Applied Science: Inevitable results?

Fitzgerald’s Mastering Nature and Yeoman explores the effect that applied science has had on agricultural practices in the developed, and increasingly the developing, world.  Attention is paid to technological and organizational advancements in crop breeding, animal rearing, and pest control, with particular consideration toward the increasing use of industrial-type processes in the food industries.  Rather than being just a passive receiver of techniques, agriculture has been the impetus for growth in a number of scientific disciplines.

Although seeming to avoid normative judgments, the author paints an image of an agricultural sector dominated by industrial organization and advanced technological processes that tends toward a feeling of “look what science hath wrought”.  Fitzgerald mentions the lack of taste of Hanna’s genetically-engineered tomatoes, the economic and health effects of animal feed additives, and the deleterious effects of pesticide use throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a way indicating disdain for modern agricultural practices, making no attempt to separate “applied science” from these industrial techniques in her opening paragraph.  Although a subtle distinction is made between the science practiced in “land grant systems” and that practiced by “private companies”, the author then declares those differences are “not as stark as one might imagine”, further cementing the idea that all methods of science application to agricultural practices manifests in much the same way.

I wouldn’t disagree with Fitzgerald concerning her identification of the negative outcomes that can result from the industrial agricultural methods that are currently in use, but I would disagree with her unstated (or at least not contradicted) assumption that science applied to agriculture inevitably manifests in the same types of practices.  Although a relatively emerging market and field at the time of the chapter’s writing, organic farming makes use of scientific practices which, advocates would argue, emphasize quality of food over quantity (a consistent goal of industrial agriculture).  Organic advocates point to the ill effects of industrial agriculture identified by Fitzgerald and assert that organic practices can alleviate many of those ills through judicious application of the scientific method.  Much university and private sector research has focused on both the benefits and hurdles of small- and large-scale organic farming, continuously using experimentation and other methods to enhance knowledge of crop growth, pest control, transportation, and other techniques that adhere to organic guidelines and notions of sustainable practices. 

The key factor lies in the general goal of the research; in this case of agriculture, should production be geared toward quantity and lower prices, as with current industrial practices, or quality and higher prices, as with current organic practices?  This isn’t the only dichotomous configuration that agricultural research goals can take.  One can imagine a world in which the dominant question would be whether to develop green or purple crops, or sweet smelling or sour smelling milk, using the same scientific practices that Fitzgerald implies inevitably causes the ills outlined above.  In this respect, science is essentially goalless.  The only goal that applied science can be said to have is to control something, but the question of “controlling what?” is left up to the researcher.  Too often in the public’s mind, and evidently in the author’s, science is strongly connected with industrialized practices.  Science, however, is strictly a tool.  Like all other tools it can be used in a number of ways  by a number of users, with the achieved result being dependent on the aims of the one using the tool.