The study traces the major changes in the world community approaches to the agricultural policy shaping in response to digitization. The evolution of agricultural policy affected by high technologies is an important trend in the late 20th and early 21st century. In the last decade, the focus on creating level playing field for economic operators to access the agricultural market in the context of increasing digital divide is one of vectors in line with the overall transformation of agricultural policy. Digital divide in the farm sector is supplemented and amplified by the so-called "triple divide". The industry faces different access conditions for companies and individuals to manufacturing resources and market opportunities on gender, social and educational grounds. This situation exacerbates market discrepancy and social problems. Agricultural policy trends in the context of innovative development reflect the efforts of the world community to bridge the digital divide for the sustainability degree of the agricultural sector.
The article explores the impact of the digital divide and digital inequality on the transformation processes in the world’s food sector through the lens of a new paradigm developed in preparation of the September 2021 UN Food Systems Summit. The purpose of the study is to identify the main causes of the deepening digital inequality in the food sector and ways to overcome it. The authors’ methodology of interdisciplinary comprehensive analysis of socio-economic processes makes it possible to identify the most disruptive points that inhibit food provision to the global population in the context of digitalization. It is argued that the digital inequality in various food systems is based on the multi-speed nature of digitalization processes in individual countries and among groups of economic entities, and this creates new competitive landscape and, consequently, a new ratio of market advantages and risks. It is concluded that the digital inequality in the global food systems has implication beyond the market profoundly affecting social outcomes. It exacerbates the food security problem in terms of economic affordability of food due to a decrease or loss of income of the rural population, who lose their jobs in the digitalization context, and also generates new risks of functioning in digital ecosystems. This situation makes it difficult to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), namely SDG-2 and related goals. However, the impact of government regulation of the food sector on overcoming digital inequality remains ambiguous.
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