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Enabling inclusive agricultural automation

Year of publication 2022

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 2p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Policy brief

ISBN 978-92-5-137099-5

Series title FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief

Series number No. 53

Synopsis (short abstract) Agricultural automation reshapes the labour market. In situations of rising wages and labour scarcity, agricultural automation can stimulate employment by allowing producers to expand production and by creating jobs along agrifood systems. Conversely, when labour is plentiful and subsidies lower the cost of automation, there is a risk of job displacement and unemployment, especially for poor and low-skilled workers. Governments should neither subsidize automation, nor restrict it. Instead, they should create an enabling environment for an inclusive process of agricultural automation that ensures access by marginalized groups such as women and small-scale producers, and focuses on building the knowledge and skills of the agricultural workforce to facilitate the transition to new jobs within and outside agriculture.

The findings in this brief have been adapted from the FAO report The State of Food and Agriculture 2022 – Leveraging automation in agriculture for transforming agrifood systems and from the FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Paper 22-09 Automation and social impacts: winners and losers.

Cite this content as:

FAO. 2022. Enabling inclusive agricultural automation. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief, No. 53. Rome.


https://doi.org/10.4060/cc2688en

Language English

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