Presentation short abstract

Ethnography of Kenyan agri-tech examines how startups invoke and operationalize “sustainability” in their daily work. Fieldwork among developers, entrepreneurs, and intermediaries suggests competing commercial and ecological logics shape digital tool design and the agricultural futures imagined.

Presentation long abstract

Kenya is a continental leader in agricultural digitization, judging by the number of agri-tech startups operating in the country. Yet what are the realities behind the celebratory reports? Ethnographic research on the developers, entrepreneurs, and intermediaries building these systems remains sparse. This paper draws on extended fieldwork among Kenyan agri-tech startups and digital agriculture practitioners to examine how those designing the “future of farming” conceptualize sustainability: a term constantly invoked, but rarely defined clearly.

The paper addresses the research question: how do agri-tech actors understand and engage with the notion of sustainability? Using qualitative data from semi-structured and unstructured interviews, participant observation inside startup offices, and site visits to farms and agvet shops, the analysis combines insights from anthropology of entrepreneurship and science and technology studies to interrogate how sustainability becomes articulated in day-to-day practice.

Findings indicate that sustainability is overwhelmingly interpreted as commercial survival: securing investment, customers, and revenue streams. Ecological concerns - soil health, biodiversity, input reduction - enter the conversation only insofar as they can be instrumentalized into business models or investor pitches. This narrow framing sidesteps farmers’ ecological priorities, as well as shapes the design of digital tools in ways that foreclose more substantive environmental commitments.

The paper argues that this entrepreneurial redefinition of sustainability has implications beyond Kenya. It reveals how digital agriculture globally may be consolidating a market-centric vision of environmental action. Recognizing this dynamic opens space for rethinking what kinds of agricultural futures are being built - and for whom.

Presentation short abstract

This paper examines how large-scale white farmers in post-Apartheid South Africa imagine agricultural futures through security and standardization rather than sustainability. It analyzes the digitalization-security nexus amid populist politics and contested land relations.

Presentation long abstract

Agricultural futures are imagined and enacted differently across global contexts. While farmers in the global North increasingly frame their visions around productivity optimization and environmental sustainability, South African farmers articulate distinct imaginaries shaped by their unique socio-political landscape. This paper examines how large-scale white farmers in post-Apartheid South Africa envision and perform the future of farming in a context marked by heightened populist and authoritarian tendencies.

Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observation, this research reveals that South African farmers' imaginaries center on security and standardization as responses to complex supply chain pressures and perceived existential threats. Unlike their Northern counterparts, these farmers mobilize digital technologies less as tools for precision agriculture or environmental stewardship, and more as mechanisms for securing property, ensuring traceability, and meeting increasingly stringent certification requirements demanded by global value chains.

This paper contributes to debates on digital agrarian futures by centering the nexus of digitalization and security in Southern contexts. It demonstrates how race, land politics, and economic precarity shape technological adoption patterns and future-making practices in ways that diverge significantly from dominant narratives emerging from the global North. By examining these situated imaginaries, the paper challenges universalizing assumptions about agricultural digitalization and highlights how historical legacies and contemporary political tensions mediate farmers' engagements with digital infrastructures. Ultimately, it argues for greater attention to how security concerns reshape the politics of digital agriculture in contexts marked by deep inequality and contested belonging.

Presentation short abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Bihar, India, this paper examines how digital climate platforms reproduce colonial extraction patterns through 'algorithmic coloniality' whilst women farmers organised through Self-Help Groups demonstrate sophisticated resistance and collective alternatives.

Presentation long abstract

Climate adaptation increasingly deploys digital platforms claiming to democratise agricultural knowledge, yet in Bihar, India, over 40 agricultural applications circulate despite minimal farmer adoption. This paper examines this paradox through 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork with Dalit and Other Backward Caste farmers, women extension workers, and digital service providers across Bihar's Vaishali and Gaya districts, exploring the 'productive tension' between algorithmic governance and vernacular climate politics.

The analysis theorises 'algorithmic coloniality' (Couldry and Mejias, 2019, 2024; Machen and Nost, 2021) to capture how digital climate infrastructure extends colonial extraction patterns through computational systems that privilege certain knowledge forms, centralise decision-making, and produce strategic blindness about caste-differentiated vulnerability. This operates through epistemic violence devaluing embodied knowledge, data extraction circuits serving corporate interests, caste-blind vulnerability assessments, and gendered technology access concentrating benefits amongst privileged groups. These dimensions resonate with Sultana's (2022) theorisation of climate coloniality.

