In this episode, we welcome Julie Guthman, distinguished professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Julie earned her Ph.D. in geography from UC Berkeley, and for nearly three decades, her research and teaching have focused on how neoliberal capitalism influences potential shifts in the food system.
Among other topics, she has studied how the rapid growth of California's strawberry industry has relied on toxic soil fumigants, shaping the entire production system and making fumigant-free strawberry cultivation highly challenging.
Julie has published over sixty articles in peer-reviewed journals and authored five books, which have been awarded for their contributions to food system studies. Her books cover various aspects of her research: “Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California”, “Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism”, “The New Food Activism: Opposition, Cooperation, and Collective Action”, and “Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry”.
This episode, however, centers on her latest book, The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food. In it, Julie critiques the narrow, short-term solutions for food and agriculture promoted by Silicon Valley, urging us to move beyond these limited, capital-driven fixes and "techno-solutionist" approaches that fail to create a truly just and sustainable food system.
While the book primarily addresses agriculture, its insights apply more broadly, offering a powerful critique of “solutions” that ignore the deeper structural causes of today’s most pressing social and environmental crises.
(Text has been slightly edited for clarity)
Hi Julie! To get started, can you tell us a little bit more about you and your work?
I trained as a geographer and earned my PhD in Geography from UC Berkeley almost 25, years ago. Most of my research has focused on efforts to transform food production and distribution. My original dissertation research was on organic farming, and I've conducted a project on pesticide reduction in the California strawberry industry, among many others. The inspiration for the book we're discussing today came from Silicon Valley's recent move into the food and agriculture sectors. They seem to have entered these fields with the idea that they can solve some of the most intractable problems using technology.
To continue diving into the topic of your book, you started to mention “The Problem With Solutions”, could you explain what you define as a 'solution' and why it tends to be so appealing?
To be clear, I'm not against tackling the world's big problems. Of course, major challenges like climate change, sustainability, and food insecurity need to be addressed. But in my book, I define "solutions" as finite, narrowly conceived fixes to problems that have themselves been simplified and framed as solvable. Take climate change, for example. Instead of directly addressing CO2 and methane emissions, the problem is reframed as people not knowing enough about their climate footprint. So, someone creates an app to help them track it. This illustrates what I mean: a narrowed problem definition and a narrowed solution.
These solutions are often developed with limited understanding of the larger issue and a narrow set of tools, reflecting a constrained sense of possibility. Tackling climate change can seem overwhelming, but offering an app to inform people about their climate footprint feels more manageable. These solutions are appealing because they seem doable, they are concrete, and they provide a sense of immediate action. They make people feel good, as if they are making a difference.
However, the reality is that they might not be making a significant impact. Interestingly, the word "solution" shares the same root as "absolution," which means a release from guilt or responsibility. I think there's a parallel here—solutions can make people feel like they've done their part, freeing them from the need to engage with the more challenging aspects of social change.
So, if we focus specifically on agriculture— In my experience, many farmers are supportive, or at least very curious, about new technologies to address issues like labor shortages and profitability. What has been your personal experience when talking to farmers about their perception and use of technology?
One of the things that inspired this project on Silicon Valley was my previous research on strawberry production. The California strawberry industry faces a number of significant challenges: tighter regulations, labor shortages, restrictions on the use of soil fumigants—especially due to their toxicity, which was a key motivation for that project—along with land shortages and other issues.
When it comes to labor, strawberry growers would love to have a robot that can pick strawberries, as labor costs are a major expense in the industry. Even though strawberry workers earn extremely low wages and endure harsh working conditions, they still represent the biggest cost in strawberry production. So, yes, growers are very interested in robots, and some are already experimenting with them.
That's one of the motivations behind this project. The thing is, it's not at all clear that many of the technologies coming out of Silicon Valley—and there are a wide range of them being sold to the public, to farmers, and to food manufacturers—actually address the concerns of growers. In fact, I've found that entrepreneurs often imagine what these concerns are rather than taking the time to investigate them.
