Science, technology and the food and fibre system: legacies and transformations

We take an unconventional look at agriculture and the food system in this chapter. Rather than examining the structure of the agricultural sector per se, as is typical in many social scientific discussions of agriculture our focus is on the mutual interdependencies linking agriculture with other social, economic and environmental domains. Using this perspective, the farm production sector is both a determinant and a consequence of broader social, economic, scientific and environmental trends and changes. Among the wide array of linkages embedding agriculture within society, economy and environment, none is more proximate or impactful than its interrelationships with scientific discovery and technological innovation. Hence, this chapter uses a science- and technology-centric lens to examine how changes in mechanical, biological, chemical and information science and technology affect changes in the organization of food and fibre production systems, and how these changes affect society, economy and the environment.