Agricultural policy in the era of digitalisation

Ehlers, Melf-Hinrich; Huber, Robert; Finger, Robert

doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.102019

Cited by 117 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 85 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…22-24 and 64 et seq. Draft Horizontal Regulation on the financing, management and monitoring of the CAP [129]) [3,9,10,20,25,26]. While this supports the proper implementation of the CAP, it does not change the fact that governance potential is likely to remain unused under the future CAP in order to target the digitalization of agriculture in line with the EU's climate and biodiversity commitments and water-related environmental objectives.…”

Section: Financing-the Common Agricultural Policy As a Key Financing And Steering Instrument In European Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…All of this should contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and to implementing the European Green Deal [1,4,6,7]. For years, digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) have been strongly discussed and advanced with regard to the agricultural sector [5,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. In its communications 'Artificial Intelligence for Europe' from 2018 and '2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the digital Decade' from 2021, the EU Commission recognized the agricultural sector as a key application area for AI, in which sufficient investment is needed to achieve environmental and sustainability targets, including social and health objectives [2,4,9,26,27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Digitalization and AI in European Agriculture: A Strategy for Achieving Climate and Biodiversity Targets?

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article analyzes the environmental opportunities and limitations of digitalization in the agricultural sector by applying qualitative governance analysis. Agriculture is recognized as a key application area for digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. This is not least because it faces major sustainability challenges, especially with regard to meeting the climate and biodiversity targets set out in the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as the water-related objectives of EU environmental legislation. Based on an overview of the possible applications of digital technologies in agriculture, the article offers a status quo analysis of legal acts with relevance to digitalization in the EU agricultural sector. It is found that a reliable legal framework with regard to product liability and product safety, as well as data privacy, data access, and data security is important in this context. In addition, the European Common Agricultural Policy, as the most important funding instrument for digital innovations in the agricultural sector, should be designed in such a way that it links digitalization-related objectives more closely with sustainability targets. So far, the existing EU governance does not fully exploit the potentials of digitalization for environmental protection, and sight is lost of possible negative side effects such as rebound and shifting effects. Therefore, the article also offers proposals for the optimization of EU governance.

show abstract

Section: Financing-the Common Agricultural Policy As a Key Financing And Steering Instrument In European Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digitalization and AI in European Agriculture: A Strategy for Achieving Climate and Biodiversity Targets?

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This immediately suggests an avenue for policy intervention, as the number and extent of administrative tasks (and thus, transaction costs) faced by modern farmers is significant. Here, there is increasing hope and attempts to improve the situation through digitalization (see Weersink et al 2018;Ehlers et al 2021). However, many challenges remain (Klerkx et al 2019;Ehlers et al 2021), including legal issues (e.g., data ownership), economic issues (e.g., investment in technologies), and infrastructure issues (e.g., internet availability in rural areas).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, there is increasing hope and attempts to improve the situation through digitalization (see Weersink et al 2018;Ehlers et al 2021). However, many challenges remain (Klerkx et al 2019;Ehlers et al 2021), including legal issues (e.g., data ownership), economic issues (e.g., investment in technologies), and infrastructure issues (e.g., internet availability in rural areas). Another option is to reduce the workload elsewhere, for instance, with decision support tools (Pahmeyer et al 2021) or digitized agri-environmental scheme designs (Bartkowski et al 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farmers’ action space to adopt sustainable practices: a study of arable farming in Saxony

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The urgency to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and natural resource degradation requires major changes in agricultural practices. Agricultural policy in Germany has so far failed to generate such changes; meanwhile, public demands for new regulations are met by widespread farmers’ protests. Against this background, an improved understanding of the factors influencing farmers’ uptake of sustainable agricultural practices is necessary. This study introduces the concept of action space to analyze the role of barriers to change which lie beyond farmers’ perceived immediate control. We apply this conceptual framework to the case of diversified crop rotations in Saxony (Germany) and combine semi-structured interviews and a survey to identify key barriers to change and their relative weights. We find that farmers feel rather strongly restricted in their action space to implement diversified crop rotations for sustainable agriculture. The most important barriers pertain to the market environment, which severely limits the feasibility of many crops. In addition, limited regulatory predictability as well as regulatory incoherence and limited flexibility restrict farmers in their action space. The role of resource availability within the farm businesses as well as availability and accessibility of knowledge is ambiguous between interview and survey results. The analysis of interactions indicates that multiple barriers form a self-reinforcing system in which farmers perceive to have little leeway to implement sustainable practices. These results emphasize the need to create an enabling market and regulatory environment in which sustainable practices pay off.

show abstract

“…In this editorial, I will reflect on the elements and environments which jointly constitute and shape the farm (Darnhofer 2020) and their connection with extension and advisory services in the digital age, opening up new digital and virtual spaces. Extension and advisory services receive ample consideration in current debates on digitalization and digital transformation of the agrifood sector, and are an important focus of attention for agriculture and food systems research, practice and policy (Ehlers, Huber, and Finger 2021;Ingram and Maye 2020;Klerkx 2020). In what follows, I will elaborate on some digital and virtual spaces as sites of extension and advisory services research, to progress the field of study for which The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension serves as a publication outlet.Farms and their environments can be seen as networks of human and non-human actors and entities, also referred to as assemblages (…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital and virtual spaces as sites of extension and advisory services research: social media, gaming, and digitally integrated and augmented advice

Klerkx

2021

The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The field of research on agricultural and rural extension and education, also referred to as advisory services and intermediaries, has always engaged with different aspects of the spaces in which agricultural producers (farmers, growers, ranchers) are situated and operate. In this editorial, I will reflect on the elements and environments which jointly constitute and shape the farm (Darnhofer 2020) and their connection with extension and advisory services in the digital age, opening up new digital and virtual spaces. Extension and advisory services receive ample consideration in current debates on digitalization and digital transformation of the agrifood sector, and are an important focus of attention for agriculture and food systems research, practice and policy (Ehlers, Huber, and Finger 2021;Ingram and Maye 2020;Klerkx 2020). In what follows, I will elaborate on some digital and virtual spaces as sites of extension and advisory services research, to progress the field of study for which The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension serves as a publication outlet.Farms and their environments can be seen as networks of human and non-human actors and entities, also referred to as assemblages (

show abstract

Agricultural policy in the era of digitalisation

Cited by 117 publications

References 85 publications

Digitalization and AI in European Agriculture: A Strategy for Achieving Climate and Biodiversity Targets?

Digitalization and AI in European Agriculture: A Strategy for Achieving Climate and Biodiversity Targets?

Farmers’ action space to adopt sustainable practices: a study of arable farming in Saxony

Digital and virtual spaces as sites of extension and advisory services research: social media, gaming, and digitally integrated and augmented advice

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About