Briefly describe your work with agtech and explain what motivates you to invest your time in this work.

I’m a PhD candidate in Environmental Sustainability at the Institute of the Environment at uOttawa. Broadly, my research explores the ways that digital technologies are being innovated and deployed as solutions to wicked problems like climate change. Specifically, my current research is focused on the use of digital technologies (like robotics and artificial intelligence) in agriculture and the role these technologies play in Canada’s federal climate change strategy, and the role private funders and venture capital play in the innovation trajectories of these technologies. The work explores narratives of techno-solutionism and techno-optimism with regards to these technologies in policy, media and innovation contexts.

I’ve been interested in sustainable food systems since I began graduate school during my Master’s degree at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. That university is very agriculture-focused, so that is when I began hearing terms like Agriculture 4.0 in reference to the technological ‘revolution’ in agriculture. Since then, I have used my skills as a social scientist to interrogate ag-tech’s claims to revolution, disruption and sustainability.

Our research and this workshop aim to investigate tensions between the demands/imperatives of the tech-finance industry and the demands/imperatives of social-environmental problem solving. Please comment on this problem frame in general, and in relation to specific examples from your own experience.

These tensions are something I’m very interested in in my research as well! I’m interested in what VCs and ag-tech entrepreneurs understand environmental sustainability to be, and how they envision their role in transitions to sustainable food systems.

To investigate the tensions suggested above, we rely on the concept of “mission drift”. We understand mission drift as a tendency for social and environmental impact commitments of individuals and organizations to leak out over time due to pressures and opportunities to expand revenue, valuation and capital gains. Our project aims to investigate mission drift applied to entrepreneurial ventures as well as to organizations dedicated to supporting innovation. Please comment on this thesis in general, and in relation to specific things you have experienced where possible. To the extent you find this thesis useful, what strategies can you identify to defend against mission drift?

I find the thesis very useful, and I look forward to conversations about it at the workshop. From my experience speaking with VCs and entrepreneurs, the goals of scaling start-ups and demonstrating financial growth seem to outweigh the desires to demonstrate environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability seems to be understood as an inevitable outcome of higher technological adoption, but not necessarily the goal in and of itself (even if they do state intentions to contribute to sustainable food systems in their marketing materials). I would be interested to know ag-tech innovators’ perspectives on this.

Please share something you would like to take away from the workshop.

I think it’ll be really interesting to hear ag-tech innovators’ perspectives on sustainability and ‘mission drift’. I’ve been doing research more in the Canadian context so it’ll be really fascinating to hear more American (or international) perspectives.