Technological Risks in Development: Food Security, Super-Wicked Problems and the Decolonisation of Technological Governance

Food insecurity, caused by increases in global population, loss of arable land due to climate change and conflicts, poses a major risk to human lives and well-being, especially in the Global South. It is thus essential to ensure that agricultural production is effective, efficient and sustainable. This project is seeking to investigate how technologies that have been introduced as solutions to food insecurity have contributed to the creation of new technological risks and how such double-edged technologies should be governed. The research team focuses on two technological risks in this context, namely the loss of biodiversity and disruption of ways of life as a result of the introduction of GMO crops and the rise of antimicrobial resistance as a result of the over- and misuse of antibiotics to combat communicable diseases in crops and livestock.

Principal Investigator: Dr Keith Hyams, University of Warwick