Ecologization and Digitalization of Agriculture

The development of digital technologies is often presented as a response to the current challenges facing agriculture, promising both a better future for farmers and benefits for society as a whole. Digital agriculture would finally solve the equation of feeding the population and respecting the environment. As such, it mobilises significant public and private resources. However, its effects are the subject of heated controversy.

Ecologization and Digitalization of Agriculture analyses how digital technology fits into and influences the various ecological trajectories of agriculture. It explores the representations, uses and transformations of practices that its deployment engenders. The book shows that current digitalisation often conflicts with the strong ecologisation of agriculture, in terms of techniques, objectives, reasoning, time frames, or political and social issues. However, forms of hybridisation appear possible, as models of industrial ecologisation or as part of a more global transformation of digitalisation, rethinking its technical, economic and political models.