Abstract
Ecological modernisation theorists make the bold claim that technological environmental innovations such as precision farming should be able to clean up modern industry so that modern societies can coexist, harmoniously, with natural environments. Discussing the qualitative research findings taken from four years of research carried out within the Somerset farming group, this chapter challenges these ideas by demonstrating that local farmers were investing into precision farming for cultural and economic reasons, but neither environmental nor ecological reasons factored in. It then goes on to demonstrate the ways in which local farmers were held accountable in environmental or ecological matters to government departments, governing bodies, quality assurance firms, village groups and consumer markets. It suggested that for these reasons, precision farming should be conceptualised as a cultural method based around control, standardisation and accuracy rather than environmental or ecological greenness necessarily.
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Addicott, J.E. (2020). Society and Nature. In: The Precision Farming Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9686-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9686-1_5
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