Abstract
Abstract. The paper examines the conceptual implications of using Smart Farming Technologies and digitalisation in small-scale food production, exemplified by the Austrian start-up “myAcker”. The company runs a hybrid system of gamified, remote-controlled agriculture, where its customers assume the role of “online gardeners” and take care of their own vegetables. Conceptually, it combines two different logics, namely the technology focus of vertical farming and algorithm-based control over operational processes, and the participatory, values-based elements of Alternative Food Networks like connectivity, sustainability, and ownership developed by online gardeners. Consequently, the dividing lines between producers, customers, and technology, as well as between virtual and physical, become blurred. Thus, the agency of technology becomes a co-constituent of agricultural work, life, and identity, which is itself co-constituted by human actors in a network of social relations. The case study shows the new potential and pitfalls of small-scale smart farming and digitalisation, making it necessary to conceptually revisit human–environment relations in the Actor Network Theory by more explicitly including technology as a bridging element.
Highlights
The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – data-based tools, digital reflections of natural processes, and control mechanisms determined by algorithms – affects the way explicit and implicit agricultural knowledge is produced on farm and used in day-to-day decision-making
We look after a garden in Carinthia – our own garden (FB104)! (2019; own translation)
This paper has presented an example of food production, where “online gardeners” remotely and virtually manage agricultural plots in a game-like setting
Summary
The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – data-based tools, digital reflections of natural processes, and control mechanisms determined by algorithms – affects the way explicit and implicit agricultural knowledge is produced on farm and used in day-to-day decision-making. The latest technological developments in agriculture, including agency of software and algorithms, trigger a bundle of questions concerning farming expertise and the role of the farmer in the process of food production Searching for the farmer major contribution is to facilitate the monitoring and calculating of influencing factors (operating resources) on the farming process This involves the use of technological innovations that are subsumed under Smart Farming Technology (SFT). The conceptual and comprehensive use of information technology shows similarities with the Vertical Farm (VF), a highly developed form of maximum controlled indoor cultivation. We follow the strengths and weaknesses of exceptional farming concepts with a distinctive focus on technological solutions which, like the case of Vertical Farming, is traded as a future hope for food supply on many levels, with the doubtful potential of replacing family-owned farms and farmers
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