- ➔ The process of agricultural automation can improve productivity and generate new jobs, both in agriculture and in wider agrifood systems, creating opportunities for young workers, women and marginalized groups, such as people with disabilities.
- ➔ To understand all the social implications of agricultural automation, we must go beyond primary production and look at the impacts on the agrifood systems in their entirety.
- ➔ In situations of rising wages and labour scarcity, automation can benefit both producers and hired workers. In particular, it can help small-scale agricultural producers overcome labour shortages and allocate time away from agriculture to other activities, thus improving welfare.
- ➔ On the other hand, when labour is plentiful and subsidies lower the cost of automation adoption, there is a risk of job displacement and unemployment, especially for poorer, less skilled workers.
- ➔ Inclusive automation requires a bottom-up approach that prioritizes skill and capacity development, engaging women and youth and all relevant stakeholders in the design of technology development to take into account their concerns, needs and knowledge.
- ➔ Governments should neither implement distortive subsidies that risk increasing unemployment, nor restrict automation on the assumption that this will preserve jobs and incomes, thus making agriculture less competitive and productive. Instead, the focus should be on creating an enabling environment that ensures the full involvement of women, youth, small-scale producers, and other vulnerable and marginalized groups in order that they all benefit from automation.
- ➔ In parallel, the root causes of poverty, vulnerability, and marginalization must be addressed to ensure that automation does not aggravate the exclusion of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups.
Chapters 2 and 3 examined the trends and drivers of motorized mechanization and digital automated technologies, as well as the (potential) impacts on productivity, efficiency, resilience and environmental sustainability. This chapter looks into the implications of agricultural automation for inclusiveness – specifically, identifying the winners and losers in the process. It begins with an overview of the characteristics of agrifood systems and how automation can affect labour within them. It then discusses the impacts of agricultural automation on decent employment and on different socioeconomic and demographic groups – large- vs small-scale producers, landless vs self-employed agricultural workers, women and youth – who are involved in the process. The chapter further recognizes that countries with different levels of agricultural and structural transformation will experience these impacts differently and thus face different policy challenges with regard to automation.
An agrifood systems approach for analysing social implications
Agricultural production is changing rapidly. The adoption of labour-saving technologies, from tractors, threshers and harvesters in low- and middle-income countries, to high-tech artificial intelligence (AI) solutions found mostly in high-income countries, is occurring in the context of a continuous process of agricultural transformation and evolution of agrifood systems.
Understanding the dynamics of agrifood systems is pivotal for analysing and predicting the effects of automation at any node in the systems, taking into account possible trade-offs or unintended consequences. Responses upstream and downstream are equally important for understanding the implications for agricultural production, prices, trade flows and decent employment. These also depend on the type of agrifood value chain, as described in the 2021 edition1 of this publication: (i) traditional, mostly linked with small-scale subsistence agricultural production; (ii) transitional, often associated with small- and medium-scale family commercial agricultural production; or (iii) modern, where large-scale corporate commercial agricultural production plays a major role. These value chains differ in many aspects, including labour requirements. Grasping bidirectional linkages along agrifood value chains is crucial for understanding the impact of automation technologies, including how labour requirements change within different components of agrifood systems and the potential for workers to transition between them. Effects will also depend on, inter alia, gender roles, worker categories (e.g. migrant/local or seasonal/non-seasonal) and the skill sets of workers.
Unravelling agrifood systems
Figure 7 provides a conceptual framework for analysing the impact of automation on employment across the different components of agrifood systems. It illustrates some of the main characteristics of the three typical types of agrifood value chains mentioned above, separating upstream, midstream and downstream markets, and listing key activities undertaken in each market. It also shows linkages across markets and highlights differences in common market activities for three distinct categories of agricultural producers – subsistence, family commercial and corporate commercial. Different socioeconomic and demographic groups (on the left side of the figure) are recognized as key actors in agrifood systems, and they include small-scale producers, women, youth and other marginalized groups (e.g. persons with disabilities and migrants), despite the latter often being the most excluded, marginalized and vulnerable. The process of agricultural automation offers the possibility of pursuing an inclusive approach, ensuring that all people, especially the vulnerable, excluded and marginalized, participate in and benefit from development processes, through enhanced opportunities, access to productive and natural resources, empowerment, agency and respect for rights. Inclusivity is both a means to deliver better and more fairly, and an end in itself to ensure no one is left behind.2
FIGURE 7 An agrifood systems approach to automation impacts on employment
At the bottom of Figure 7, there is a list of the major types of labour in each market, indicating (with upward and downward arrows) how automation technology could affect demand for each labour type, although the concrete impacts will be context-dependent and must be verified empirically. While automation technologies reduce labour demand for the tasks they automate, they simultaneously create new tasks with associated labour requirements, such as equipment maintenance and operation. Figure 7 provides a reference point for the ensuing discussion on the implications of agricultural automation for inclusiveness. This section provides background on the market linkages within agrifood systems that are critical to transmit employment impacts of automation across the components of agrifood systems.