One example is the development of technologies to collect data on farmers' fields, based on the assumption that more data will help growers make better decisions about what to apply to their crops. However, many growers aren't enthusiastic about sharing their data with large tech companies. It's also unclear whether what these tech companies provide is genuinely useful to farmers. When there's a specific problem, farmers do welcome technological solutions. But when the technology is driven by what entrepreneurs can create, rather than what farmers truly need, it often leads to a disconnect.
One of the arguments often used to justify the implementation of technology in agriculture is that it is necessary to feed a projected 10 billion people on the planet. How valid do you think this argument is, and what role should technology play in ensuring global food security?
Yes, that's the primary justification often given for technological development in agriculture. For this book, I conducted research as part of a collaborative project with other scholars. We attended numerous events and observed many pitches. By pitches, I mean situations where an entrepreneur stands before an audience, often of investors, presents the "big problem" they aim to solve, shares their solution, and asks for funding to scale up the project.
I think the vast majority of these pitches began with the standard claim that we need to feed a future population of 10 billion people. It was often stated almost mechanically, as if it were just part of the routine. But for a long time, critical social scientists have debunked the idea that increased production is the answer to food security issues. Many reference the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, who observed that hunger and famine are rarely caused by food shortages. Instead, they arise from a lack of access to food—often for political reasons.
The current situation in Gaza is a powerful example. It’s not a case of absolute food scarcity; people are starving because their food supplies have been cut off. They can’t receive aid, and their usual ways of accessing food, like buying it from stores, have been destroyed by bombings. This clearly shows that hunger can exist independently of actual food shortages.
In fact, overproduction has been a persistent issue, especially in the U.S., where farmers produce far more than consumers need. This is why so much food is exported to find markets for the surplus. So, I find little validity in these arguments about the need to produce more food.
That actually takes me back to the conversation I had with Dr. Seth Holmes in the last episode. He was talking about how one reason Mexican farm workers end up having to cross the border illegally to work as fruit pickers in the U.S. is actually because of the North American Free Trade Agreement. With no tariff at the border, U.S. subsidized corn ends up in Mexico at prices lower than what it costs to produce, which means Mexican farmers can’t make a living off their crops anymore. It’s another example of how poverty and food insecurity are often less about yield and more about political issues—things that technology alone can’t really fix.
Many 'solution makers' aim to make farmers more profitable, which seems like a commendable goal, given how challenging it can be for many farmers to earn a decent living. What long-term impacts of technology on farmers' profitability have you observed?
Yes, farmers operate on very low margins, which is a significant issue. That’s why we see more consolidation in farming—staying profitable often requires a lot of acreage because the profit margins are so tight. Ironically, technology has contributed to this problem more than it has solved it. I’ve seen many pitches where the entrepreneur claims their solution will make farmers more profitable, yet the very thing they’re selling will ultimately cut into farmers' earnings.
There’s a term for this dynamic: appropriationism. It was coined by David Goodman, Bernardo Sorj, and John Wilkinson in their 1987 book, From Farming to Biotechnology: A Theory of Agro-industrial Development. I still refer to it often; it’s one of the most insightful works in agrarian political economy I’ve read.
Appropriationism is the idea that processes once performed on farms, which could be profitable for farmers, are taken over, turned into commodities, and then sold back to farmers. For example, instead of using animal power or crop rotations for fertility, farmers now buy tractors and fertility inputs. So when an entrepreneur claims their product will increase farmers' profitability, but it requires farmers to buy or lease it, it’s likely to cut into their profits.
This also ties into a concept known as the "technology treadmill," long used in political economy. Here’s how it works: when a new technology makes farmers more productive, the early adopters benefit initially by producing more on the same acreage, earning higher profits. But as more farmers adopt the technology, production increases across the board, leading to overproduction, a glut, and ultimately lower prices. So, the tech industry’s promise of making farmers more profitable overlooks these two recurring issues in agrarian political economy: appropriationism, where profits shift away from farmers, and the technology treadmill, which perpetuates low margins.