Yet women farmers organised through Self-Help Groups (SHGs) demonstrate sophisticated agency through selective technology appropriation, collective knowledge validation, and organised resistance to exploitative labour conditions. BAMCEF-affiliated farmers articulate Ambedkarite climate politics linking vulnerability to caste oppression whilst maintaining technological proficiency, demanding education, land redistribution, and structural transformation rather than algorithmic fixes. This echoes Reddy's (2021) call for abolition ecology. These vernacular counterpolitics challenge both adaptation's epistemologies and materialities, revealing that just transitions require not better algorithms but fundamental restructuring of agrarian relations. The paper advances debates on digital agricultural futures by centring subaltern voices and demonstrating how community-based alternatives contest technocratic climate governance.

Presentation short abstract

This presentation explores the data imaginaries in efforts to commercialise regenerative agriculture, focusing on transnational food corporations and the ag tech startups delivering sensors and software for the measurement, reporting and verification of regenerative agriculture.

Presentation long abstract

In the halls of agribusiness, an increasing number of transnational food corporations are exploring 'data-driven' approaches to understand, measure and implement so-called 'regenerative agriculture' in their supply chains. New 'ag tech' startups are scurrying to develop software and sensors which implement such efforts. This dash for 'regen ag' can be seen as the latest iteration in efforts to 'green' capitalism via the transformation of nature into metrics that make it legible to corporate and financial logics of decision-making. This raises questions over how the understanding of nature is transformed through such operations of measurement and quantification, and over the power asymmetries between 'data producers' and 'data harvesters' - i.e. between farmers that produce data points and the startups and corporations that have access to the predictive power afforded by large-scale datasets. In this presentation, I analyse the data imaginaries of transnational food corporations and digital software startups that are pursuing efforts to commercialise regenerative agriculture. Drawing on published reports and interviews with those working in the space I explore the promises that are produced around 'data-driven' approaches to regenerative agriculture, and how these connect to imaginations of environmental crisis in the agrifood sector, relationships between agribusiness firms and farmers, and strategies for securing profits in the future. The analysis provides insight into how major food corporations' 'regen ag'-driven attempts to mitigate environmental risks might reshape power relations in the global agrifood sector, and more broadly on the epistemic operations that translate ecological concerns into opportunities for capital accumulation.

Presentation short abstract

Utilising a political ecology lens, this paper explores potentials and drawbacks of using digital technologies to build and share knowledge and practice related to insects in smallholder agroecological farming networks in Southern Africa.

Presentation long abstract

Insects play a critical role in thriving farming systems, but industrial farming is a key contributor to their dwindling diversity. The use of pesticides and land use change are key drivers of this. With their work increasingly mediated by agro-technologies (like broad-spectrum pesticides and genetically modified seed) farmers are losing knowledge about and practices related to insects. Through a political ecology lens, this paper explores the potential of application-based digital technologies in smallholder farming networks to collectively rebuild knowledge and practices related to agroecological pest management. It is interested in whether digital technologies can be used in modes that foster sentience, connection, place-based knowledge, sovereignty and collective change.

Presentation short abstract

Who truly benefits when an organic agriculture digital marketplace grows? How do they attempt to scale without producing “violent sustainability,” while simultaneously competing with other venture capital-funded start-ups?

Presentation long abstract

Agriculture has gained increasing prominence in global climate negotiations due to its potential to reduce emissions through carbon storage and sequestration. Over the past decade, hundreds of agriculture technology start-ups have emerged, promising to design and scale “climate-smart” solutions. My research argues that rapidly scaled sustainability should be understood as “violent sustainability” (Agrawal, 2025) and demonstrates how such projects persist even when they fail on their own terms. This paper extends that discussion by ethnographically examining a digital organic marketplace start-up and its efforts to leverage “capitalism creatively” to promote organic agriculture, while navigating structural constraints imposed by capitalism’s growth imperatives. Rather than treating the capitalist firm as driven solely by self-interested entrepreneurs seeking to maximize profit, the paper emphasizes the contingencies that shape the social life of this company as it attempts to scale from its base near Mumbai, Maharashtra. Through a situated institutional ethnography, I investigate how the start-up operates and expands while striving to cultivate a moral economy around naturally grown products and its brand. In doing so, the paper addresses several key questions: Who truly benefits when an organic agriculture digital marketplace grows? How do they attempt to scale without producing “violent sustainability,” while simultaneously competing with other venture capital-funded start-ups? Can the founders’ claim that they are “using capitalism creatively” be substantiated? I explore these questions through ethnographic insights into multiple aspects of the start-up’s operations–including farmer and worker relationships, strategies for social media engagement and fundraising, and internal discussions on growth and sustainability.

