- ➔ Creating an enabling environment for responsible uptake of automation technologies is key and calls for a range of policy instruments to work together in a coherent way. These relate to, inter alia, appropriate legal and institutional frameworks, incentives, and general services support (GSS) for infrastructure, education, training, research and private innovation processes.
- ➔ Investments to promote responsible automation should be based on context-specific conditions, such as status of connectivity and infrastructure, knowledge and skills challenges, and inequality in access to automation technologies.
- ➔ Policies to address environmental sustainability issues and enhance resilience should recognize the potential synergies between automation and other sustainability approaches, such as landscape planning and conservation agriculture.
- ➔ Policymakers should focus on setting up transparent legislation and regulatory frameworks, providing non-distortive GSS – including research on technologies (pilots, testing, etc.) that are farmer-centred and demand-driven – as well as training to help workers transition to new tasks, both inside and outside agriculture.
- ➔ While agricultural producers must choose which technologies to adopt from the wide range available, the role of public interventions is to ensure inclusive access to agricultural automation. Multistakeholder initiatives that, for example, share knowledge on automation can further enable adoption.
As discussed in earlier chapters, agricultural automation brings many opportunities for the sustainable and inclusive transformation of agrifood systems, but it also carries risks. It requires parallel efforts by private, public and third-sector actors, with coherent and complementary objectives, to create an enabling environment for agricultural automation, in order to harness opportunities and mitigate risks and ensure sustainable and inclusive agricultural transformation. Drawing further on lessons learned from the case studies prepared for this report (see Annex 1) and the available literature, this chapter identifies policy and legal instruments to encourage adoption of agricultural automation in a sustainable and inclusive manner, leaving no one behind. The overarching principle for agricultural automation is responsible technological change, leading to efficient, productive, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems. Responsible technological change is a process that entails anticipating the impacts of the technologies on productivity, resilience and sustainability, while focusing on marginalized and vulnerable groups, including women, youth and small-scale producers. The process must include the wide range of stakeholders, responding to their concerns, and drawing on their ideas and knowledge.1 To be responsible, agricultural automation must be flexible, farmer-centred, demand-driven, respectful of data privacy and cultural diversity, participatory and inclusive in design, and transparent. It must recognize the importance of context and tailor technologies to local needs by involving local actors and building on their adaptive innovation capacity.
Towards responsible agricultural automation
Like any technological change, agricultural automation inevitably entails disruption to agrifood systems, bringing benefits but also giving rise to trade-offs, and ultimately leading to winners and losers. Efforts to accelerate adoption need to consider the socioeconomic and political processes that either impede or catalyse technology development and adoption. Agricultural automation affects agrifood systems in various ways. It affects the livelihoods of vulnerable groups through its possible impacts on food security and nutrition, resilience, poverty reduction, and employment in rural areas – hence potentially affecting inequality. It indirectly affects the overall well-being of communities with possible implications for environmental sustainability, including natural resource conservation and biodiversity. Considering these impacts, responsible technological change should be central in policy debates, with inclusiveness and sustainability at their core.
Action towards more sustainable, inclusive and resilient agrifood systems must include all relevant stakeholders – especially small-scale producers and other marginalized and vulnerable groups, for whom agricultural automation technologies are usually out of reach.1, 2 This chapter presents a range of possible options regarding policies, institutions, legislation and investments – for putting into practice the notion of responsible technological change – organized in four key areas. Together they form a roadmap to ensure that agricultural automation contributes to efficient, productive, sustainable, resilient and inclusive agrifood systems. Every one of these options builds on key findings from case studies and available literature presented in this report. They address the main barriers to adoption discussed and analysed in Chapters 2–4. The policies, which complement and reinforce each other, are represented in Figure 8 and summarized below.
- General policies for creating an enabling environment. These include policies not directly linked to food and agriculture but that nevertheless support agricultural automation uptake. They address existing or potential inadequacies in infrastructures – such as roads, energy and connectivity – in addition to national policies on finance and data management.
- Agriculture-targeted policies, legislation and investments. These are directly linked to food and agriculture and target the sector collectively. They include, among others, agricultural research, knowledge transfer services, and finance targeting agricultural automation.
- Policies to ensure agricultural automation contributes to sustainable and resilient agrifood systems. These policies focus on encouraging agricultural producers to adopt automation technologies that, inter alia, conserve natural resources, support environmental sustainability and build resilience.
- Policies to ensure an inclusive agricultural automation process that works for all. These policies complement those in the three other groups and aim to ensure everyone – especially marginalized groups such as women, small-scale producers and youth – can benefit from agricultural automation, and that potentially negative impacts on incomes and livelihoods are addressed.
FIGURE 8 A ROADMAP OF POLICY OPTIONS TO LEVERAGE AGRICULTURAL AUTOMATION RESPONSIBLY
One very important policy area is general services support (GSS). This represents government support not directly linked to agricultural output and the use of inputs (see Box 25). GSS is key for creating an enabling environment to do business in agriculture and in agrifood systems more generally. It does not distort incentives but enables agricultural producers, their input and service providers, and other involved stakeholders, to set up thriving businesses, make informed decisions about automation, and stimulate innovations. Unfortunately only one-sixth of total global support to food and agriculture (about USD 111 billion) falls under GSS.3 It is lowest where it is most needed, that is, in countries where agriculture is still a key sector for the economy, jobs and livelihoods (i.e. low- and some lower-middle-income countries).4 In these countries, creating a level playing field for agricultural automation will most likely require an increase in GSS, which would, however, entail significant development financing.
BOX 25How different types of government support can potentially leverage agricultural automation
Worldwide, support provided to food and agriculture amounted to almost USD 630 billion per year on average over 2013–2018.3 The lion’s share of this support targets agricultural producers individually, through trade and market policies, or via fiscal subsidies largely tied to production (e.g. price support for specific commodities) or specific variable inputs (e.g. fertilizer in some countries). This support can affect the business case for automation through multiple pathways. For example, it can affect the mix of commodities produced, since agricultural support is largely for starchy staples (in low- and lower-middle-income countries) and dairy and other protein-rich foods (in high- and upper-middle-income countries). The mix of products will in turn determine options for adopting automation technologies, which may be suitable for some products but not for others. Globally, approximately one-third of all support is through price incentives connected to a specific product or group of products.
Likewise, adoption of automation can be affected by support to production factors, specifically incentives favouring capital accumulation. For example, credit subsidies for agricultural producers will favour more capital-intensive automation technologies. Who receives this support – large producers or small-scale producers – will be key in terms of automation inclusiveness. Globally, approximately one-tenth of the support provided to farmers individually is based on production factors.
Support linked to production – whether through prices or factors of production – distorts incentives in ways that may be counterproductive, unintentionally favouring some producers over others. While inclusiveness may be favoured by specific support measures, this is not usually the guiding rationale.
General services support targets food and agriculture collectively and is not directly linked to production, individual producers or specific production factors. It includes support for agricultural research and development and knowledge transfer services (e.g. training and technical assistance), as well as infrastructure development and maintenance (e.g. improving rural roads, irrigation systems, storage infrastructure, connectivity). Such support is important for adoption of automation, without distorting incentives or favouring certain groups of producers over others.
When designing policies and planning investments, governments will also need to balance trade-offs between different, and sometimes conflicting, economic, environmental and social objectives. The relevance of the policies, investments and other public actions proposed below varies depending on the context. Governments should prioritize actions based not only on local challenges but also on national capacities and resources – including financial ones – that they can mobilize to design policies and transform them into action.
The next sections present in more detail recommended policies and investments according to the four policy categories.