I’d also add that it’s incredibly difficult to increase farmers' profitability while also making the entrepreneur profitable and providing returns to the venture capitalists backing them. There simply isn’t that much profit in food to go around!
In your book, you describe three distinct impulses—techno-fix, solutionism, and the 'will to improve'—that, in your view, contribute to the problem with solutions. Many people supporting or developing solutions, often involving technology, have good intentions. You refer to this as the 'will to improve.' Where does this 'will to improve' originate, and what are the key issues you see with it?
Let me expand a bit on two other concepts. When I refer to the "techno-fix," I’m talking about a tendency to reduce complex issues to something that technology alone can solve. This approach often comes with the hope of avoiding changes to standards of living or avoiding redistribution. But the issue with the techno-fix is that the most persistent problems in agriculture are complex and require political action—technology alone won’t solve them.
Then there’s "solutionism," which is when the solution drives the problem. Instead of examining the roots of an issue, someone might say, “Here’s an app or digital technology I can develop,” and then look for ways to make it seem relevant. This approach can lead to creating problems around the technology itself. For example, with digital agriculture, one might claim that farmers need remote sensors to monitor their fields, thereby justifying the technology by suggesting it fills a need that may not have been a concern for farmers in the first place.
The "will to improve" is a complex concept, as we all have a desire to make the world a better place. This term, though, isn’t mine—it was first introduced by anthropologist Tanya Li in her work on development in Indonesia.
Development, especially after World War II, became a massive project led by former colonial powers to "fix" their former colonies and raise standards of living. Efforts to "develop" what was then called the Third World were partly aimed at preventing countries from adopting socialism, keeping them within capitalist systems at a time when socialism was spreading, especially with revolutions in China and the former USSR. Development, therefore, was largely a response to these socialist movements, aimed at modernizing former colonies that had become impoverished through colonialism.
Development represents well-intended efforts to improve societies. And, of course, this desire is understandable; we all want a better world. But, as Tanya Li observes, it’s often driven by what development "trustees" or external actors think is best, rather than what people on the ground actually want or need.
So, they envision what "better" should look like, arriving with set ideas on what people in an impoverished—or even not-so-impoverished—area should do to improve their standard of living.
In that sense, it’s colonial; they’re essentially saying, “We’re bringing our ideas to you.” This "will to improve" is everywhere, especially among relatively privileged people who genuinely want to help, but they come in with their own ideas about what’s needed. I think this mindset heavily influences the tech sector. Many in food and agriculture tech, of course, aim to make a profit, but they also truly believe—or say they believe—that their technology will make things better. Yet they rarely start by engaging with people on the ground, asking what they need or want, or even if they desire technology at all. Instead, they begin with their own concept of what they can provide, often without considering whether their idea might cause more problems than it solves.
So now we understand a bit better what is the problem with solutions. In your book You advocate for the concept of 'Responses' rather than 'Solutions.' What is the key difference between the two?
Great question! So, here’s the thing: these ideas I'm working through in the book often come back to how we use the term "solutions." I use it all the time myself—"What’s the solution?"
But thinking in terms of "responses" instead shifts the starting point. Rather than asking, "What can I bring to this because of my knowledge or skills?" it’s more about asking, "What does this situation need?"
Assessing a situation's needs requires considering the problems in all their dimensions, rather than rushing to contain or solve them narrowly.
If we think about what a situation needs, it opens up a broader range of possibilities. This approach allows us to acknowledge that many of the world’s most pressing issues arise from structural inequalities and deeply ingrained social problems, including colonialism, capitalism, racism, sexism, and more.
I like to think of "response" as the inverse of the “problem with solutions.” It means taking time to understand a problem in its entirety and considering for whom it’s actually a problem before acting. It involves recognizing the root social causes, the interests invested in the problem, and thinking about how those could be transformed. In relation to the "will to improve," it also calls on changemakers to reflect on their own position relative to the problem, genuinely weighing the potential harms of their approach and considering under what conditions—and by whom—an intervention should even be made.
