The rise of digital farming

  • What values drive the revolution in digital farming?

  • What are the opportunities and risks digital farming and big data offer for (new) forms of interaction between farmers, universities and corporations?

Drone over crop field - the rise of digital farming

Technological developments have recently enabled a shift towards ‘digital farming’. Examples include GPS-steered combines, milk robots, drones making field scans as well as the use of big data in agriculture.

The Rise of Digital Farming critically investigates this potential ‘agricultural revolution’ from a social science perspective. It examines the role of social interaction (e.g. between farmers, universities and corporations) and societal values.

Qualitative research is conducted in Australia and the EU (with the Netherlands as a major hub) where digital farming is already actively developed.

Why is this research relevant?

According to its supporters, digital farming can offer a solution to the challenge of feeding a growing global population in the face of climate change, decreasing farmland and fossil-fuel resources and mounting agricultural pollution.

However, key obstacles to the further development and use of digital farming are not technical issues, but rather social issues related to for example trust and cooperation. The social science perspective is thus both timely and relevant.

News

Outputs

Journal articles

Blog posts

Collaboration and funding

This project is funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation, following up funding by the Toyota Foundation (with Professor Sarah Sippel, University of Muenster, Germany ). 

The principal investigator Oane Visser (Associate Professor in Rural Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies). Collaborators include Dr Louis Thiemann (ISS),  Fabio Gatti (Wageningen University & Research) and researchers of the International Centre for Frugal Innovation (ICFI), where Visser is the agrifood lead.

The project will run until the end of 2026.

Contact

Oane Visser
Email address
visser@iss.nl

For more information about the project, please contact  Dr Oane Visser.

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