Digital agriculture - drones, connected tractors, smart agriculture technologies, etc. - is presented as a solution for global food security and climate challenges. Such promises are supported by the same agricultural equipement policies that, from the 1950s onward, contributed to the concentration of farms and the intensification of production. Nevertheless, agricultural machinery remains rarely investigated by social sciences.
Who are the economic and professionnal organizations, and what are the policies and drivers promoting such capital-intensive, fossil fuels-consuming technologies? What are their effects on agricultural labor and environnemental impacts?
This book articulates historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives to highlight how agricultural equipments act as sociotechnical lock-ins, which constrain agricultural trajectories, contribute to the environmental footprint of agriculture, and limit farmers' technical autonomy and their ability to embrace agroecological modes of production.