Hungry Innovation: Toward "Appropriate" Agri-Tech to Feed an African Anthropocene

• In Event: Feeding the Anthropocene: The Promises of Agro-Food Tech and the Difference Of Food - III

Abstract

While much of the cutting-edge innovation projected to disrupt the agri-food sector remains speculative (as well as oriented toward the producers and consumers of the Global North), there are simultaneous efforts to generate new ‘appropriate technologies’ for improving agricultural sustainability and micronutrient availability across the Global South. This paper draws on ethnographic research among farmers, investors, scientists, NGOs, and governments in Sub-Saharan Africa to examine the lived trajectories of technologies imagined to be ‘appropriate’ disruptors to African farming as the paradigm of ‘climate-smart’ agri-food systems unfolds. The paper draws upon emerging observations from three case studies: a) the development of a synthetic chemical barrier spray to decrease perishability of fresh produce, recently invented in the US by an engineer-cum-entrepreneur and currently piloted in Africa through venture capital; b) the prototyping of farm robots at an African university, representing an emerging crop of ‘digital farmers’ and environmentally-friendly farm machine miniatures; and c) the fragile institutionalization of South-South public research partnerships in seed biotechnology. The paper brings together STS and food studies to critique the presumed cartography of ‘appropriateness’ for agri-tech: where and by what conditions are techno-utopian projects possible in locations long defined by narratives of scarcity, agrarian resistance, and ‘low-tech’ interventions? The paper contends that ‘climate-smart’ tech – increasingly treated as a Trojan horse for the entry and embeddedness of neoliberal food regimes in Africa – risks oversimplification of a diverse innovation ecology, but also illustrates the special role of foodways in situating technologies as not just ‘appropriate‘ but necessary to producers.

Author

• Serena Stein, Princeton University