technologyagricultures

DIGITIZATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND FARMING—WHO’S GOT THE POWER?

Today, digitization, the more and more included use of aggregated facts tools and services, is seen as a part of the fourth industrial revolution, which includes the “fusion of technology” that could blur the bounds between the bodily, virtual and digital realms. Biological.The world has witnessed the upward thrust of drones, robots and synthetic intelligence, far off sensing, and massive data that permeate all elements of agriculture and food production.It may be a terrifying tale of company takeovers, underprivileged farmers, and dissatisfied clients. But there are also inspiring and provoking examples of farmers using the first-class, most culturally acceptable, environmentally and socially sustainable technology to do their work.However, digitization can be part of a technique wherein organizations growth control over the chain of manufacturing and distribution of merchandise for the duration of the meals chain. As Friends of the Earth USA currently referred to, the equal four mega-organizations that manipulate seeds and pesticides - Bayer-Monsanto, DowDuPont, Syngenta-ChemChina, and BASF - increasingly more manage digital farming as properly.Farmers purchase know-how systems together with Bayer-Monsanto's Climate FieldView, DowDupont's Granular, Encirca and AcreValue, Syngenta's AgriEdge Excelsior, and BASF's Xarvio and Maglis.As advice to farmers turns into very specific and tailor-made to the sources and approaches provided, different alternatives or other strategies disappear from view. While the dearth of training and outreach offerings performs a position, all too not unusual debt and dependency set the limits of what is possible.In the period in-between, who owns the massive facts? When it involves megacorporation systems, it's miles regarding that farmers will not be skilled of get right of entry to their facts in the event that they determine to go away the platform. Want of get right of entry to to information about their very own fields and soil moisture can placed them at a disadvantage. And the spectrum of combination records used by corporations in commodity markets can be on the horizon.But, consistent with the Greek agronomist Vasilis Gkisakis, in virtual agriculture there's usually "a partial increase within the efficiency of inputs and using resources and some reduction in manufacturing costs, which, however, are observed by means of high costs of production. Mechanization of agricultural control. "Often those advanced tools ignore the fundamental ecological strategies by way of whose standards agricultural ecosystems function."They won't be appropriate for smallholders and may cause partial answers not related to a holistic approach to agriculture with (dis) nature.Science-based, environmentally touchy and farmer empowering procedures, which include agroecology, differ. Agroecology learns from nature in widespread and biology mainly. In the case of weeds, plants within the incorrect place, unique attention is paid to the technique using many small hammers. As highlighted inside the Pesticide Action Network European Weed Management ebook, in reality, there are many strategies already used by natural farmers, agroecologists and others:

“By integrating physical or mechanical, biological and ecological agricultural practices with the substantial information obtained about the organic and ecological characteristics of crops and weeds, farmers can correctly manage weeds without herbicides at the same time as retaining high yields and keeping off the improvement of resistance. In weed species. Soil fitness and biodiversity, and erosion minimization ".