Disruptive innovation in agriculture to promote new marketing system may create a conflict with the sustainability issues of agricultural development.
Now people are looking for disruptive technology for agricultural productivity.Once the technology is developed,the question of sustaiability will be taken care of.
Well, the answer to this question ultimately depends on the nature of the disruptive technology, as well as how you ultimately define sustainability.
One could argue that the green revolution was a disruptive technology, which allowed for far greater yields than was possible before the implementation of higher inputs and hybrid seeds. This technology has had both positive and negative effects on sustainability. It has increased the food production possible per unit of land, and through greater mechanization also increase production per unit of labor, allowing for more efficient production, and allowing growing food demand to be met. Now, this has come with a host of negative impacts as well, including unsustainable use of irrigation in many parts of the world, overuse of fertilizers and other chemical inputs with significant issues of runoff. Specialization on certain high yielding crops may have decreased biodiversity. Thus, solely increasing productivity on its own won't ensure that the technology leads to greater sustainability.
Future disruptive technologies may be more pro-sustainability than in the past, given the greater amount of interest in sustainability and concerns with environmental degradation. However, whether they ultimately have a positive impact on dimensions of sustainability, will probably be difficult to assess ex ante, and will only fully be felt and understood after we deal with the unintended consequences brought on by the new technology.
Thank you Mr. Daniel for your insight. There is always paradox exist in such concept. But, fortunately with past experiences in agriculture, in present disruptive innovations, the issues of sustainability are addressed more and it will be in future as you have rightly mentioned. Thank you once again for your response.
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