding Ourselves in Ireland?

May 19, 2019 EditorialARC2020

ARC2020 was involved in the Feeding Ourselves gathering in Ireland. This event focused on some important aspects to this idea – how do we better feed ourselves. So what are the A’s of better food systems? […]

AgtechTakeback | Farm Technology Can Work For All

December 20, 2018 Oliver Moore

Our agtech series – agtechtakeback – saw a troubling story of corporate takeover and of disempowered, indebted farmers. But we also encountered empowering and inspiring examples of farmers embracing the best, most appropriate, of technologies to grow agroecologically. […]

AgtechTakeback: Tech Revolutions, Retro-Innovations and Humus Farming

December 12, 2018 Stuart Meikle

Stuart Meikle takes us back to the future, to the poorly named green revolution aka the origins of industrial farming, to the humus farming of just before that, and up to today with the huge challenges farming faces. Agtechtakeback: Tech Revolutions, Retro-Innovations and Humus Farming. […]

AgtechTakeback | Show me the Money – Debt, Technology and Path Dependence

November 11, 2018 Laura Skove

New technological advances in digital agriculture are poised to further transform the business and science of growing crops. But technology comes at a cost, and it is worth considering the impact of farm debt on farmers’ ability to innovate and to transition towards agroecological practices.With Laura Skove in Paris. […]

AgtechTakeback – Technical Sovereignty and L’Atelier Paysan’s Tooled up French Farmers

October 18, 2018 ARC

A farm hack movement has emerged to really take the power back on the land in rural areas. In France this is especially developed, with L’Atelier Paysan empower farmers, using participatory methods, to devleop appropriate, affordable open sourced tools of the trade, machines and even buildings. Plus they throw great parties. Julien Reynier tells us more. […]

AgtechTakeback | Digital Consolidation – Entrenching Agrichemical Companies & Industrial Ag?

September 26, 2018 ARC

Digital agriculture, broadly defined as the use of mass amounts of data to influence decision-making on farms, has incredible potential to make farms more economically and ecologically sustainable. However, it also poses risks to the privacy, profitability and independence of farmers. Jason Davidson is the Food and Agriculture Campaign Associate at Friends of the Earth (US). […]

AgTechTakeback | Neither neoLuddism nor Corporate Ag – Towards a Holistic Agroecology

September 23, 2018 ARC

Will hi-tech save agriculture from its otherwise intractable problems? Certainly technological stakeholders want it to appear so, as digitisation increases both in the fields and in the policy documents and future plans for the sector. So what is the peer to peer and agroecological response to this? […]

AgTechTakeback | L’Atelier Paysan on Self-Build Communities in Farming

September 20, 2018 ARC

This is #AgtechTakeback. L’Atelier Paysan is a French cooperative that works with farmers to design machines and buildings adapted to the specific practices of small farm agroecology. In addition to distributing free plans on its website, L’Atelier Paysan organizes winter self-help training sessions, during which farmers train in metalworking and build tools which they can then use on their own farms. […]

#AgtechTakeback – Debate by ARC2020 and IATP

September 2, 2018 Karen Hansen-Kuhn

As the role of technology increases in farming and food, and corporate powers use this to extend their power, we need to strive for technological developments that are appropriate for farmers, for eaters and for the planet. Welcome to #AgTechTakeback. […]