AGRICULTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND RESPONSIBILITY IN FAR-FROM-EQUILIBRIUM CONDITIONS

AGRICULTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND RESPONSIBILITY IN FAR-FROM-EQUILIBRIUM CONDITIONS

(Jose Ma. Ybanez Tomacruz, PhL., EMMB) 

Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize laureate for his work in thermodynamics, speaks of far-from equilibrium conditions or systems.[1]

When the thermodynamic system forces acting on a system become such that the linear region is exceeded, however, the stability of the stationary state, or its independence from fluctuations, can no longer be taken for granted… In some cases, the analysis leads to the conclusion that a state is “unstable” –in such a state, certain fluctuations, instead of regressing, may be amplified and invade the system, compelling it  to evolve toward a new regime that may be qualitatively quite different from the stationary states corresponding to minimum entropy production.

In socio-political terms, such is well-expounded by Alvin Toffler[2].

Imagine a primitive tribe. If its birthrate and death rate are equal, the size of the population remains stable. Assuming adequate food and other resources, the tribe forms part of a local system in ecological equilibrium. Now increase the birthrate. A few additional births (without an equivalent number of deaths) might have little effect. The system may move to a near-equilibrial state. Nothing much happens. It takes a big jolt to produce big consequences in systems that are equilibrial or near-equilibrial states. But if the birthrate should suddenly soar, the system is pushed into far-from-equilibrium condition…In this state, systems do strange things. They become inordinately sensitive to external influences. Small inputs yield huge, startling effects. The entire system may reorganize itself in ways that strike us as bizarre.

As such, developing countries can be considered as being under far-from-equilibrium condition. Joachim Schummer^[3] thus says:

…I will use the term ‘developing countries’ for countries with low or medium state of development according to the most widely accepted human development index (HDI) by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite index that combines per capita GDP with life expectancy and educational standards. According to that index, the least developed countries are all in sub-Saharan Africa to be followed by South Asia, Arab States, East Asia, Latin America. Beyond these statistical and geographical features, most of these less developed countries share some characteristics. For instance, historically, they were former colonies and frequently still have some special ties (economic, political, military) to their former colonial powers. Many happen to be rich of material resources for the long-term benefit of the colonial powers. Large parts of their populations suffer from very basic needs, like malnutrition and the lack of safe drinking water, sanitation, education, and health care, despite devastating epidemics like AIDS and malaria. Rural exodus has even increased these needs through exploding slums around big cities. They have only poor infrastructures of public and private research and development, including small public research budgets and virtually no venture capital. Even if they are currently developing such infrastructures, -as in China- they have little experience in technology governance, including the launch and conduct of research programs, safety and environmental regulations, marketing and patenting strategies, and so on.

As such, developing countries, being of  far-from-equilibrium condition, are indeed “inordinately sensitive to external influences”[4].

Agriculture is an essential element in the life of developing countries. A paper of the United Nations Ministerial Conference of the Least Developed Countries[5]  with the theme “Making Globalization Work for the LDCs” said:

Agriculture is the backbone of the LDCs (least developed countries). It accounts for between 30 to 60 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) among the LDCs, employs more people than any other sector (as much as 70 percent in most cases), represents a major source of foreign exchange, supplies the bulk of basic food and provides subsistence and other income to more than half of the LDCs’ population. The strong forward and backward linkages within the rural sector and with other sectors of the economy provide added stimulus for growth and income generation.

However, the same paper says that agriculture, despite its importance, has stagnated, if not lagged behind[6]:

Agricultural output in LDCs rose during 1990-00 at an annual average rate of 2.8 percent, exceeding the rate of 1.9 percent in 1980-90, with some slight improvements in per capita terms. However, recent data for 2000-05 indicate that there was virtually no increase in output, or even a slight decline. The situation was the same for per capita staple food production. In addition, slow food production growth and sharp annual fluctuations in output remain major and chronic problems for the LDCs, constituting the major causes of their rising poverty and food insecurity. Between 1995-97 and 2002-04, the proportion of undernourished in total population in the LDCs increased from 34 percent to 41 percent, while the absolute number of undernourished is estimated to have increased from 116 million to 169 million.

