“If they don’t tell us what they do with it, why would we trust them?” Trust, transparency and benefit-sharing in Smart Farming

Publication date: Available online 17 December 2018Source: NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life SciencesAuthor(s): Emma Jakku, Bruce Taylor, Aysha Fleming, Claire Mason, Simon Fielke, Chris Sounness, Peter ThorburnAbstractAdvances in Smart Farming and Big Data applications have the potential to help agricultural industries meet productivity and sustainability challenges. However, these benefits are unlikely to be realised if the social implications of these technological innovations are not adequately considered by those who promote them. Big Data applications are intrinsically socio-technical; their development and deployment are a product of social interactions between people, institutional and regulatory settings, as well as the technology itself. This paper explores the socio-technical factors and conditions that influence the development of Smart Farming and Big Data applications, using a multi-level perspective on transitions combined with social practice theory. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 Australian grain farmers and industry stakeholders to elicit their perspectives on benefits and risks of these changes. The analysis shows that issues related to trust are central concerns for many participants. These include procedural concerns about transparency and distributional concerns about who will benefit from access to and use of “farmers’ data”. These concerns create scepticism about the value of ‘smart’ technologies amongst some industry stakeho...
Source: NJAS Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences - Category: Biology Source Type: research