So, response isn’t simply action; it’s a more engaged, humble, and reflexive way of addressing complex issues. But to clarify, I’m not saying that every issue must be tackled at the structural level all at once. I don’t want listeners to think that everything needs to be solved everywhere, immediately.
Instead, I see response as a form of strategy. It involves taking a problem in its full complexity, understanding it, and then asking, “What strategy, given the current possibilities, can help us start addressing this problem?” It’s about building a path forward that allows for social movement building and adjustment as conditions evolve. So, response keeps the problem big and complex but makes the path forward specific and actionable.
Ideally, response is like a solution in that it has an immediacy, but it avoids narrowing the problem.
The Green Revolution aimed to increase crop production in developing countries from the 1960s through the use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and high-yield crop varieties.
You argue that it serves as a prime example of how a misdiagnosed problem, a desire to avoid political complexities, and a well-intentioned 'will to improve' led to a solution with long-lasting, controversial consequences. In your book, you write: “As the 'mother of all agricultural techno-fixes,' the Green Revolution should be seen as a cautionary tale.”
What were the underlying causes of food insecurity that were overlooked at the time? And what might a more effective response have looked like?
It’s important to understand that the Green Revolution was very much in line with the development approach we’ve been discussing. In many ways, it was a counter to the Red Revolution.
The question was: how can we develop agricultural systems in former colonies in ways that would be pro-capitalist? The Green Revolution’s strongholds were Mexico, India, the Philippines, and to some extent Indonesia. It was not only a response to the Red Revolution but also an alternative to land reform or agrarian reform. At the time, one proposed solution to agricultural impoverishment was to redistribute land. However, the promoters of the Green Revolution pushed back, arguing that such redistribution would be too disruptive. Instead, they claimed poverty and hunger could be addressed by boosting productivity. Thus, the Green Revolution focused on developing high-yield varieties of staple grains, particularly rice and maize.
Along with the Green Revolution came a host of issues. These high-yielding varieties were designed with the assumption that they required a package of inputs: water, pesticides, and so on. This approach essentially led to a broader reliance on industrial agriculture. The central goal, however, remained to increase productivity and “feed the world,” guided largely by Neo-Malthusian concerns that agricultural productivity wouldn’t keep up with population growth.
Yet, as Amartya Sen's work illustrates, many food producers themselves fell victim to famine. They often produced food but lacked the income to purchase what they needed for survival. So, hunger was less about a scarcity of food and more about systemic issues like poverty and access to resources.
The Green Revolution was fundamentally based on the idea of needing to "feed the world," not to address a potential 10 billion people as we hear today, but to keep up with expected population growth. The narrative was that agricultural productivity had to rise to prevent future food shortages. However, as Amartya Sen and other scholars pointed out, hunger wasn’t typically due to an absolute lack of food. Instead, it was rooted in issues like insufficient income, lack of jobs, inadequate food assistance, fragile family networks, or even the politicization of food aid. In many cases, people who were food producers themselves couldn't afford to buy what they needed to eat.
The Green Revolution ultimately embodied the "techno-fix" approach. Rather than addressing underlying structural issues like land reform or income redistribution, it relied on technological solutions that left social inequities largely unchallenged.
There are many technologies being developed to reduce reliance on pesticide use, including robots for mechanical weed removal and other precision agriculture tools. Isn’t developing these technologies a positive step forward?
I completely support reducing pesticide use—it's actually a driving force behind much of my research. Our studies uncovered very few technologies that truly aim to lessen pesticide reliance. We didn't encounter anyone discussing robots for weed removal, although that would certainly be a better option than relying on something like glyphosate.
One area that’s highly promoted for reducing pesticide use is digital agriculture, or precision tools, which are marketed with the promise that they’ll improve pesticide efficiency. The idea is that if you can "see" field conditions more clearly, you can apply pesticides more judiciously, using them only where absolutely necessary. Yet, there’s little evidence to show that these technologies have actually reduced pesticide usage in practice, and it’s questionable how widely farmers are even adopting them. It’s worth noting that some of the big players investing in these precision technologies are pesticide companies themselves, which raises questions about the real aim.
