ABSTRACT
In the 1960 s and 1970s, a new skepticism emerged about the benefits of advances in science and technology. This view charged that the potential power created by the fusion of science and technology, as reflected in the cataclysm of war, the degradation of the environment, and the psychological cost of social change, is obviously dangerous to the modern world and to the future of humanity. The productivity of modern agriculture is the result of a remarkable fusion of technology and science. In the West, it was built on ideological foundations that, from the early Middle Ages, have valued both the improvement of material well-being and the advancement of knowledge. The introduction of the machine harvesting of tomatoes has been accompanied by an especially vigorous debate. It has been considered the product of a uniquely effective collaboration between mechanical engineers and plant scientists. At the same time, it has been vigorously attacked for displacing farm workers and small producers.
