Violent sustainability: Blitzscale and counteraccounting in an Indian agtech start-up

Abstract

In recent years, there has been rapid digitalization in agriculture, with India seeing a significant rise in agricultural technology (agtech) start-ups. Many of these start-ups promise to address the climate crisis by promoting the economic and ecological sustainability of agriculture through market-driven business models. Using institutional ethnography and counteraccounting at an Indian agtech start-up, this article illuminates social, economic, and ecological relationships that are obscured by one firm's accounting practices. It shows how, despite tech-entrepreneurs intending to help farmers, violence remains built into the design and effects of rapidly scaled-up (“blitzscaled”) sustainability programs. The article proposes violent sustainability as a concept to highlight the unintended harm caused to potential beneficiaries due to structural violence underlying tech-entrepreneurialism and inherent design flaws in blitzscaled sustainability programs. In doing so, it challenges the normalization and monetization of recurrent failures prevalent in tech-entrepreneurial ventures.