The title of this post might seem a bit comical but let me tell you, it describes this article that I read pretty handily. We mentioned a few things about food waste in class. In the activity we had last week, Gabriel and I found a case study regarding food waste and how a major supermarket chain was actively working to help fix this problem (including transparently announcing the amount of food waste they produce).

This article is related to that same topic of food waste. New technologies are being invented for the agriculture industry. “information technologies that brought us the internet and transformations in medicine are now revolutionising farming”. Satellite geo-positioning systems can detect nutrients and water in soil which  enables people better choose where and when to plant.

Thing is, robots are already very integrated in harvest practices (such as for lettuce and tomatoes) and can even track health levels for animals. Japan in particular is at the forefront with automated farms. The company “Spread” has announced that robots perform all tasks but one in their farms.

This is a very exciting future for us in terms of being able to grow more food (in a very ‘brute’ way to counter-act food waste) since these Japanese farms can grow tens of thousands of bundles of lettuce each day.

However, sustainability, and sustainability marketing in particular isn’t always just about the green. These innovations are absolutely amazing for environmental sustainability. It’s inspiring to see what humans are capable of creating in order to solve some world problems. But at the same time, while this solves an environmental sustainability issue, what about the social end? This purely automated farm will take jobs away from the agriculture market and possibly damage rural communities. One can draw a parallel from how Uber is making cabs less appealing. Will this be the end of the rural-era and life style?