A Future of Farms without Farmers?

Digital agriculture is the application of digital tools and business models integrated with digital technologies across the agricultural-food (agri-food) chain. This includes using digital tools to make genome sequencing and modification faster, developing genetically modified plants and animals, and even producing so-called alt-meat or vat-produced meat alternatives that look and taste like meat, deploying drones in the fields to spray agrochemicals or broadcast seeds, analysing plant health, or installing sensors on farms, greenhouses and vertical gardens to monitor plant growth and support digital tools for cultivation without farmers. 

Digitalisation enables the collection of data on plant health, soil moisture, weeds, pests, and the weather, and the use of software and big data analytics to analyze harvested data to provide often-proprietary advice and technical recommendations to farmers on how to farm and manage agricultural activities from production to marketing. Deploying automated farm machinery and robotics in farms and highly controlled environments for agriculture like digital greenhouses, vertical farms and warehouses; delivering groceries, supplies and cooked food to people from restaurants or cloud kitchens via orders placed on mobile apps; and employing digital surveillance of livestock and fisheries are all part of the digital menu in the agri-food systems. The common denominators are digitalisation of data on farmers, their farms and the environment that make farming possible; utilisation of collected data to churn out patterns where technical advice and solutions are based; and dependence on digital tools for decisions in research and development to production and consumption.

The expansion of digital applications in agriculture in Southeast Asia has been quite aggressive in the past half-decade. While it lags behind the neighboring East Asia, in particular in China and Japan (as well as South Korea and Taiwan), digitalisation in the agriculture sector has nevertheless shown consistent progress. Government programs and policies have been calibrated, updated and minted to make digitalisation the norm by establishing digital land registries and setting them as requirement for farmers to qualify for government programs and services, and to facilitate the deployment of digital tools such as drones, sensors and satellites in agricultural activities from planting to marketing. National agricultural development plans and roadmaps were rehashed to align with “Agriculture 4.0,” officially heralding the march toward the adoption and application of technologies and tools of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) across the agricultural sphere. 

Everyone is expected to board that digitalisation train or be left behind, as the usual meme goes – never mind if we are kept in the dark on where that train originated, where it is heading and who is manning the control panels. The rationale for the shift to digitalisation are sung in unison across the region, from the perennial call for the modernisation of the sector, which has been lagging for decades and the pitch for uplifting the lives of farmers and rural communities, to addressing the specter of aging farming population and attracting the young generation to go into farming, which the richer neighbors in East Asia have been experiencing. 

To understand the developments, trends and issues in the deployment of agricultural digitalisation in Southeast Asia, the researchers zoom in on the current situation in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. This paper presents the key national policies and programs that promote agricultural digitalisation in these three countries and offers a closer look at examples of public-private collaborations and the enabling role of multilateral development banks.

This paper also examines the interventions and interests of giant agribusiness transnationals (Big Ag) and technology titans (Big Tech) in the digital transformation of agriculture in the subregion as well as the emergence of start-ups that develop and promote digital agricultural technologies (ag tech) in the three countries. 

The researchers draw conclusions and insights on these trends that they hope will support civil society organisations and grassroots movements in Southeast Asia weigh their options and make decisions as they experience and confront the challenges – and opportunities – presented by agricultural digitalisation in the years to come.