Presentation short abstract

Drawing on research with commercial grain farmers (wheat and maize) in South Africa, this presentation will analyse how precision agriculture (PA) technologies have (re)shaped farmer knowledge and behaviour through soil health data, with a specific focus on sustainable agriculture transitions.

Presentation long abstract

Digital agriculture technologies are transforming agriculture across the globe. The rise and proliferation of such technologies has been met with a mix of optimism and anxiety (Carolan, 2020). Drawing on research with commercial grain farmers (wheat and maize) in South Africa, this presentation will analyse how precision agriculture (PA) technologies have (re)shaped farmer knowledge and behaviour, especially regarding sustainable agriculture transitions. PA technologies are diverse and often require biological and chemical soil assessments upon which the technologies are calibrated. For example, variable rate fertiliser application requires detailed soil analysis to inform field maps which guide the amount of fertiliser applied to different field portions. Soil assessment data have fundamentally changed how commercial grain farmers know and manage their land. Where, previously, farm knowledge relied on visual and relational environmental cues, it is now dependent on scientific data, on chemical and biological soil profiles. PA technologies and their data have thus created a number of agricultural transition pathways. On the one hand, PA technologies and soil data ameliorate some of the consequences of industrial and productivist agriculture systems, maintaining dependencies and creating digital divides. These technologies are built into industrial agriculture assemblages and, as a result, technological lock-in persists. On the other hand, breakthroughs in (micro)biological soil assessments have enabled commercial grain farmers to conceptualise soil health in more relatable ways and have helped to foster sustainable agriculture transitions. This presentation will unpack the differing aims with which soil data are used and how this affects farmer behaviour and knowledge.

Presentation short abstract

This study investigates how social media platform affordances and algorithmic systems mediate encounters between local, scientific, and peer knowledges among Indonesian smallholder coffee and cacao farmers, using assemblage theory to trace how digital infrastructures shape agricultural practices.

Presentation long abstract

Indonesian smallholder coffee and cacao farmers increasingly engage with social media platforms to access agricultural information, encountering diverse and often conflicting knowledge claims from inherited local traditions, modern scientific recommendations, and peer experiences shared by distant farmers. Yet platforms are not neutral information conduits—their technical architectures, interface designs, and algorithmic curation systems actively participate in shaping which knowledges become visible, credible, and actionable. This research investigates how platform affordances mediate encounters between local knowledges (pengetahuan lokal), scientific knowledges, and peer knowledges, and how these mediations configure farmers' knowledge practices.

Drawing on assemblage theory and relational approaches from science and technology studies and platform studies, the research employs multi-sited ethnography combining in-depth interviews with smallholder farmers across four Indonesian provinces, participant observation of digital practices, and systematic analysis of social media interactions on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The study traces how algorithmic recommendation systems privilege certain knowledge forms, how interface features structure knowledge sharing and evaluation, and how platform-specific socialities shape epistemic authority.

Preliminary fieldwork reveals that platform architectures produce distinctive knowledge assemblages—amplifying visually demonstrable techniques, compressing complex local knowledges into shareable formats, and creating new hierarchies of credibility based on engagement metrics rather than agroecological relevance. The research contributes to understandings of digital agricultural knowledge by foregrounding the active role of platform infrastructures in constituting contemporary farming epistemologies in the Global South.

Presentation short abstract

This paper explores whether AI can align with agroecological principles, such as sustainability, equity, and local knowledge, by reconfiguring AI systems to support agroecological goals, fostering resilience and ecological integrity in African agriculture.

