BRIE Working Paper 2021-10 The Challenge of the Digital Agricultural Revolution:

Introduction The new digital technologies offer remarkable opportunities The inclusion of digital technologies and thus, software into every part of social and economic life is having to make agriculture more sustainable and contribute to the profound impacts on all aspects of the agrifood system in the developed and the developing world. [...] important, the connection of these devices, sen- sors, and actors to the internet results in increased The impact of digitalization on agriculture can transparency and the possibility of creating online be observed at three levels: micro, meso, and The digital technologies and artifacts are overwhelmingly created by and products of the developed na- platforms-a process that has already reorganized. [...] As a result of ubiq- Because many of the agriculture platforms op- the farmer locked in, a new owner might change the uitous computing and connectivity, the farm level and the entire agrifood production and distribution erating in Africa are subsidized by development terms and conditions of the relationship or have a system is being connected. [...] might contribute to increased concentration, as farmers, the obstacles would be their capabilities, the more acres a farmer harvests the more rapidly the cost of the smartphone (assuming the farmers the equipment can be amortized-a particularly im- did not have one) and the cost of data uploading. [...] This use of the data is entirely within tions firms that cross-subsidize the coverage of rural areas and have the purview of the terms and conditions of the contract with the farmer the machine.