Vol. 78 No. 2 (2023)
Digitalisation and just transition - Research Articles

Agricultural digitalisation and just transition: a framework for the analysis

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  • Maura Benegiamo,
  • Alessandra Corrado,
  • Marco Fama
Maura Benegiamo
Università di Pisa
Marco Fama
Università degli Studi di Bergamo
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rea-14491

Published 2023-12-31

Keywords

  • agricultural digitalisation,
  • food system,
  • Sustainability,
  • just transition,
  • agrarian labour

How to Cite

Benegiamo, M., Corrado, A., & Fama, M. (2023). Agricultural digitalisation and just transition: a framework for the analysis. Italian Review of Agricultural Economics (REA), 78(2), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.36253/rea-14491

Copyright (c) 2023 Marco Fama, Maura Benegiamo, Alessandra Corrado

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Digital agriculture is generally depicted as a new technological frontier allowing both the efficiency and sustainability of the agri-food sector to be increased through the introduction of innovative “green” and cost-effective solutions. However, there is still little empirical evidence on the wider environmental and socio-economic implications of ongoing agricultural digitalisation processes. The paper makes the point that the digitalisation of agriculture is a political and ecological process representing an important element of the uneven and combined patterns of the capitalist development of agriculture. At the same time, the practices that inform agricultural digitalisation are shaped by social, economic and environmental factors that change according to the context. Starting from these premises, the authors propose a critical framework for equipping empirical research on digital agriculture with a more comprehensive understanding of local contexts, while also retaining a wider political economy perspective inspired by the concept of “just transition”. 

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