ARC2020 is supporting a research project on ‘Rural Perspectives on Digital Agriculture’, led by PhD Matteo Metta. The project aims to study, and to connect, farmers, advisors, policies, nature conservationists, and critical considerations around digitalisation from the perspective of a diversified, integrated, and multifunctional agriculture.

Digitalisation is increasingly expanding in agriculture and rural life. Precision or smart farming technologies receive growing attention and support, based on the assumption that these will increase production efficiency while meeting multiple sustainability goals.

For decades, digital innovations have been embedded in a productivist paradigm, which sees agriculture primarily as farming and producing goods, like food and fiber. Within this paradigm, digitalisation has garnered enthusiastic support or strong opposition.

On one hand, proponents expect digitalisation to make agricultural production more efficient and sustainable by modernising farming methods or regulating market externalities (e.g. carbon farming). On the other, opponents are concerned with how digitalisation can exacerbate real threats to sustainable agriculture, like corporate farming, path dependency, worker displacement, or the alienation of agriculture from rural life.

In the debate about the future of digital agriculture, little attention has been paid on the non-productive aspects of agriculture, like governing common natural resources such as biodiversity and landscapes, or integrating farmers in the social fabric of rural areas.