The Precision Farming Revolution

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. The Precision Farming Revolution

   • James E. Addicott

   Pages 1-35

3. Global drivers

   • James E. Addicott

   Pages 37-68

4. Economic drivers

   • James E. Addicott

   Pages 69-129

5. Cultural methods

   • James E. Addicott

   Pages 131-176

6. Society and Nature

   • James E. Addicott

   Pages 177-211

7. Farming futures

   • James E. Addicott

   Pages 213-229

8. Back Matter

   Pages 231-237

   PDF

This book examines the precision farming revolution in Somerset, England. It reveals the reasons why local farmers invested in autonomous systems and traces the outcomes of adoption. It describes the local and global drivers of the fourth industrial revolution, from world population growth, climatic and ecological crises, profit driven farming and government agri-tech grants, to the Space Race era. A new cultural method of intelligence, ideas and thinking, new organisational and control powers, was precisely what precision farming offered farmers and off-farm firms, who were able to remotely monitor and control natural environments and aspects of on-farm activities. As a result of local farmers opting into precision farming systems the power dynamics of industrial agriculture were reorganised and this book will offer readers an understanding of how and why.

• STS
• Sociology
• Economics
• Technology
• Agriculture

“The gains claimed by the promoters of precision farming are very considerable. Satellite farming companies argue that their observations enable exact and profitable decisions to be made about the application of chemicals. But, as James Addicott’s research suggests, this form of 'scientific farming' is very problematic. Control over satellite farming has dispensed with the farmers' more local and 'tacit' understandings. Knowledge of a more general and universal kind is made to prevail. Meanwhile, farmers are faced by the competing technologies offered by precision farming corporations. As a result, farmers struggle with a range of incompatible products. This book shows that power and influence is being transferred away from the farmer and towards the big, unaccountable, trans-national ‘precision farming’ offered by corporations.” (Peter Dickens, University of Cambridge, UK)

“This book connects debates and issues around precision farming technologies to show that farmers’ engagement with these technologies is influenced, but not exclusively determined, by economic and food-productivity factors. As a social scientist, James Addicott makes a clear case for factors other than just ‘efficiency’ playing a role in the adoption of precision farming. It is a must read for all students in the food and agriculture sector who seek to gain a balanced, realist understanding of how the global Precision Farming Revolution shapes and is shaped by the active agency of local farmers.” (Gert Spaargaren, Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

• Bath, UK

  James E. Addicott

Dr. James E. Addicott is an independent sociologist, ethnographic researcher and author at jeaddicott.com. 

Policies and ethics