Technology: A Growing Threat to Food Sovereignty

There’s no question – advances in science and technology have improved the lives of most people. However, as we have seen with the recent concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI), having a blind faith in technology without questioning and analyzing its benefits and risks can take us down a precarious path. This is a growing concern in agriculture, especially with government and private sector emphasis on the need for technology-reliant climate change solutions with what are termed precision agriculture and climate-smart agriculture, practices that have been called false solutions by environmental and Indigenous-led organizations. As a result, the use of drones, robotics, autonomous tractors, sensors, and AI-guided agronomic advice increases, locking us all into an agriculture system that exploits people and nature. Farmers, peasants, consumers, and farm justice advocates from around the world have recognized the risks of genetically modified seeds for decades, including the ecological and social costs to this technology and its threat to food sovereignty. Now, the threat is increasing dramatically through the political and economic power of corporations that are collecting huge amounts of data on land, seeds, water, livestock, production systems, and consumer behavior.

Would a robot recognize the beauty of baby robins in an apple tree?

At the United Nations Committee on World Food Security, in which I participate through civil society as a member of Family Farm Defenders, National Family Farm Coalition, US Food Sovereignty Alliance, and La Via Campesina, negotiations for policy recommendations on “Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition” recently came to a close. Throughout the two-year process, those of us in civil society (Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism or CSIPM) consulted with people on the ground – peasants, farmers, Indigenous People, and consumers – as we learned more and more about the impacts and concerns surrounding the collection and use of data and, related to this data collection, the digitalization of our global food system.

It is important to note that the process of developing these voluntary guidelines for data was proposed, in a clear conflict of interest, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with support to go forward provided by one member state – the United States. Furthermore, the framing of these guidelines with a narrow definition of data as statistical data, and of the notion that if we just had more data, we would have more people who are food secure was designed to leave many aspects of this issue unaddressed. This framing would attempt to negate any political aspects of the issue.

Experts at NGOs, including the ETC Group, FIAN, and Schola Campesina, and several academics, along with those of us from social movements quickly began to identify risks of data collection, both by the private sector but also by some governments. Those risks include privacy violations, surveillance, influence on decision-making of producers and consumers, and environmental costs due to the energy use and mining. We also saw that this focus on technological solutions to address what are political and social issues will further entrench inequalities, racism, marginalization of peoples, and control of food production. It is clear that these technologies give power over land and production to corporations. Management of food production can now be done by computer and AI, and will eliminate the farmer and peasant along with their knowledge, ancestral knowledge passed down through generations and the knowledge gained by understanding the land, forests, and water on which they work. This corporate control will threaten any hope for a future based on food sovereignty and agroecology. We in civil society emphasized that governance of technologies, assessment of risks before they are implemented, and accountability by governments to people are all critical aspects to be considered. We also insisted that individual and collective rights be at the core of any data collection and analysis guidelines, and that the diverse and varied methods of data collection and analysis already done by Indigenous Peoples and peasants be protected and respected.

As in other United Nations spaces, we found that the corporate and corporate-connected philanthropic influence is eroding the power of the United Nations with multistakeholderism taking over from multilateralism. While we in the CSIPM were able to get some language on governance and human rights into the final document, the United States representative dominated the debate and ensured that the corporate perspective stayed in the text. We are concerned that the lack of oversight – of governance - threatens more than food sovereignty; it threatens each country’s sovereignty.

We need to be asking ourselves some serious questions. The CSIPM drafted a vision statement on data, articulating the contradictions and the challenges of this issue. The conversation and debate surrounding data and digital agriculture is only beginning, and the vision statement is a work in progress with inputs from others in social movements welcome. We ended the statement with a series of questions. Building on those questions, I will challenge you, the reader, to consider these: How do we live on this Earth in closer harmony with nature, with food sovereignty and agroecology, and with technological advances? Do we place limits on high-tech instead of the current market-based system where anyone who wants to profit from ag tech can sell a new technology? Do we emphasize a combination of high-tech and low-tech techniques in an agroecological methodology? Do we consider how technology fits with a view of the world and of humanity as something precious, connected, and deserving of respect to ensure a future of food sovereignty for all?

An edited version of this post appeared in the Family Farm Defenders Fall 2023 Newsletter