The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of FoodA concise and feisty takedown of the all-style, no-substance tech ventures that fail to solve our food crises. Why has Silicon Valley become the model for addressing today's myriad social and ecological crises? With this book, Julie Guthman digs into the impoverished solutions for food and agriculture currently emerging from Silicon Valley, urging us to stop trying to fix our broken food system through finite capitalistic solutions and technological moonshots that do next to nothing to actualize a more just and sustainable system. The Problem with Solutions combines an analysis of the rise of tech company solution culture with findings from actual research on the sector's ill-informed attempts to address the problems of food and agriculture. As this seductive approach continues to infiltrate universities and academia, Guthman challenges us to reject apolitical and self-gratifying techno-solutions and develop the capacity and willingness to respond to the root causes of these crises. Solutions, she argues, are a product of our current condition, not an answer to it. |
Contents
Silicon Valley and the Urge to Make the World | 29 |
Agrifood Solutions before Silicon Valley | 54 |
Silicon Valley Bites Off Agriculture and Food | 74 |
Alternative Protein and the Nothing Burger | 96 |
Digital Technologies and Plowing Through | 118 |
Silicon Valley Thinking Comes to the University | 138 |
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AgFunder agriculture and food Agriculture and Human Agrifood Solutions agrifood tech agroecology alternative protein Ananya Roy animal approach appropriationism Better Place Big Data Big Ideas billion Biotechnology Bites Off Agrifood Borlaug California Press challenges cleantech companies contest corporations crops culture design thinking Digital Technologies disruption ecological economic Encountering Poverty engineering entrepreneurs environmental famine farm farmers food and agriculture funding Future of Food Global Green Revolution hunger Ideas and Solution-Makers impact improve industry inputs investment investors Journal Kuli Kuli land livestock ment Moonshot moringa neoliberal Norman Borlaug Notes to Pages Oakland organizations pitch events political precision agriculture problem with solutions production productiv profit programs rural Science Silicon Valley Silicon Valley Bites Silicon Valley Comes solu solutionism Solutions before Silicon solve Soylent Green start-ups substitutionism tech sector techies techno-fix things tion UCSC University of California University Press Valley’s venture capital World a Better