ERC/24/2 The role of innovation and digitalization in the sustainable use of natural resources to accelerate the implementation of climate-resilient and low-emission pathways in agrifood systems
My name is Paula Gioia, and I am a small-scale farmer and bee-keeper in Germany, and member of the European Coordination Via Campesina. I am speaking on behalf of the Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia Food Sovereignty Network, which gathers the civil society in our region.
Farmers, pastoralists and traditional fisherfolk are the oldest innovators in agriculture and food production. Since agriculture and animal domestication has existed, we have created tools and systems to address the challenges we face and the needs we have. But our Peasant and Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing are much more than merely the accumulation and processing of data. Our knowledge is tied to collective practices, as well as to complex social and ecological relations, that peasant farmers and small-scale food producers are part of. Our intelligence relies on cognitive processes as well as on all human senses and intuition, and it finds its expression in peasants’ agroecological practices and innovations.
In our rapidly evolving world, technology and digitalization have become an indispensable part of our lives, extending its reach into every nook and cranny of our food systems. They are often presented as THE necessary tool for innovation and tackling multiple global challenges. But we know the truth is far more complex. While we are forced or advised to use high technological tools, we face a big digital divide in rural areas, affecting especially women.
We see many political speeches claiming that more digitalisation will attract young farmers to the sector. However, in our region we have young farmers willing to adopt a peasant lifestyle, for whom digitalisation is not a priority. Instead, the young farmers talk about the importance of a steady income and access to land, but not primarily to digital technologies. But let me make it clear: We are not against technology – also in our farm we are for example using it for effective water management – but they demand caution. We have to admit that technology is not neutral.
Right now, the majority of digital tools and technologies are NOT adapted to the needs of smallholders. In fact, robotisation of dairy farms, geolocation of flocks, satellite connected tractors, far from solving our problems, involve new worries and stress, reduce our agency to decide about our production process and reinforce corporate control over agriculture in ways that undermine the livelihoods of small-scale food producers, and therefore are NOT addressing the root causes of the multiple crisis, including climate change.
As discussed during the regional CSO consultation held between the 10-12th of May, one of our main concerns is that most technological solutions are not developed together with us or for us and can actually put us at risk. The overall message of the background document for the ERC 34 reinforces a very approach to a type of research and innovation that is neither peasant-led nor co-created. Instead, they are driven by powerful actors who own and/or control data-driven technologies. Our autonomy as small-scale food producers rely on keeping control over farming resources, be they land, labour, knowledge, technology, seeds or cattle breeds, and capacity of self-adaptation. This clashes with the power geometries in which bio-digital technologies are embedded. Also data collection must not happen without our consent. And the output cannot be sold to us later under the name of “consultancy or advisory services”.
We need a shift towards a new paradigm for research and innovation that embraces inclusive, bottom-up approaches that support the transition to agroecology. Innovations and digitization must serve the right to food.
Also governments must not use this data to abuse their people. One of the testimonies shared by a peasant during the CSO consultation was very shocking, describing the situation that a certain country is using satellite images – taken without consent – against farmers in court cases, while the farmers themselves cannot easily access these data about their own farms.
Despite all these risks, we acknowledge that digital technologies could be an asset for exposing inequalities, advancing food security and food sovereignty, and addressing environmental and social crises. However, this can only happen if a strong governance framework is developed, as a key part of achieving democratic food systems.
We must urgently reevaluate our approach to agricultural technology, among other things acknowledging the role technology plays in exacerbating crises, from environmental degradation to social inequalities.
To conclude, we put forward two recommendations:
1. FAO should lay the ground rules for data collection drawing on the CFS policy recommendations on data collection. So far, there is no mention of this policy guidance in the Conference document.
2. Build on good points from Conference paper on co-creation (i.e. in Abstract, call c upon Member States) and Recommendation 33c on democratising technologies to ensure equitable opportunities for smallholders.