Precision Farming: Environmental Legitimation, Commodification of Information, and Industrial Coordination¹

TLDR

Precision farming employs digitally mapped data to guide site‑specific crop inputs, yet most studies emphasize its economic and environmental benefits at the field and farm level. This paper challenges prevailing views by sociologically examining how precision farming aligns with the political and economic imperatives of industrializing agriculture. The authors argue that precision farming legitimizes chemical agriculture through public commitments and pollution‑mitigation mechanisms, commodifies agricultural information, and facilitates deeper integration of farm activities into an industrial manufacturing system.

Abstract

Abstract Precision farming—use of digital geographically referenced data in farming operations—is the leading example of a cluster of emerging information technologies in agriculture. To date, the vast majority of academic and promotional literature addressing precision farming has focused on the field and farm‐level economic and environmental benefits of site‐specific allocation of crop inputs (fertilizer, pesticides, and seeds). In this paper, we question popular perceptions of the technology and pursue a sociological analysis through identification of consistencies between precision farming and the political and economic requirements of an industrializing agriculture. Through promotion of a public commitment and a technical mechanism to mitigate farm chemical pollution, precision farming legitimates chemically‐based agriculture in an era of rising environmentalism. Further, precision farming is based on, and will advance, the commodification of agricultural information—appropriation of field and farm‐level decision processes through substitution of capital for local knowledge. By automating farm‐level data collection and information management and by reducing agriculturalists' reliance on public sector agricultural research and extension, precision farming supports further integration of on‐farm activity into a coordinated system of industrial manufacture.