Sustainability and Democracy in the Digital Transformation of the Agri-food System. On the Contributions of a Feminist Care Perspective

Agricultural systems are under pressure. Industrial agriculture and the way we produce biomass and food are having a devastating impact on the environment. Climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen overload and soil degradation are some of the most pressing challenges of our times. Against this background, precision farming is presented by industry, policy and academia as an innovative hightech agricultural strategy that provides a response to some of these sustainability challenges. Precision agriculture refers to the use of big data and algorithm-based technologies in agricultural production. It is supposed to make applications of fertilizers more precise and efficient, thus more ecologically friendly and sustainable, for instance though the use of "variable rate" technology to apply fertilizers and pesticides through digital data-based spraying systems. This paper argues that feminist perspectives are eye-openers for the inequalities and power relations that are linked to these technological solutions. They enable a critical analysis of the sustainability of policies and of technologies and highlight procedural and substantive dimensions of democracy as key for sustainability. It aims to answer the following question: How can a feminist perspective help identify the pitfalls of current high-tech agricultural solutions and critically examine their implications for sustainability and democracy?