A Means to an End? The Role of Technology in Growth and Post-growth Futures of Agrifood Work in a European Context

Urban Farm DB summary

A chapter examines the role of technology across the European 'agrifood' system, an umbrella term for the agriculture, horticulture, food, and drink sectors. Placing the dysfunctional consequences of making economic growth the driver of food-system organization in historical context, it shows through a case study of a daffodil farm in South West England that when technology is deployed as an engine of efficiency, unbridled growth, and profit maximization, it vastly improves productivity through worker quantification—time, motion, and output tracking—while transforming worker-nature relationships in exploitative ways. By contrast, when used to prioritize non-exploitative, collaborative relationships, technology can support sustainable well-being and ecological production, illustrated through three alternative food network cases: a UK community garden, a UK Community Supported Agriculture scheme, and a network of social agricultural cooperatives in Italy.