I saw a video I didn’t want to watch at the moment as I was with a bunch of people, but hopefully they make good progress. The ag world is full of well funded sustainability startups swimming upstream. Don’t see many of them really move the needle unfortunately.
There’s been lots of meetings and conferences about sustainable agriculture over the last 30-40 years, but there is a high degree of resistance on the part of the farming community to implement new sustainability practices and technologies. What are the barriers?
According to the research:
Psychological resistance: Farmers are creatures of habit. They fear new practices that may require a steep learning curve or disrupt their usual work routines.
Economic uncertainty: The upfront costs and perceived risks associated with adopting new practices (“cost of change”) are typically viewed as insurmountable, even if they are profitable in the long run.
Social pressures: Most farmers base their decisions on what others are doing (“herd mentality”). If new practices or innovation are not widely accepted by their peers, individual farmers will be less likely to adopt them.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13165-023-00440-7Trump, RFK Jr and the rest of the gang don’t have the capacity to address these challenges. On top of that, the threat of tariffs, cutbacks in ag research/outreach and labor concerns will make farmers even more resistant to change. Most will just want to keep their heads above water for the next four years.