Digital control: how Big Tech moves into food and farming (and what it means) by GRAIN https://grain.org/en/article/6595-digital-control-how-big-tech-moves-into-food-and-farming-and-what-it-means | 21 Jan 2021
What does this mean for small farmers and local food systems? -- integration between the companies that supply products to farmers (pesticides, tractors, drones, etc) and those that control the flow of data and have access to food consumers.
- getting farmers to use their mobile phone apps to supply them with data - big e-platform corporations taking control of food distribution.
Together, they favour the use of chemical inputs and costly machinery, as well as the production of commodities for corporate buyers not local markets. They encourage centralisation, concentration and uniformity, and are prone to abusing their power and monopolisation.
The advice small farmers will get from such digital networks, via text messages on their cell phones, will be far from revolutionary. And, if these farmers are practicing agroecology and mixed cropping, any advice they receive will be completely useless. But good advice to farmers is not really the end game here anyway. For the corporations investing in digital agriculture, the objective is to integrate millions of small farmers into a vast, centrally controlled digital network. Once integrated, they are heavily encouraged- if not obligated- to buy their products (inputs, machinery, and financial services) and to supply them with agricultural commodities that they can then sell onwards.