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 inevitable. Compelled to pivot towards pandemic, technologists align their projects with narratives safety, security resilience. This paper highlights political contours these technologies, arguing that proposed innovations far from neutral paths toward a more sanitary secure future. Most limited in capacity disrupt patterns racial geopolitical hierarchy, ecological precarity, concentrated power food system, or fulfill pandemic relief promises current form.