Here in the Philippines, the narrative is no less stark. Citing Jose Ramon Albert, National Statistics Board Secretary-General, Kim Arveen Patria[7]
 says that in 2009 poverty incidence in the country has been very high among farmers at 36.7%, second only to fishermen at 41.4%. Such figures are much higher than the entire Philippines’ poverty incidence which stands at 26.5%, also in 2009. In 2012, the whole sector of agriculture posted the lowest labor productivity rate at mere P56,728 which comparatively pales to the P351,024 of the industry sector, and of the P181,850 of the  service sector.

Technology plays a vital role in the development and improvement of agriculture. Christine Peterson and Jacob Heller speak of the promise of technology, in this case, nanotechnology, in becoming a solution to perennial problems besetting developing countries.[8]

The promise of nanotechnology is that, if properly applied, it may offer solutions for some of the most intractable and longstanding challenges faced by humanity… it is important that we do not ignore the repercussions of forgoing the potential benefits of nanotechnology. The wise and ethical development of nanotechnology can relieve much needless poverty, pain, and death…

Such was also echoed by information technology quarters delving into agriculture[9].

For commercial farmers, emerging technologies have brought opportunities and have changed the nature of certain transactions to the extent that it is difficult to compete unless you are up-to-date with the new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and technological advancement. For example, today to carry out most commercial marketing and sales activities, we need an email address and good access to internet, phone and good technological infrastructure… In addition to being vital for the commercial farming sector, the use of ICTs can also contribute positively to livelihood development in rural areas. It has the potential to change the way farmers access information, making it faster and easier for them to get in touch with specialists that can provide technical advice and assistance.

However, such promise is not without its incumbent perils as affirmed also by Peterson and Heller when they spoke of nanotechnology’s benefits, “…this fact must be weighed along with nanotechnology’s potential downsides in order to have a balanced ethical understanding of nanotechnology.”[10] 

Emmanuel Levinas says that by way of labor, the transformation of matter or of the elements is done by man. Also, he says that the “self”, also transforms the world or the elements in his image or likeness.  The material world, or the “elemental” as Levinas calls it, is there for my taking, for my mastery. 

The elements remain at the disposal of the “I” -to take or to leave.  Labor will henceforth draw things from the elements and thus discover the world... This primordial grasp, this emprise of labor... arouses things and transform nature into a world...^[11]

Through labor, the “I” or “ego” does not only transform matter or the world.  It also takes possession or ownership of the world, or the Other.  Thus it can be noted, that one says “This  house is the fruit of my labor,” “This piece of special paper which used to be just a lump of grass was made by me,” and so on and so forth.  We identify ourselves with our labor, with our transforming of matter, and by so doing we also end up appropriating the fruits of our labor.  “This finished product is mine because I made it.”  Societies even create laws to perpetuate and protect ownership of things, thus we have patents, titles and the likes to whatever we have created, whether it be an idea, a scientific invention, a song, a poem, a story, a bank account.  Again, the “I” simply agglomerates the Other into the same.  

Technology, being a product of human labor, can thus be a means of the “I” or the “ego” taking possession, or ownership of, the world, or of the Other. The “I” or “ego” can take the form of vested-interested groups or individuals, whether local or multinational. This being so, therefore, technology, specifically nanotechnology and information and communication technology, as applied in agriculture, can, in Levinasian language, thus be a means or expression of the “I” or “ego” absorbing the Other into itself, or of a subject of violence, or selfishness, or totality. The selfishness, violence, or totality of the ‘I” on the Other consists in assimilating the Other, as if embracing the Other in an octopodal dance of death, simply for its own purpose, for its own interest.  Thus, Levinas also says:

But violence does not consist so much in injuring and annihilating persons as in interrupting their continuity making them  play roles in which they no longer recognize themselves, making them betray not only commitments but their own substance, making them carry out actions that will destroy very possibility for action.^[12]

And so, the utility of nanotechnology and information and communication technology in developing countries, specifically in agriculture can thus be not as benign as it may apparently appear.

