The Digitalization of Agriculture and Rural Areas: Towards a Taxonomy of the Impacts

Abstract

The literature about digitalization in agriculture and rural areas is vast and sectorial at the same time. Both international political institutions and practitioners are interested in promoting digital technology, indicating and describing potential benefits and risks. Meanwhile, academics analyze the actual and possible impacts of digital technologies by using case studies. However, the extensive literature makes it challenging to derive a comprehensive synthesis of the possible impacts that digital technologies are and might generate in the rural domains. In the given context, the present work aims at contributing to the construction of a framework providing a first classification of the digital technologies’ impacts to use in both research and a political agenda.

Patterns of Inequalities in Digital Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Some of these contributions highlight the unequal distribution of the benefits of digitalization in agriculture. Several studies of digital agriculture within the field of responsible research and innovation emphasize the importance of equity and inclusiveness in digital innovation, and have developed frameworks to analyze and facilitate the inclusion of farmers in innovation processes [14,15,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

EUTR implementation in the Italian wood-energy sector: Role and impact of (ongoing) digitalisation

“…This fact, in turn, improves the availability and reliability of data on wood biomasses production and sales, accelerates both authorisation and control activities related to the EUTR enforcement. Therefore, in line with Rolandi et al (2021) and Ebinger and Omondi (2020), digital technologies mediating processes, tasks and a massive exchange of data and information lead to more efficient traceability and tracking activities in global supply chains.…”

“…As the entire procedure of EUTR enforcement is mainly based on traceability verification following a "paper-based" approach aimed to assess risks and introduce mitigating measures (UNEP-WCMC, 2020), operators are encouraged to produce adequate documentation as proof of legally sourced timber (Cashore and Stone, 2012). However, traceability represents an interesting application scenario for digital technologies (Rolandi et al, 2021), since emerging digital solutions could make the massive exchange of data and information more effective and efficient, lowering policy-related transaction and costs associated with EUTR implementation. This policy paper aims to stimulate the debate on the impact of digitalisation in implementing EUTR in the wood-energy sector, a traditionally low tech sector with a limited importance in terms of valueadded creation, where administrative burden may hinder the achievement of traceability goals.…”

Do Digital Climate Services for Farmers Encourage Resilient Farming Practices? Pinpointing Gaps through the Responsible Research and Innovation Framework

“…The data category titled 'Production Advise Data' could include case studies on agroadvisory applications with indicators of 'reflexive' and 'responsive' evidence, such as proposed in the responsible innovation framework. To enable objective analytics beyond case study comparisons, requires that indicators are adopted in new search taxonomies for impacts of digital agriculture technologies [116,117]. To develop a more robust understanding of what is available globally, a machine learning model could aid with the assembly of a dataset and review of applications, as used previously in literature reviews on digital agriculture research [e.g., 27].…”