Innovation is wonderful… unless it isn’t.

Daniel Silkstone — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:32:20 +0000

Kenya

Innovation is wonderful… unless it isn’t.

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You say tomato, I say complex system…

In 1962, about 4,000 tomato farmers, employing 50,000 farm workers, were in operation across California. Just nine years later, only 600 farms remained, and 32,000 farm workers were out of a job. What had happened?

The introduction of mechanized tomato harvesters.

Of course, it hadn’t just happened; this change had been intended. Prompted by the impending end of the Bracero Program, which enabled agricultural workers from Mexico to work in the United States, researchers at the University of California, Davis, rushed to develop technology that could support the industry. Their research led to the development of mechanized harvesting machines which, five years later, would be responsible for 99.9% of all tomato picking. Undoubtedly, the introduction of these machines saved the industry.

But it also brought about huge collateral costs.

At $65,000 each, these machines were not for everyone. The profit margin required to justify them meant farmers needed a lot more land to remain commercially viable. This led to a massive 82% consolidation of the industry into just a small number of large-scale farmers.

To survive these new machines, agricultural scientists had to breed new strains of tomatoes that were harder and could withstand their picking techniques. These tomatoes tasted the same but contained fewer vitamins and were less desirable for consumers.

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ThinkPlace - Human-centred innovation

Innovation is wonderful… unless it isn’t.

Innovation is wonderful… unless it isn’t.