Agricultural production types
Agricultural production (midstream) is central and comprises the three above-mentioned types (see Figure 7). In subsistence agricultural production, production is part of a household livelihood strategy; there are few input purchases and the household consumes most of its own agricultural products.4 Subsistence production is common in low-income countries, but can also aptly describe small homesteads in rural areas in high-income countries.5 While subsistence agricultural production is characterized as the production of food for own consumption, this does not mean that households necessarily produce all their own food; in fact, subsistence production households are often heavily reliant on purchased foods.6, 7, 8
In family commercial agricultural production, agricultural production activities are an important part of a household income strategy; most inputs are purchased, and agricultural products are sold in local, national and global markets. Family commercial agriculture includes small-scale production in high- and low-income countries, as well as medium- and relatively large-scale operations in high-income countries, owned and operated by a household.
Finally, corporate commercial agricultural production consists of large-scale producing businesses. It is more common in high-income countries but can also be found in low-income countries in the form of plantations and large-scale estates.9
Activities at this node of agrifood systems are all directly associated with crop, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture production, as well as forestry and agroforestry. Relative operations include soil maintenance and preparation, planting, weeding and plant care, pruning and harvesting, as well as breeding, raising, daily care and health monitoring. At this level, automation of selected agricultural tasks can lead to increased output, with repercussions for downstream activities, including transport, packing, storage, processing and distribution. These downstream activities will create increased demand for most types of workers in order to handle the higher volume of output.
Upstream and downstream activities
Upstream activities comprise all those associated with providing inputs for agricultural production. These broadly include the production and distribution of seeds, fertilizers, machinery, animal feed and irrigation equipment, in addition to the provision of insurance, technical assistance and finance. Subsistence agriculture relies primarily on non-purchased inputs (including saved seeds), animal feed from cultivated crops and rainfall (rather than irrigation).10 Depending on size, location and other characteristics, family commercial agriculture may use non-purchased or purchased inputs, or a combination of the two. In this representation of the agrifood systems (see Figure 7), agricultural technological innovations generally come from the input side, and depend on the availability of improved (or less costly) seeds, feed, fertilizers, and equipment and machinery, including automation technologies. Once adopted, these technologies change the way inputs are used in agricultural production (midstream).
Downstream activities include post-harvest/slaughter/catch operations, such as storage, transport, processing, packaging, wholesale and retail, and, finally, consumption by households and food services. In subsistence agriculture, these operations take place in the household or village.11, 12 In family commercial agriculture, logistics activities may take place in the household or village, but using local or global intermediaries. Corporate producers, on the other hand, may source produce from different sites, and store it in large, designated warehouses. Transport includes ocean, air, rail and road freight. Distribution involves bulk deliveries of agricultural commodities to processors or wholesalers. Often, automation technologies lead to increased agricultural production midstream, which may in turn lead to expansion, growth and further technological innovation downstream. For example, introduction of the motorized tomato harvester increased the amount of tomatoes to be processed, incentivizing innovation in the processing sector.13 Conversely, innovation downstream can also influence demand for upstream and midstream products, with a consequent effect on technology adoption by agricultural producers. For example, lower processing costs for canned tomatoes can boost demand for this product creating an incentive for tomato farmers to increase production and meet rising demand by adopting relevant technologies (e.g. improved varieties, irrigation equipment, harvesters).
Wholesalers and retailers, including informal microenterprises, together with consumption at the household and food service level, constitute the final node in agrifood systems. Automation in wholesale, retail, restaurants and food services has reduced labour needs14 and increased productivity and sales.15 The most substantial technological advance in the global distribution sector has been e-commerce,16 which further drives technological innovation upstream, especially innovations focusing on sustainability, such as more sustainable packaging17 and, in low-income countries, improvements in transport infrastructure, logistics and online services.18, 19, 20 In India, the explosion of e-commerce platforms has allowed farmers to connect with wider markets and realize higher prices.21 In China, a selection of case studies illustrates how rural e-commerce is creating opportunities for diversification and new markets for rural people and communities in various parts of the country, including vulnerable groups such as women and youth.22
