Cows desiring to be milked? Milking robots and the co-evolution of ethics and technology on Dutch dairy farms

Driessen, Clemens; Heutinck, L.F.M.

doi:10.1007/s10460-014-9515-5

Cited by 112 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While there are undoubtedly opportunities associated with smart farming innovations beyond economic gains (e.g., environmental gains through reduced input use, see Wolfert et al, 2017), there are potentially negative outcomes, especially socio-ethical implications for humans and non-humans (Carbonell, 2016;Driessen & Heutinck, 2015;Millar, 2000). To date, only a handful of studies have looked at these potential implications of smart farming.…”

Section: What Is the "Smart" Farming "Revolution"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart Farming: Including Rights Holders for Responsible Agricultural Innovation

Bronson¹

2018

TIM Review

134

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: What Is the "Smart" Farming "Revolution"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart Farming: Including Rights Holders for Responsible Agricultural Innovation

Bronson¹

2018

TIM Review

134

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…This enables changes in dairy management at the levels of the individual cow and the herd, and also changes significantly the work of dairy farming (see Holloway 2007;Butler et al 2012;Holloway andMorris 2012 andHolloway et al 2014a for more detail). In other articles, we and other authors have used AMS to explore changing humananimal relations, shifting 'situated' agricultural ethics, and the potential for applying a range of social scientific perspectives to situations which include nonhuman animals (see for example Porcher 2006;Holloway 2007;Butler et al 2012;Porcher and Schmitt 2012;Holloway et al 2014a;Driessen and Heutinck 2015). Holloway et al (Holloway and Morris 2012;Holloway et al 2014b) have drawn on Foucault in order to explore how AMS is associated with the ordering of dairy farm space and the disciplining of both farmers and cows.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology and Restructuring the Social Field of Dairy Farming: Hybrid Capitals, ‘Stockmanship’ and Automatic Milking Systems

Butler

Holloway

2015

Sociologia Ruralis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Using Automatic Milking Systems (AMS) as an example we use the work of Bourdieu to illustrate how technology can be seen as restructuring dairy farming practices, what it is to be a dairy farmer, and the wider field of dairy farming. Approaching technology in this way and drawing upon the 'thinking tools' of Pierre Bourdieu, namely field, capital and habitus, the article critically examines the relevance of Bourdieu's thought to the study of technology. We expand on Bourdieu's types of capital to define what we have called 'hybrid' capital involving human-cow-technology collectives. The concept expresses how new technology can shift power relations within the dairy field, affecting human-animal relations and changing the stock person' habitus. Hybrid capital is produced through a co-investment of stock-keepers, cows and technologies, and can become economically and culturally valuable within a rapidly restructuring dairying field when invested in making dairy farming more efficient changing farmers' social status and work-life balance. The article shows how AMS and this emergent hybrid capital is associated with new but contested definitions of what counts as 'good' dairy farming practice, and with the emergence of new modes of dairy farmer habitus, within a wider dairy farming field.

show abstract

“…Smart farming approaches, including the use of Microsoft's Cortana Intelligence Suite, are currently being used to determine optimal planting dates for crops around the world, such as in India and Colombia (López and Corrales, 2018). Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, are being used to aid weed identification (Lottes et al, 2017), and robots are helping farmers to milk their cattle (Driessen and Heutinck, 2015) and remove weeds (Fennimore, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture 4.0: Broadening Responsible Innovation in an Era of Smart Farming

Rose

Chilvers

2018

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

406

273

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Agriculture is undergoing a new technology revolution supported by policy-makers around the world. While smart technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and the Internet of Things, could play an important role in achieving enhanced productivity and greater eco-efficiency, critics have suggested that the consideration of social implications is being side-lined. Research illustrates that some agricultural practitioners are concerned about using certain smart technologies. Indeed, some studies argue that agricultural societies may be changed, or "re-scripted," in undesirable ways, and there is precedent to suggest that wider society may be concerned about radical new agricultural technologies. We therefore encourage policy-makers, funders, technology companies, and researchers to consider the views of both farming communities and wider society. In agriculture, the concept of responsible innovation has not been widely considered, although two recent papers have made useful suggestions. We build on these interventions by arguing that key dimensions of responsible innovation-anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness-should be applied to this fourth agricultural revolution. We argue, however, that ideas of responsible innovation should be further developed in order to make them relevant and robust for emergent agri-tech, and that frameworks should be tested in practice to see if they can actively shape innovation trajectories. In making suggestions on how to construct a more comprehensive framework for responsible innovation in sustainable agriculture, we call for: (i) a more systemic approach that maps and attends to the wider ecology of innovations associated with this fourth agricultural revolution; (ii) a broadening of notions of "inclusion" in responsible innovation to account better for diverse and already existing spaces of participation in agri-tech, and (iii) greater testing of frameworks in practice to see if they are capable of making innovation processes more socially responsible. Some would argue that the "fourth agricultural revolution" (Lejon and Frankelius, 2015) or "agriculture 4.0" (Bartmer in Frankelius et al., 2017) has already begun. Each previous agricultural revolution was radical at the time-the first representing a transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture, the second relating to the British agricultural revolution in the 18th century, and the third relating to post-war productivity increases associated with mechanization and the Green Revolution in the developing world. While technological innovation is thus not new

show abstract

Cows desiring to be milked? Milking robots and the co-evolution of ethics and technology on Dutch dairy farms

Cited by 112 publications

References 42 publications

Smart Farming: Including Rights Holders for Responsible Agricultural Innovation

Smart Farming: Including Rights Holders for Responsible Agricultural Innovation

Technology and Restructuring the Social Field of Dairy Farming: Hybrid Capitals, ‘Stockmanship’ and Automatic Milking Systems

Agriculture 4.0: Broadening Responsible Innovation in an Era of Smart Farming

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About