Giving Compass' Take:

• Food Tank sits down with prominent food and agriculture members to discuss the roles of technology in the food system, the good and the bad of what's to come. 

• How can the people behind innovative food technology ensure their products will be beneficial? How will the trial and error of their creations be monitored? 

• Here's a social impact app that helps people to learn how to cook. 

According to the report, AI and machine learning on farms may bring increased certainty to farmers in predicting hurdles such as weather, pests, and commodity fluctuations. But technology also has the potential to be disruptive. “One of the ways to start to think about selecting technologies that aren’t disruptive is through participatory design and participatory research because it brings people up into the development and design process,” says Ankita Raturi of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.

“AI has an important role in the food system,” adds Don Bustos, owner of Santa Cruz Farm. “But the more important question is how do communities decide how to use that kind of AI technology, and how are they allowed to participate from the bottom up to even know or understand the impacts that it is going to have on their communities for future generations.”

While the report generates a discussion about technology in the food system, Vilsack notes that today’s quickly changing and arising technologies need more supportive discussion in government.

Read the full article on how technology is going to effect the food system by Katherine Walla at Food Tank