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Paper long abstract

Uruguayan agriculture is experiencing a transformation that involves the expansion of digital technologies. Public agricultural institutions have developed programs to promote an agtech knowledge base and generate technological solutions invoking productive efficiency and environmental sustainability. For the most part, the social sciences have been absent from the analysis and critical reflection of this phenomenon despite the social, economic, and cultural, possible implications of the digital transformation.

The objective of this presentation is to contribute to the critical understanding of agricultural digitalization based on the analysis of technoscientific narratives built around technologies. It reports an empirically based study analyzing the positions regarding digitalization in two different socio-productive contexts: family farming and large scale agriculture in Uruguay.

The research involved analysis of newspaper articles and empirical case studies. Fieldwork was carried out with actors involved in the development, use, and mediation of agricultural digital technologies.

Results reveal that most actors have positive representations regarding the utility of digital technologies with implications on both economic efficiency and environmental sustainability. Some actors were reluctant to share their productive and economic data in digital applications because of insecurity assumptions and lack of trust in the entities involved. However, no real critical visions were identified regarding the implications of digital technologies. Overall, a general optimistic view seems to nurture the narrative that digital transformation can alleviate workload, improve input use, and in general save time and money. Further, digital transformation appears as inevitable and thus we all need to catch up with it.