Growing algorithmic governmentality: Interrogating the social construction of trust in precision agriculture

Abstract

Precision agriculture (PA) is restructuring farmer livelihoods and identities through a panoply of technologies that generate and process big data to influence agricultural practices. In this paper, we ask the question: How does algorithmic rationality impact farmers' trust in PA? We focus on the modalities of power wielded by agritech firms through PA that socially construct a form of moralistic trust, the politics of knowledge and knowledgeability, and the internalization of new social identities. This research study utilized a mixed methods approach that included focus groups and follow-up surveys with social actors along the PA value chain. We found that agritech firms have successfully positioned their knowledge products as superior to farmers' experiential knowledge, thereby ensuring farmers’ sustained engagement with PA technologies for the purposes of data capture and capital accumulation. Farmers internalize the algorithmic rationality of PA and position themselves along a moral register through governmentalized actions that ostensibly demonstrate moralistic trust in the system. This process has the effect of transforming social identities, interpellating farmers as the architects of their own alienation. Agritech is increasingly adept at digitally abstracting farm knowledge away from farmers. PA is a battleground wherein the politics of agrarian knowledge are contested.