The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food

by Julie Guthman

A concise and feisty takedown of the all-style, no-substance tech ventures that fail to solve our food crises.

Why has Silicon Valley become the model for addressing today's myriad social and ecological crises? With this book, Julie Guthman digs into the impoverished solutions for food and agriculture currently emerging from Silicon Valley, urging us to stop trying to fix our broken food system through finite capitalistic solutions and technological moonshots that do next to nothing to actualize a more just and sustainable system.

The Problem with Solutions combines an analysis of the rise of tech company solution culture with findings from actual research on the sector's ill-informed attempts to address the problems of food and agriculture. As this seductive approach continues to infiltrate universities and academia, Guthman challenges us to reject apolitical and self-gratifying techno-solutions and develop the capacity and willingness to respond to the root causes of these crises. Solutions, she argues, are a product of our current condition, not an answer to it.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Academic

272 pages, Paperback

Published August 6, 2024

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felt on board with the main arguments of the book before reading and found it helpful how clearly and in no-nonsense style it was written. I think I wanted a bit more about solutionism — how it operates and why it operates and what disrupts it — but found the vocabulary the book offered useful enough. Enjoyed the meta analysis of the role of universities.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

guthman achieves the impossible, unlike silicon valley magnates: to prove a negative. for that she makes creative use of fallacies, and the power of emotion: only the parasitic class of the universities can do that, if only people would pay more for printed paper.

[Rachelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here’s a book I wish were getting more attention. From her particular lens in academia, the author explains how Silicon Valley culture has thoroughly upended our collective notions of innovation and change.

Rather than understanding where problems come from, we see an emphasis on solutions - the cooler and more profitable, the better. She shows this pattern with a focus on agriculture and the food sector specifically.

I personally don’t work in the food sector, but I can see how this same thinking is showing up in my own part of the world. I appreciated the clear explanation of the author’s ideas.

The audiobook narrator was great, except for the repeated mispronunciation of the word “pedagogy.”

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for the critique of Silicon Valley even if you don't particulary care about agriculture and also read it if you've ever been in a college/university class in which you are invited to adress the world's biggest problems through entrepreneurship