Our basic questions therefore are: Can nanotechnology, and information and communication technology applied in agriculture if used in countries in far-from-equilibrium conditions, i.e., being developing countries, be responsible, that is, for the upliftment and progress of developing countries? Can such thus lead to the developing countries’ human resource becoming, as Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen says, “not just as the means, but more importantly, as the principal ends of development?”[13]  Will nanotechnology and information and communication technology be instrumental in leading the citizens of developing countries into authentic human development, which in the mind of Martha Nussbaum is to be able “to build for themselves a more ‘fully human’ life –with an improved life expectancy, a meaningful education, and decisive access to material security? Within the ambit of such a life…, they would be expected to conduct themselves, not poorly, but with dignity and flourish”?[14] Or can nanotechnology and information and communication technology utilized in agriculture themselves become authentic expressions, as envisioned by Levinas, of a responsible, Other-oriented global community? Lastly, Ilya Prigogine[15] essays that though far-from-equilibrium conditions are indeed fraught with negative possibilities, however, they also can be progenitors of bifurcations, or changes. That is, if given all the necessary conditions, far-from-equilibirum conditions can lead to the emergence of dissipative structures, or order of a higher degree of existence for the peoples, especially the most vulnerable ones. And so we also ask whether nanotechnology and I.C.T. in agriculture  could provide such substantial impetus for the emergence of dissipative structures in developing countries, and thus lead to development as envisioned by Sen, Nussbaum, and Levinas?

Galileo Galilei himself, warns us of the hopeful possibilities and the yawning chasm of vissicitudes in view of new technologies. Mary Allan-Olney, talking of Galileo’s work on his telescope and his discovery of the satellites of Jupiter says[16]:

… his enemies had been endeavoring to discredit
him with the Grand Duke ; for he says :
"Tell his Highness that the discoverer of the new planets is none other than Galileo Galilei,  his faithful vassal, to whom the observation of three nights only was enough to assure
him of the truth of the discovery, and not the observation of five months, which I have devoted to it ; and let him lay aside all hesitation or shadow of doubt, for these planets will leave off being true planets when the sun leaves off being the sun. Assure his Highness that these rumors
owe their existence to malignity and envy, of which I find no lack ; and let not his Highness hope to be exempt from it either…. " But I trust to have found means to stop the mouths of the envious and ignorant. The clearest argument against them is that they prate in corners, and speak vain words, but avoid establishing their conceits with pen and ink. But the fruits of this malignity will be contrary to its authors' intention; for so far from annulling this great discovery by crying out on it as false, impossible, contrary to all the ordinances of nature, it will only shine out the more sublime, the more to be wondered at, and worthy of more esteem than hath ever been accorded to any heroic greatness.

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[1] Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature (U.S.A., Bantam Books Inc., 1984), pp. 140-141.

[2] Ibid., Alvin Toffler, “Science and Change”, p. xvi.

[3] Joachim Schummer The Impact of Nanotechnologies on Developing Countries, Published in: Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor & John Weckert (eds.), Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007, pp. 291-307, in Class Compilation for the Short Course on APPLIED ETHICS: Focus on Information Technology and Nanontechnology, John Weckert (ed., & lect.), University of Santo Tomas, Espana, Manila, Philippines, 15-26  May 2012

[4] Toffler

[5] http://www.unohrlls.org/UserFiles/File/LDC%20Documents/Turkey/20June07-Agriculture-Final.pdf

[6] Ibid.

[7] http://ph.news.yahoo.com/farmers--fishermen-still-ph-s-lowest-paid--says-study-081227172.html

[8]  Christine Peterson and Jacob Heller, Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology, Allhoff, Lin, Moor, Weckert, eds. (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2007), p.57,  in Class Compilation for the Short Course on APPLIED ETHICS: Focus on Information Technology and Nanontechnology, John Weckert (ed., & lect.), University of Santo Tomas, Espana, Manila, Philippines, 15-26  May 2012

[9] http://www.web2fordev.net/component/content/article/1-latest-news/109-using-innovative-technologies-to-promote-access-to-information

[10] Ibid.

[11]   Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity:  An Essay in Exteriority, Alfonso Lingis trans., (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:  Duquesne University Press, 1969) pp.156-157.

[12]   Levinas, Totality and Infinity, p.21.

[13] Christopher Ryan Maboloc, “The Human Person in Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Ethics,” BUDHI 1, (Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo De Manila University), p. 227

[14] Ibid., p. 228

[15] Progogine and Stengers, pp. 12-14, 142-143

[16]Mary Allan-Olney, “THE PRIVATE LIFE OF GALILEO: COMPILED PRINCIPALLY FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE AND THAT OF HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER, SISTER MARIA CELESTE,
NUN IN THE FRANCISCAN CONVENT OF ST. MATTHEW, IN ARCETRI”, Boston: Nichols and Noyes, 1870, Riverside, Cambridge: Stereotyped  and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company , p. 65