The Agricultural Data Imaginary: Precision farming’s reinforcement of the productivist approach to agriculture

Abstract

Big Data come with the promise of a better future. In the agricultural discourse on smart technologies and data-based applications in farming, so-called “precision farming” is envisioned as a “revolution” of traditional agricultural mass production of crops and livestock. Big Data are imagined as making the agrifood industry more efficient, more profitable, and more sustainable. Drawing on David Beer’s concept of the “data imaginary” (2019), this chapter examines discourses on precision farming in corporate advertisements, lobbyist agricultural journals, and review articles in academic journals in the field of agriculture and computing. It argues that data-based agrifood production is seen as the next technological fix of the broken system of traditional industrial farming, while it in fact reinforces the devastating environmental and social damages that traditional industrial farming has caused. Keywords: big data, smart farming, data imaginary, productivist agriculture, technological solutionism