1.3 Agricultural Innovation

Background: Agricultural Innovation

Industrial agriculture (

“Industrial agriculture is form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish and crops. The methods of industrial agriculture are techno-scientific, economic, and political. They include innovation in agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, the application of patent protection to genetic information, and global trade.”

Concepts within the definition:

Genetic technology - Engineering that uses the techniques of manipulating molecules to alter the structure and characteristics of genes directly. This can enable farm to produce genetically modified crops, such as tomatoes that are more resistant to rotting. Controversy exists between the potentially negative health impacts versus cheaper, more abundant crops.

Economies of scale – the cost advantages that a corporation achieves due to expansion

Patent protection - is a set of exclusive rights granted by the government to an inventor for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention.

Innovation in food processing includes:

  • Cost reduction / productivity improvement
  • Quality enhancement / sensory performance
  • Consumer convenience / new varieties
  • Nutritional delivery / “healthier”
  • Food safety

Challenges in industrial agriculture:

Current industrial agriculture practices are temporarily increasing the Earth’s carrying capacity of humans while slowly destroying its long-term carrying capacity. There is, therefore, a need to shift to more sustainable forms of industrial agriculture, which maximize its benefits while minimizing the downsides.

Benefits:

  • Cheap and plentiful food
  • Convenience for the consumer
  • Contributes to our economy on many levels, from growers to harvesters to sellers

Downsides:

  • Environmental and social costs
  • Damage to fisheries
  • Animal waste causing surface and groundwater pollution
  • Increased health risks from pesticides
  • Heavy use of fossil fuels leading to increased ozone pollution and global warming

Factors that influence agricultural innovation:

Levels of agricultural innovation vary greatly both between countries and industries. This is another way of saying that agricultural practises differ substantially around the planet, with some being more progressive or innovative than others. Some of the factors that influence the level of innovation in any one industry are:

  • Incentive or regulatory government policies
  • Different abilities and potentials in agriculture and food sectors
  • Macro economic conditions (i.e. quantity and quality of public and private infrastructure and services, human capital, and the existing industrial mix)
  • The knowledge economy – access to agricultural know how
  • Regulations at the production and institution levels

Lesson Plan 3 – Understanding Agricultural Innovation

Learning objectives:

  1. Learn about industrial agriculture and agricultural innovation
  2. Explore the benefits and downsides of industrial agriculture
  3. Discuss the factors that influence agricultural innovation

Handouts:

  1. Looking at industrial agriculture and agricultural innovation

Time frame: 45-60 minutes

Lesson Outline:

  1. Introduce concept of industrial agriculture. Distribute Handout #1. Review definition of industrial agriculture (shortened from version in background paper). Ask students to underline terms they are not familiar with. Review and define these terms.
  2. Explore what innovations in food processing look like. Give each youth a number from 1 to 5 that corresponds with an innovation in food processing on the table in Handout #1. Ask them to think of one hypothetical or real example of each. Share and discuss a number of each. Discussion question: Was this a positive or negative innovation? How do we decide this?
  1. Unpack benefits and downsides of industrial agriculture. Divide group into two, one is pro-industrial agriculture and one is anti- industrial agriculture (some points outlined on Handout #1). Ask each to discuss who they represent in society and who they might harm. Ask them to outline and present the main arguments that support their position.
  2. Explore factors that influence agricultural innovation. As a group, go through all the factors that influence agricultural innovation in Handout #1, thinking of examples of each.

Homework

Ask youth to research and put together a one-page explanation of one real life example of one of the factors that influence agricultural innovation. Encourage them to explain: What happened? What was the impact?