We are offered new, risky technologies to help with problems, for which there would also be safe and easy solutions that are already in use. Caution is overshadowed by the promised \”benefits\”.
With a hammer in hand, you can easily see all problems as nails. You may think you need a drill, when really all you need is a hole in the wall.
When someone says that you or humanity needs this technology right now, ask what problem does it solve? After that ask again, why do we have this problem?
I don’t need a new heavier machine to sow lumpy clay soil, but more plant cover and deep roots to improve the soil – you don’t need a fancy digital application to measure your well-being, just less stress.
Technology is a good ring, even if nowadays it is constantly encroaching on the role of host. Technology was created to serve man. Now it feels like a person is serving technology – and the patent holder.
Advertisements do tell us what new technology brings us, but never what it takes away: interaction, useful exercise, doing things with your hands, presence, freedom… to name a few endangered ones.
Disturbing home garden or plant pests can be better controlled by promoting species diversity than by using chemical poisons. Traffic emissions are eased more effectively by reducing private driving than by buying a car that consumes less energy.
In fact, the most important jobs are done with simple tools. I look for the missing drainage hole with a map and a shovel, I repair the compacted soil with deep-rooted crop rotation.
I often wonder why faith in technology seems so unshakable. With the help of new technologies, do we just want to continue the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, the continuous growth based on it and just avoid giving up overconsumption?
New technologies are often justified in terms of competitiveness, but what that means is rarely defined.
Could that happen, for example, with new cell and plant breeding technologies, if they prove to be problematic in the environment? If they cause unpredictable changes in inheritance and hard-to-identify irreversible risks?
In the first phase of plant genetic modification, soybeans and corn were bred to tolerate glyphosate, which kills all other vegetation, in order to reduce the use of more harmful chemicals in monoculture weed control. However, it happened that the weeds became resistant to glyphosate, and we have had to use
New technology is also associated with the concentration of capital and power in giant companies. This can make the grower dependent on purchasing seeds for the new variety and the pesticides and fertilizers needed to grow it. This is especially dangerous in the poor south, where famine and loss caused by climate change should be combated.
If we think of competitiveness as something other than quantitative efficiency, the trump card of our remote and northern food production in the export market could be verified purity, low emissions, production that increases diversity and high nutritional value.
New technology must be used carefully. It means that as well as weighing its benefits, the disadvantages and risks must also be evaluated.
*Juuso Joona*
*The author is a farmer balancing the use of technology*
*You can discuss column 1.4. until 23:00.*