Platforms of Plenty? Data Imaginaries in U.S. Agriculture

• In Event: Feeding the Anthropocene: The Promises of Agro-Food Tech and the Difference of Food - I

Abstract

Over the past several years, startups and agribusiness giants alike have staked their futures on big agricultural data. Fed into farm “decision support” platforms, they claim such data can help farmers deal with agriculture’s perennial uncertainties while meeting demand for traceable, safe and sustainably produced food. While attracting major investors, these claims have yet to receive sustained scholarly analysis, beyond discussions of data privacy concerns. These concerns are not trivial, but overlook key questions about what those platforms actually do. Technically, they collect, store and transmit farmers’ own data, and deliver analytics informed by much bigger datasets. But what kinds of decisions do those analytics support, and toward what larger ends? What other kinds of decision support—i.e. whose knowledge or judgments--might they undermine, if not supplant?
This paper discusses an early-stage research project that poses these questions. The research draws on the conceptual tools of STS, agrarian political economy, and critical data studies. It starts from the premise that a sociotechnical imaginary is taking shape around digital agriculture, one which envisions the “datafied” farm as central to food supply sustainability. Supporters of this imaginary do not necessarily agree on the contents of that food supply, but they do share an epistemic commitment to algorithmic ways of knowing and improving agriculture. The project also presumes that this imaginary’s realization is not inevitable. Farmers must first be convinced that companies’ data-driven analytics offer more valuable insights than other forms of agricultural information and knowledge.

Author

• Susanne Freidberg, Dartmouth College