Thinking the Future of Agricultural Worker Health on a Warming Planet and an Automating Farm

Comi, Matt; Becot, Florence

doi:10.1080/1059924x.2022.2137617

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 49 publications

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“…However, as described in the Conclusion, it remains clear that the body of literature examining impacts of environmental change and automation on agriculture could further consider those whose lives and wellbeing are most directly affected by these changes. The danger to worker wellbeing compounds when considering that these same populations tend to have the least agency to make their own decisions or negotiations around the adoption, use, and interaction with forces of automation and environment [ 52 ]. Of the articles we identified, wellbeing received less attention than health, and from that, only research on automated milking systems examined their impact on farmer wellbeing [ 26 , 27 , 53 ].…”

Section: Technology and Climate Change In The Literature As It Pertai...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Automation, Climate Change, and the Future of Farm Work: Cross-Disciplinary Lessons for Studying Dynamic Changes in Agricultural Health and Safety

Comi

Becot

Bendixsen

2023

IJERPH

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In this review, we first assess the state of agricultural health and safety research as it pertains to the dynamic challenges facing automating agriculture on a warming planet. Then, we turn to social science fields such as rural sociology, science and technology studies, and environmental studies to leverage relevant insights on the introduction of new technologies, environmental risks, and associated workplace hazards. Increased rates of automation in agriculture alongside new risks associated with climate change create the need for anticipatory governance and adaptive research to study novel mechanisms of worker health and safety. The use of the PRISMA framework led to the 137 articles for our review. We identify three themes in the literature on agricultural health and safety: (1) adoption outcomes, (2) discrete cases of health risks, and (3) an emphasis on care and wellbeing in literature on dairy automation Our review led to the identification of research gaps, noting that current research (a) tends to examine these forces separately, instead of together, (b) has not made robust examination of these forces as socially embedded, and (c) has hesitated to examine the broad, transferable themes for how these forces work across industries. In response to these gaps, we suggest that attention to outside disciplines may provide agricultural health and safety research with a toolset to examine needed inquiry into the multiplicity of experiences of rural stakeholders, the industry specific problems arising from automation and climate change, and the socially embedded aspects of agricultural work in the future.

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