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?
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
- Visser, O. (2021) 'Persistent farmland imaginaries: Celebration of fertile soil and the recurrent ignorance of climate'Opens external Agriculture and Human Values 38, 313-326
- S. Sippel and O. Visser (2021) 'Re-imagining land: Materiality, affect and the uneven trajectories of land transformation'Opens external Agriculture and Human Values 38, 271-282
- Visser, Dorondel, Jehlička & Spoor (2019) 'Post-socialist smallholders: silence, resistance and alternatives' Canadian Journal of Development Studies 40 (4)
- Visser, Kurakin & Nikulin (2019) Corporate social responsibility, Co-existence and Contention: Large farms’ changing responsibilities vis-à-vis rural households in Russia Canadian J. of Development Studies, 40 (4)
Blog posts
- Fabio & Visser (2020) Digitalizing agriculture in Africa: Promises and risks of an emerging trend EADI/BLISS
- Williams, Visser, Siegmann & Ivosevic (2020) Two faces of the automation revolution: impacts on working conditions of migrant labourers in the Dutch agrifood sector EADI/BLISS
- Visser & Medendorp (2019) Are we ready for the robotic revolution? BLISS
- Visser (2019) Agricultural technology offers enormous opportunities for sustainability and feeding the world. But it also comes with risks (interview EUR news & VSNU e-zine)
- Visser & Nikam (2019) Can technology ‘decode’ developmental problems? BLISS
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
- Email address
- visser@iss.nl
For more information about the project, please contact Dr Oane Visser.