Anti-biotech Canadian NGO ETC Group claims ‘precision agriculture’ would ‘further break’ global farming system

“We have a food system that is broken in so many ways — and this is even recognized by the larger corporations that have broken it.”

So begins a podcast interview on the series Tech won’t save us with Paris Marx.

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The ETC. Group recently protested the role of the tech billionaires, such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, in the Montreal COP15 Conference on Biodiversity, noting biotech firms are promoting financialization and corporate takeover of nature.

[Jim Thomas, Director of Research with the ETC] adds that this model of agriculture is extremely risky and will be worse for the environment, will reduce food affordability, and further concentrate food production, distribution, and wealth —  unless it is challenged.

Digital and precision agriculture is based on gene-manipulation, artificial intelligence and, via data collection, design and promotion of the use of inputs that “the farmer becomes locked into” to grow their crop.

In addition, Thomas explains how the agri-business corporations are now peddling these new robotic data-driven technologies as an easy way to determine carbon credits — with a premium going to the corporation managing the credits in the name of mitigating climate change.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here