2015/12/01 by Michael Carolan · 245 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Agriculture #Big data #Business #Computer science #Geography #Land Use and Ecosystem Services #Marketing #Organic Food and Agriculture #Political science #Promotion (chess) #Scale (ratio) #Sociology #Urban Agriculture and Sustainability
paper · doi:10.1111/soru.12120
published in Sociologia Ruralis 57(2), 135-154 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2015/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract This article draws upon data taken from the following: 18 interviews of Iowa farmers who utilise big data when making farm management decisions; 14 interviews of those engaged within big data industry, those involved in the sale and promotion of large‐scale data acquisition, predictive analytic software, and/or precision agriculture technologies for conventional agriculture applications; and 19 interviews of regional food system entrepreneurs, those looking to create and encourage the adoption of technological platforms that enhance the capacities of regional food systems. A central aim of this article is to help reshape the debate around agro food‐based technologies, from one that asks what technology is to one that looks at what these socio‐technical forms engender. As described, alternative foodscapes are not looking for alternatives to technology but rather to technologies that engender specific effects. The empirical findings are organised around three themes that emerged out of the qualitative interviews. The technological assemblages investigated all exhibited the following three engendering qualities, which are (1) anticipatory, (2) moralising, and (3) a movement that multiplies absent presences. Precisely how these qualities were expressed, however, varied greatly across foodscapes.