The mass production of food plays an important role in our future as we begin to face the extremes of climate change which can negatively impact the world’s agriculture. In particular, we need to begin researching and designing technologies that will assist farmers in responding to the earth’s climate. The dangers of droughts, floods, cyclones and other natural disasters, farmers face the challenge of losing their food crops that need to feed the rest of the world.
Throughout history, it is obvious that technology has made an impact on the Earth since the evolution of mankind. The impact of “humans and lo-technologies can after a long enough time effect large environmental territories” and, “the same effects can occur more rapidly in more technologically maximal and hi-tech contexts” (Ihde, D. 1993). However, let’s not forget the positive progression of technology which has led to a, “standard of health which is relatively disease-free” (Ihde, D. 1993). Through researching our past human behaviours and the technological impacts on the environment, we need to be aware of these historical events and design technologies that instead, improve the environment, therefore improving our agricultural systems.
The organization ‘Forum for the Future’ focused on the future of fashion. I can directly relate this to food as both categories face similar challenges of “climate change, resource shortages, population growth” and many more. Their team developed scenarios that were “designed as a tool to challenge companies’ strategies”. This resulted as a successful module as is now being used worldwide. Food, like fashion, is a necessity of our culture, we need to build scenarios and plan for the future.
Perhaps we need to look at the bigger picture and see what we can do nowfor food crops as a response to climate change, we could be facing a change in popular homemade dishes like Spaghetti bolognaise. The rate of our current climate extremes means we face droughts and hot temperatures which “adversely affect the carrot’s flavour, texture and physical structure” Rebecca Huntley states in an ABC ‘Future Tense’programme. Are we nearing to the death of carrots?! However, what if researchers and designers can create a technology that can assist food crops in climate extremes in the future? Is there the possibility for the mass production of carrots to survive?
I have recently watched the film ‘Interstellar’ featuring Mathew McConaughey which is set in the future and displays ideas about the Earth’s future agriculture. Scenes of crop blights and dust storms show the climate’s damaging impact on farming and the threat of human existence. Although the film is fiction, this idea does not seem impossible. People need to understand how damage to food crops can negatively affect the mass production of food.
Climate change plays a serious role in the future therefore humans need to design technologies that will aid farmers in times of extreme temperatures. Statistics show “each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850” (Climate Change Australia, 2016). The mass production of food in the future needs technology to help our agriculture survive.
Foodture 