The Rural Voice, 1990-01, Page 36ETHICS
AND
TECHNOLOGY
IN AGRICULTURE
Notes from
a Conference
"There is nothing more characteristic of modern
agricultural research than its divorcement from the
sense of consequence and from all issues of value."
— Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America
The values that Kentucky poet,
novelist, philosopher, and farmer
Wendell Berry has written about —
and lived — so passionately became
an integral part of the discussion of
agricultural technology at the Univer-
sity of Guelph recently.
The university sponsored an inter-
national conference late last October,
called Ethical Choices in the Age of
Pervasive Technology. "Agriculture
and Food" was one of 15 workshops,
and it drew a variety of people:
Ram's Horn editor Brewster Kneen,
American philosophers Baird Callicott
and Paul Thompson, an Egyptian pro-
fessor of agriculture and technology,
entomologist David Pimentel from
Cornell University, a veterinarian,
commodity board staff, a represen-
tative from the Mennonite Central
Committee, McDonald College dean
Roger Buckland, students of rural
development, various agricultural
scientists, and consumer studies
experts.
Consensus was impossible. But
the workshop did produce three ques-
tions and three recommendations (see
sidebar). And it did build some stiles
over the fences separating specialists.
It did attempt to integrate the subjects
of technology and ethics, economics
and ecology, into one discussion —
for, as economist John Kenneth
Galbraith remarked at the conference,
the economy and ecology are totally
interlocked in their effects, but are
divorced in our institutions.
Several central questions were
addressed by the agriculture and food
workshop. Most of the participants
kept coming back to the question of
accountability in the development and
use of technology. The answer ap-
peared to be the "stakeholder model"
of decision-making: ensure that
everyone who will be affected by a
decision is consulted before the de-
cision is made. But, as with all ideals,
the stakeholder model is easier said
than done.
Heartening to a representative of
the farm community was the concern
shown by academics — particularly
the Americans there — for account-
ability within the university research
departments. There seems to be a
growing awareness of the stakeholder
issue and the importance of consider-
ing the long-term consequences of
technology transfer, as indicated in a
statement by Drs. Frank Hurnik and
Hugh Lehman of the University of
Guelph (in their paper, Technology
and Choice in Agriculture):
"Too often, scientists, business
people, politicians and others give
way to the disposition to ignore im-
plications of what they do and so fail
to exercise responsibility with respect
to the consequences of their actions."
And Cornell scientist David
Pimentel, the workshop chairman,
suggested that agricultural researchers
do some self-questioning and assess-
ment. Consider, for example, he said,
that insecticide use in the U.S. in-
creased 10 -fold in about 30 years, yet
crop losses to insects increased from
7 to 13 per cent. "Is that dependable
agriculture?" he asked.
Or consider, he said, that 128
species of crop plants that have been
intentionally introduced in the U.S.
have become pests. A new plant
species may seem to have all the right
qualities, he said, but "you don't al-
ways know what's going to happen
when you release it into the environ-
ment."
Com, he added, is now the single
largest target for pesticides in the U.S.
In 1945, no insecticide was used in
field con production in the U.S., he
said, but losses in corn to insects have
increased from 3 1/2 per cent in 1945
to 12 per cent today.
Or take as a last example the fact
that 100 per cent of the oranges grown
in Florida are treated for rust mites.
The treatment is aesthetic and has no
effect on yield, and 95 per cent of
oranges grown in Florida are used for
orange juice anyway. "The treatment
for rust mites ought to be banned in
Florida," Pimentel concluded.
All agreed that technology per se
is not the villain: people are, whether
as researchers, politicians, farmers, or
consumers. And technological devel-
opments have brought untold benefits.
34 THE RURAL VOICE