Land grab/data grab: precision agriculture and its new horizons

Abstract

Developments in the area of 'precision agriculture' are creating new data points (about flows, soils, pests, climate) that agricultural technology providers 'grab', aggregate, compute and/or sell. Food producers now churn out food and, increasingly, data. 'Land grabs' on the horizon in the global south are bound up with the dynamics of data grabbing, although hitherto researchers have not revealed enough about the people and projects at issue. Against this backdrop, this paper examines some key issues taking shape, while highlighting new frontiers for research and introducing the concept 'data sovereignty', which food sovereignty practitioners (and others) need to begin considering.

The Internet of Landlords: Digital Platforms and New Mechanisms of Rentier Capitalism

“…It has detailed the political economic imperatives that compel increasingly more organisations—from rentier platforms to police departments and everything in between—“to capture all data, from all sources, by any means possible” (Sadowski :1) and are “powerfully equipped with the tools to enact [this imperative]” (Fourcade and Healy :13). And it has analysed the historical relations of inequity and exploitation that are deeply embedded in these modern systems of extraction, such as the accumulation by dispossession of “data colonialism” (Thatcher et al ) and the appropriation and sovereignty struggles of “data grabbing” (Fraser ).…”

“…This case of farm machinery is only unusual in degree, not in type. Here manufacturers are literally reclaiming the means of production—plus grabbing a valuable resource: data—away from farmers (Fraser ). But these same forms of digital enclosure are also applied to all the things we use that are equipped with software—which is, increasingly, everything.…”

From Online Cart to Plate: What Amazon's Retail Domination Means for the Future of Food

“…Agri-food conglomerates are already adding data and related technologies to their portfolios, allowing for even greater integration across sectors. This integration comes with troubling consequences such as consolidation of power, tougher competition for small players, and increased barriers to entry for new enterprises (Bronson & Knezevic, 2016;Fraser, 2019;Mooney, 2018). Amazon is moving from the other directionrather than being an agri-food company entering data markets, it is a data company entering the food sector.…”

How should we ask questions about the social status of climate change knowledge?

“…In the context of emerging authoritarian regimes and a proliferation of denialist governments, questions of control and willful data destruction and distortion also need to be addressed. The concept of data sovereignty deserves much attention in this context (Fraser, ). What kind of knowledge is needed, and for whom ? If past scientific problem definitions and a framing of the climate change problem as a knowledge problem have not helped to promote a shift toward low‐carbon developments, what other types of knowledge could be helpful, and what role would there be for new stories and narratives?…”