Convened by Oane Visser, Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, "Matthew Canfield, Faculty of Law, University of Leiden, and Fabio Gatti, Knowledge, Technology & Innovation Group, Wageningen University and Research

The rise of cell phones and digital platforms is often celebrated as creating opportunities for ‘technological leapfrogging’. Although a latecomer to digitalization, agriculture has quickly become one of the fastest-growing arenas for development interventions. Governments, international donors, start-ups, and Big Tech corporations increasingly promote “smart farming” or “digital agriculture” not only as an engine of economic growth, but also as key strategies to tackle climate change, food insecurity, and rural poverty.

This panel aims to go beyond the hype surrounding what is variously called ‘smart agriculture’, 'digital agriculture’ or ‘e-agriculture’, and to critically assess how digitalization and platformization unfold on the ground, particularly in the Global South (but also welcoming comparative insights from small-scale farming in the Global North). We invite contributions that explore how digital technologies transform agrarian livelihoods, labor processes, and knowledge production, with attention to three main themes:

1. Smallholder (dis)empowerment and (de)skilling: How do digital tools shape farmers’ autonomy, expertise, and dependency on external actors?

2. Data ownership, corporatization, and financialization: Who controls agricultural data, and how are digital platforms reshaping power relations between farmers, agri-business, and financial actors?

3. Sustainability and climate adaptation: To what extent do digital innovations offer meaningful solutions to environmental and socio-economic challenges, and what trade-offs do they generate?

The panel also aims to examine emerging responses from farmers’ organizations and small-scale food producers as they weigh both the opportunities and risks posed by these technologies.

Bringing together perspectives from development studies, agrarian political economy, legal studies, and science and technology studies, the panel aims to provide a space for early-stage and exploratory research, with the goal of fostering interdisciplinary dialogue on how digitalization reconfigures agrarian worlds and what this means for shaping sustainable rural futures.