Recognizing value: data-based and observational health assessments on US dairies

Keywords: data, agriculture, antimicrobial resistance, agricultural policy, nonhumans, labor
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper examines how an increased use of data in agriculture transforms nature/society relationships. We do so by examining how changes in assessing cow health have created new ways of valuing both dairy animals and farm laborers. Through interviews and field observations we show how data that are collected and analyzed on the farm have altered what is considered a "good cow". Further, such data have also altered the value of different kinds of farm labor and expertise. What is emerging are hybrid forms of expertise that blend data proficiency with farmer intuition and observation. We examine how farmers negotiate these hybrid modes of expertise, and how it shapes assessments of the value of cow bodies. While agriculture is clearly changing with new modes of data analysis, we suggest limits to the kind of nature/society transformations on the farm these new technologies can catalyze. Our observations indicate a future of ongoing, highly contingent negotiations between tacit embodied knowledge and abstract data analysis.