Sanitizing agri-food tech: COVID-19 and the politics of expectation

Several emerging technologies for agri-food systems are promoted by supporters as alleviating the instabilities of COVID-19 and thus increasingly necessary and inevitable. Compelled to pivot towards the pandemic, technologists align their projects with narratives of safety, security and resilience. This paper highlights the political contours of these technologies, arguing that proposed innovations are far from neutral paths toward a more sanitary and secure agri-food future. Most are limited in their capacity to disrupt patterns of racial and geopolitical hierarchy, ecological precarity, and concentrated power in the food system, or to fulfill pandemic relief promises in their current form.