A warning has been issued by leading food security experts: tech giants and their AI farming tools are meddling with our food system, and it's a game we can't afford to lose.
Imagine a world where tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and Alibaba, along with industrial agriculture firms, decide what crops farmers grow and how they grow them. This is the reality, according to a report by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).
The experts describe a 'top-down' approach, where large corporations dictate farming practices, often prioritizing the most productive and profitable crops. Pat Mooney, a Canadian agriculture expert, warns that these companies are focused on just five crops: corn, rice, wheat, soybeans, and potatoes.
"Their advice will be: 'We know how to use corn in Ethiopia, so we'll tell you how to use it, and we'll link it to pesticides because that's our expertise.' But what about the locally adapted crops that farmers have cultivated for generations?" Mooney asks.
Farmers risk being locked into a globalized system, forced to buy seeds, machinery, and chemicals from industrial companies, instead of growing their own locally adapted crops. Mooney highlights the vulnerability of such a system, citing the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine as examples of shocks that can disrupt global food supply chains.
"The more global the system, the harder it is to guarantee food security. It needs to be as local as possible," he emphasizes.
Tech companies use algorithms and AI models, fed with data from farmers and tools like satellite and drone sensors, to advise farmers on what to grow. But Mooney believes these suggestions are biased towards crops that benefit the companies, requiring farmers to purchase seeds, equipment, and inputs.
The report warns that these digital tools, portrayed as innovative, can easily capture the attention of policymakers and investors. Even hesitant farmers might be persuaded to adopt these technologies if promoted by their governments.
The market for digital farming tools is booming, valued at $30 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $84 billion by 2034. The World Bank and the EU have also invested significantly in digital agriculture projects.
Lim Li Ching, co-chair of IPES-Food, emphasizes that "farming by algorithm" is not what farmers want. She advocates for a bottom-up approach, prioritizing farmers' knowledge and needs.
"Innovation should be grounded in farmers' realities, supporting them as guardians of agricultural biodiversity. We need innovations that empower farmers, are governed locally, and strengthen agroecological practices, not further entrenching industrial agriculture or monocultures," she says.
Examples of such innovations already exist, led by farming communities in Peru, China, and Tanzania, where families are protecting potato varieties, conserving seeds, and using social media to communicate about weather and market conditions.
Mooney suggests that policymakers should fund research with these local farmers and support their innovative practices.
"Food security needs to be local. Agroecology offers this advantage, ensuring we don't rely on a broken global system."
The question remains: Will tech companies and policymakers listen to the experts and farmers, or will they continue to play with our food system?
