Dr. Louisa Prause will hold a virtual seminar with the title “A Digital Revolution in Agriculture? New technologies and the future of the corporate food regime” at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS).
Abstract: Proponents of the introduction of digital tools in the agri-food sector have suggested that digital tools can make agriculture more productive, profitable and ecologically sustainable. Digitalization is supposed to be the solution for feeding a growing population while minimising the negative impacts on biodiversity, soil health and the climate.
Based on fieldwork in Germany and South Africa, Dr Louisa Prause brings together the food regime approach and critical technology studies to argue that rather than a revolution in agriculture, digitalisation deepens certain features of the existing food regime such as the retail sector’s control over global commodity chains, a high degree of oligopolistic corporate power and labour displacement. Pause will offer thoughts on how digital tools might be designed and used differently in order to foster a socio-ecological transformation of the corporate food regime.
Seminar details:
Date: 22 November 2022
Platform: Virtual
Time: 13:00 – 14:00 (Central African Time/ Central European Time)
11:00 – 12:00 Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT) (Ghana)
14:00 East African Time (EAT) (Tanzania)
Registration:
Link: https://www.plaas.org.za/digital-revolution-seminar/
[source of picture: pexels.com/ Tomas Anunziata]