A major factor in reducing pesticide use lies in offering farmers viable alternatives. Traditional techniques like crop rotation or employing beneficial insects are well-established and proven methods—many of which are already applied by organic or diversified farmers. However, these techniques don’t receive nearly the same level of support as the latest tech-driven solutions, many of which are actually repurposed from military applications. We already know how to reduce pesticide use with these existing, often low-tech methods. Instead of focusing on new tech, supporting farmers who are implementing these tried-and-true practices would make a more impactful difference.
You told us about the problem with solutions, the green revolution, and the notion of responses. Could you share examples of successful 'responses' to past or current agricultural challenges?
That’s a tough question, but I’ll build on what I was just talking about. You could argue that organic farming, in some sense, was a successful response. They reintroduced long-established practices like diversified farming, the use of beneficial insects, crop rotations, and composting – all of which help reduce pesticide use.
The issue I have with organic farming, which I discussed in my dissertation, isn’t with the agroecological practices themselves, but rather with the regulatory system, which became a solution to a complex problem. The organic farming movement wanted to differentiate its practices from conventional farming, so it developed a certification system. The idea was that certification would incentivize growers to farm organically by offering them a price premium in the market, rewarding methods like pesticide-free farming and improved soil fertility.
The problem, however, is that maintaining that price premium depends on scarcity. If too many farmers become organic – which has happened in the United States, especially in California where I live – prices can erode. This was the topic of my first book and my early articles. So, while the technologies and practices are there, what we really need are other types of support to help farmers grow more sustainably, including direct subsidies.
One, le’ts say non technological innovation that comes to mind is a research project they did in California—pretty sure it was with cabbage—where they intercropped sweet alyssum flowers to attract beneficial insects that naturally keep pest numbers down. After a series of experiments, they actually nailed down the exact number of flower rows needed to cut back on pesticides while still maintaining the same yields, even with slightly less acreage planted for harvesting."
What recommendations do you give your students once they grasp the problem with solutions? How can they contribute to addressing some of the most significant social and environmental challenges of our time, particularly in agriculture?
I wrote this book with students in mind—not only my own, but others as well—and I use my students as a kind of counterpoint. My students aren’t particularly drawn to ‘solution culture’ at all. In fact, I just started teaching my class called The Problem with Solutions a couple of days ago for the second time, and it was only the first day, but they totally grasp that there are major structural issues. While they could still refine their analyses, they understand the need for structural changes.
I work in a university department where students complete six-month, full-time field studies with social justice and social change organizations. So they get the need for structural change, though they sometimes still lean into ‘solutioning,’ showing what I’d call a ‘will to improve.’ They’re not especially interested in technology—I've never heard one of my students mention a need for it—but they do have a desire to make a difference. Over the years, though, I’ve noticed many students initially want to focus on teaching others about eating and farming rather than tackling the policy changes that could reshape agricultural practices. While my students generally grasp the idea of the problem with solutions, they often struggle to see how complex, long-term change requires ongoing effort. They’re drawn to work in food and agriculture because it resonates with them—they enjoy food, as I do, or they’re passionate about farming. But they’re not always inclined to pursue the policy work that I believe is crucial for long-term structural changes.
They get it, though; it’s just challenging to conceptualize change in the long term. So, more and more, I try to teach them to think strategically: 'What’s most necessary to do now to keep future possibilities open to address issues in food and agriculture?' I encourage them to work with organizations that are already pursuing policy changes and to learn about the strategies they employ. That's the best approach I can offer. Some students take this path, others don’t, but, as I mentioned, they’re not captivated by solution culture.
On a similar topic, and let’s talk about young adults in general, not only about your students. In a capitalist world, where earning a paycheck is a priority for most, being a solution-maker who builds technologies to solve problems while making a living can be appealing. Meanwhile, young people might wonder how they can pay their rent while being political activists.What would you recomend them?
