The Threat and Opportunity of Digital Technology in Agriculture

ABSTRACT Investment in ag tech startups has increased 370% since 2013. Many of these new companies market their technology to reduce or eliminate farm work altogether. But at what cost? Workers will lose their livelihoods. Farmers in the Pacific Northwest are struggling to find the capital needed to replant orchards to accommodate this new technology, resulting in changes to farm ownership. Rural economies who depend on the revenue agriculture generates stand directly in harm’s way as wages are eliminated along with jobs. Technology also generates data, what has been called the “new gold”. Current trends suggest that workers, growers and rural communities will not share in this newly created wealth. Technology contains the biases of those who design it and when deployed can result in both discriminatory practices and making workplaces more dangerous for those workers who remain. Rather than eliminating and diminishing agricultural work, technology should be designed to improve the quality of work and build the economic resilience of rural communities.