Presentation long abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often touted as a tool for enhancing productivity and sustainability in African agriculture. However, hegemonic AI systems typically reinforce existing power imbalances, centralising control over knowledge and resources. This paper explores whether AI, with particular reference to digital technologies, can be reconfigured to align with the principles and politics of agroecology, which prioritise ecological sustainability, biodiversity, social equity, and local knowledge. Rather than asking, “What parts of AI can agroecology utilise?”, the paper asks, “Can AI systems be adapted to serve the logics of agroecology?”, positioning agroecology as the normative framework guiding digital technological development. Drawing on participatory, decentralised, and open-source AI initiatives in Africa, the paper examines how AI might potentially support agroecological goals like resilience, data sovereignty, and the maintenance of ecological complexity. It argues that for AI to align with agroecology, it must embrace the core principles of agroecology—such as co-governance, recognition of diverse knowledge systems, and non-extractive design. Ultimately, the paper suggests that AI may serve as a tool for agroecological transitions, but only under specific conditions that respect agroecological politics and values, fostering more equitable, sustainable, and locally driven agricultural systems.

Presentation short abstract

A dissertation chapter on how AgTech automation and racialized labor substitution shape the future of greenhouse agriculture in East Austria under conditions of climate intensification.

Presentation long abstract

In this paper, I present a chapter from my dissertation, which investigates how climate change, digital technologies, and migrant labor regimes converge to produce new forms of vulnerability and value in East Austria’s greenhouse belt. Drawing on multi-year immersive ethnography with migrant farmworkers, growers, and AgTech consultants, the chapter traces how digital technologies not only coexist with but critically intersect with racialized labor dynamics in a climate-intensifying agricultural landscape.

The analysis centers on the post-2024 rise of Nepali workers in Austrian agriculture. Agricultural actors increasingly describe Nepali workers through narratives of “heat resistance” and heightened endurance. This racialized reconfiguration has unfolded alongside growing investments in climate computers, digital monitoring systems, and emerging robotic harvesting technologies. This concurrence captures the current state of Austrian techno-industrial food production: a race to the top in automation, framed as the long-term solution to labor shortages, coupled with a race to the bottom in labor valuation, where racialized workers are positioned as the necessary solution to the present.

I conceptualize this convergence as the coupling of a techno-fix—automation as an imagined horizon of optimized, data-driven agriculture—and a racial fix—the recruitment of new migrant groups cast as more manageable or biologically suited to harsh microclimates. Together, these fixes reveal how automation and labor substitution unfold in tandem, producing new hierarchies of disposability and value in AgTech cultivation.

By situating these dynamics within broader debates on digitalization and climate adaptation, the chapter shows how agricultural futures are being lived through uneven relations between technologies, bodies, and climates.

Presentation short abstract

We examine how R&D funding architectures shape digital agricultural technologies, comparing agtech ecosystems in the US, Europe and MENA. These funding regimes are not neutral enablers of innovation but should be understood as key sites where the social lives of technologies are pre-configured.

Presentation long abstract

The digitalisation in agriculture is often analysed at the level of farm adoption, data extraction, and labour control. This paper instead moves upstream to examine how research and development (R&D) in agricultural technologies is shaped by funding architectures and financial capital, and how these dynamics prefigure the “future of agriculture” that the panel interrogates. We present preliminary results on how different agtech innovation ecosystems organise and finance R&D, comparing: 1) Silicon Valley–style venture capital models in California, the Netherlands, and the UAE; 2) a Mittelstand-oriented model in Osnabrück; 3) externally funded agtech initiatives in Egypt and Lebanon, where foreign states and donors are central; and 4) AgLaunch in the US as an extreme case where R&D and socio-ecological transformation are promoted. These cases highlight contrasting configurations of public funding, private equity, state investment, and philanthropic capital. Across these sites, we ask: How do funding sources and instruments influence which technologies are developed, for whom, and with what agrarian imaginaries? How do R&D funding structures shape data ownership, control, and risk? Rather than mapping agri-food systems, we focus on the earliest stages of innovation, where financial capital, policy incentives, and investor expectations already shape – and potentially stabilise – particular technical pathways. We argue that R&D funding regimes are not neutral enablers of innovation but need to be understood as key sites where the social lives of technologies are pre-configured. The paper seeks to foreground R&D finance as a crucial terrain of “productive tension” between digital technologies and agricultural knowledge production.