{"id":185235,"date":"2022-05-18T20:52:55","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T15:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=185235"},"modified":"2022-05-18T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-18T15:24:00","slug":"technological-advancement-often-has-a-sting-in-its-tail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/technological-advancement-often-has-a-sting-in-its-tail\/","title":{"rendered":"Technological advancement often has a sting in its tail\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Context<\/span><\/b>: In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari made the somewhat controversial statement that human beings have been domesticated by wheat. In other words, every science-driven improvement in agriculture has come at a price.<\/span><\/p>\n

How science has enabled humankind to overcome many of the challenges we face as a species?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Having learnt farming or how to create stable and easily-accessible sources of food, the human beings gave up the <\/span>hunter-gatherer <\/span><\/b>and Nomadic way of life. The humans\u2019 beings now settle in one place to cultivate crops<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A series of innovations are: a)<\/strong> the <\/span>Haber-Bosch process<\/span><\/b> allows us to artificially enrich the soil with nitrogen-based fertilizers, b) <\/strong><\/span>agricultural automation<\/span><\/b> made it possible for machines to do the work of many men, and c) <\/strong><\/span>genetic engineering<\/span><\/b> improved crop yields by making them resistant to pests and disease.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, this discussion led to increased interest in <\/span>developing plant-based alternatives to meat<\/span><\/b>. They can lead to <\/span>nutritional equivalent<\/span><\/b> of animal meat and the <\/span>same taste <\/span><\/b>and <\/span>mouthfeel<\/span><\/b>. These plant-based alternatives can reduce current dependence on animal meat and reduce <\/span>ethical cruelty<\/span><\/b> implicit in the <\/span>animal farming industry. <\/span><\/b>For example, demand for<\/span> soyabean.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Had we not industrialized our agricultural processes, we would not have been able to avert the threat of global hunger.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How agricultural innovations have come at a price?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Agriculture altered <\/span>human existence<\/span><\/b> as well as it transformed the planet. The small towns have grown into cities.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The demand for enough food to support <\/span>burgeoning<\/span><\/b> human<\/span><\/b> populations<\/span><\/b> far exceeded the land\u2019s capacity to fulfil it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There have been <\/span>a lot of issues<\/span><\/b> with agricultural innovations. These are (1) Although <\/span>fertilizers<\/span><\/b> improve food yields, but their overuse has become a threat to our environment, (2) <\/span>Genetically engineered plants<\/span><\/b> are resistant to pests. But there are concerns around the allergic reactions, production of toxins and their reduced nutritional value.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, agricultural activity has become an industrial activity. It has led to disproportionate utilization of the scare land resources.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>plant-based alternatives to meat <\/span><\/b>are unlikely to take place without serious consequences. For example, with a surge in demand for soybean, there has been resultant increase in deforestation and displacement around the globe. Same thing may happen with other plant-based meats.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Way Forward<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Scientific progress always challenges our notions of what is right. Their benefits lead to their acknowledgement. Further, the new technologies inevitably throw up new challenges to be solved.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/b>: The post is based on an article \u201cTechnological advancement often has a sting in its tail<\/strong>\u201d published in the Live Mint<\/strong> on 18th May 2022<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Context: In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari made the somewhat controversial statement that human beings have been domesticated by wheat. In other words, every science-driven improvement in agriculture has come at a price. How science has enabled humankind to overcome many of the challenges we face as a species?\u00a0 Having learnt farming or how… Continue reading Technological advancement often has a sting in its tail\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10501],"class_list":["post-185235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-live-mint","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700552767},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}