The Agricultural Data Imaginary: Precision farming’s reinforcement of the productivist approach to agriculture

Big Data come with the promise of a better future. In the agricultural
discourse on smart technologies and data-based applications in farming,
so-called “precision farming” is envisioned as a “revolution” of traditional
agricultural mass production of crops and livestock. Big Data are imagined
as making the agrifood industry more efficient, more profitable, and more
sustainable. Drawing on David Beer’s concept of the “data imaginary”
(2019), this chapter examines discourses on precision farming in corporate
advertisements, lobbyist agricultural journals, and review articles in
academic journals in the field of agriculture and computing. It argues
that data-based agrifood production is seen as the next technological
fix of the broken system of traditional industrial farming, while it in
fact reinforces the devastating environmental and social damages that
traditional industrial farming has caused.
Keywords: big data, smart farming, data imaginary, productivist agriculture,
technological solutionism