Absolutely, it's challenging. I don’t see that pull towards tech among my students, but there are certainly students attracted to Silicon Valley's "do well by doing good" ethos. The idea that you can be a capitalist entrepreneur and still do good is understandably appealing—it’s a way to make money and feel like you're contributing positively. But I think there are other avenues for making a living while working toward social change.
Our students in the major actually do quite well on the job market, often finding roles in nonprofit organizations, foundations, and government. Of course, these sectors aren’t without contradictions. We talk a lot about the “nonprofit industrial complex,” which refers to how nonprofits rely on foundation funding. Those foundations, in turn, are backed by wealthy individuals who benefit from tax breaks, tying them into a system that’s difficult to disrupt. Students learn to navigate these contradictions, but they also see it’s still possible to pursue jobs that at least aim to minimize harm.
Honestly, I think that’s one of the best messages we can give young people today: try to find work that minimizes harm. It’s not always about eliminating every issue but making choices that contribute less to the problem.
It's impossible to escape the contradictions and it's very hard to escape capitalism in ways. You can create non-capitalist institutions, but they're still guided by the logic of capitalism. So how do you use that to minimize harm and to develop strategy towards something different?
What do you believe should be the role of lawmakers or large international organizations such as the FAO (the UN Food and Agriculture Organization) in incentivizing or regulating the implementation of technology in agriculture?
To build on what I was saying earlier, I believe we should be incentivizing transitions to agroecology. It's not about needing new tools; it’s about establishing policies that help farmers break free from the technological treadmill. In fact, I'd like to see AI regulated, particularly because of its risks in the political sphere, such as deepfakes. I recently looked something up, and the response from AI was so absurd that it made me realize just how out of control the technology has become in some cases. The tech sector really needs more oversight.
In terms of food and agriculture, I think our focus should be on supporting farmers who are already committed to sustainable practices, helping them to improve rather than pushing for new technologies as a cure-all. For the most part, I don’t believe technology is the answer to solving our agricultural challenges.
Outside of the well-known anti-GMO movements, are there any other groups in the U.S. that oppose or advocate against technosolutionism in agriculture?
There are certainly people within agroecology movements who are skeptical of technology, but I don’t think it's become a major platform for any specific group. However, there are organizations out there addressing this issue of technology access. One that comes to mind is called GOAT—Gathering for Open Agricultural Technology—which advocates for open-source agricultural tools. There’s also Farm Link here in California, working on similar goals. Both groups want to make agricultural technology more accessible and adaptable, recognizing that one of the major challenges with technology today is its proprietary nature. The patenting of technology drives up costs for farmers, which ultimately impacts their profitability.
While these organizations do aim to use technology for good, I personally remain unconvinced that technology is the answer. I’m glad they see the issue with proprietary systems, but I think the deeper problems in food and agriculture are fundamentally political. We need policy changes, higher wages, more robust food assistance, wealth redistribution, and other non-technological solutions to create a food system that’s equitable and ecologically sustainable. For me, the path forward isn’t through technology, but through political and economic reform.
Thank you very much, Julie, for this conversation. The debate surrounding solutions, technology, and the notion of progress is very important but, unfortunately, poorly understood by most people. I think you're doing a fantastic job of explaining it in a clear yet well-documented way. Before we conclude this interview, are there any recommendations you’d like to make to our listeners who want to dive deeper into the topic?
You can read my book, The Problem with Solutions: How Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food, available on the University of California Press website. I’ve drawn on a few other works that provide excellent analysis on the pitfalls of solution culture. Here are some of my favorites:
Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas, which critiques how elites use philanthropy to maintain power.
Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin, who examines how technology can reinforce racial biases—even in fields like robotics.
Planetary Improvement by Jesse Goldstein, which explores how venture capital often restricts entrepreneurs' visions.
Encountering Poverty by Ananya Roy, which delves into how solution culture influences anti-poverty efforts.
There are many more, but these are standouts for me. Also, I recommend the podcast Tech Won't Save Us—it’s another great resource on this topic.
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Interview conducted by: Thomas Grandperrin