Agriculture 4.0
Discussion
Samuel Oslund, Severine Fleming, et. al. on The digital economy and AG 4.0:
"The environmental, social, and economic unsustainability of the current industrial agriculture system have long been critiqued by movements working to transform food systems. As the COVID-19 pandemic shifts, the timing and priorities of groups responding to the UN Food Systems Summit (FSS) are all the more pressing given how the ongoing health crisis has exacerbated already precarious global food systems. Calls for a just, sustainable recovery are increasing and agriculture is at the top of many agendas as a key part of transition strategies. Indeed there is a growing acknowledgement of the transformative potential of farming and the role it can play in realizing many of the Sustainable Development Goals set out by the UN (FAO, 2019).
In the lead up to the FSS, the rhetoric of sustainability, innovation and food security have been the watchwords of state, institutional and industry leaders. Although these priorities appear to align with calls for systemic change, civil society and peasant organizations across the world have highlighted that the vision for the future of farming emerging from the FSS continues the legacy of market priorities, corporate consolidation, and industry-led technological solutions that have brought us to the current crises. Notably, agricultural innovation and technology have moved to the forefront of discussions. Speaking on a panel of experts, the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization suggested that the work of the FAO is to rapidly scale out the digitalization of agriculture (FAO, 2021).
This is a position which mirrors that of institutions and private organizations, such as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that have set a target to bring half of all smallholder farmers onto digital platforms within a decade. Described as digital agriculture, this emerging innovation falls under the broad umbrella of what has been called the 4th agricultural revolution by the World Economic Forum, or AG 4.0 (Klerkx et al., 2019). From big data and precision farming to robotics and biotechnology, AG 4.0 technologies have been increasingly embraced by government, institutions and industry as a panacea for addressing issues stemming from the current industrial food system.
The promises made for AG 4.0 are that increases in efficiency through digital innovation and technology will reduce chemical usage, offer labor-saving technologies, improve supply chains and stave off environmental damage, all while feeding the growing world population and strengthening the global economy. But with the longstanding trend of industrial technology leading to increased scale and consolidation of the food system, proponents of AG 4.0 fail to critically assess the ramifications these technologies will have on the majority of food producers. By aggravating issues related to data access and privacy, loss of work through automation, erasure of traditional knowledge, and forced migration to urban centers, AG 4.0 threatens to further centralize the food system under a new biodigital hegemony (IPES-Food & ETC Group, 2021)."