National Farmers Union Convention begins with panel discussion on confronting power
Farmers from across Canada came together on Thursday, November 23 to kick off the 54th Annual National Convention of the National Farmers Union (NFU).
A highlight of the opening day was a panel discussion entitled Confronting Power. Speakers included:
• Kelly Bronson, Canada Research Chair in Science and Society, University of Ottawa;
• Timothy Wise, Senior Advisor, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP); and
• Stewart Trew, Director of the Trade and Investment Research Project, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
Dr. Bronson led off the panel with a discussion of how data is collected and used on farms to support decision-making and also to control the machinery that places fertilizer, seeds, and chemicals—what some call “precision agriculture” and others refer to as “Big Data.”
Bronson told NFU Convention-goers that in her studies and in her book on the topic (The Immaculate Conception of Data: Agribusiness, Activists, and Their Shared Politics of the Future) she has focused on who benefits and on who gains and wields power.
Bronson began: “Because farm data holds value, we need to ask: value for whom? What is being done with data off of farms? Who controls the data?” She underscored that “these are really questions about power.”
She talked about the insurmountable challenges of trying to “follow the data”—through data centres, algorithms, and corporate servers. She noted how, for the most part, it was hidden from critical oversight, often protected by numerous legal instruments.
As a result, Bronson turned her attention to closely reading the licences and legal agreements that farmers sign, attending industry meetings and trade conventions, and talking to the farmers who use the data platforms and tools.
In these ways, she was able to delve into questions of who gains power and reaps benefits when farmers utilize technology platforms and tools to control farm machinery and support agronomic decisions.
Bronson found that in addition to the benefits to farmers, the seed, chemical, fertilizer, and machinery corporations that control the data technologies also gain large benefits. Bronson noted several actual or potential areas in which companies can benefit.
Companies could use aggregated farmer data to predict demand for products and, potentially, adjust supplies or set prices in response to these predicted demands. (Bronson cited evidence from privacy policies where companies seem to leave room to use data in this way.) Other ways that companies could benefit include creating stronger links between farmers and particular companies—even fostering farmer dependence. Bronson talked about how companies can “lock in” farmers. She said that data-driven decision-support tools from a given company seem to only recommend inputs from that company’s family or “ecosystem” of related companies.
Another way corporations tie farmers to the companies is related to the lack of “interoperability.” “Once a farmer has uploaded data to the platform, the lack of interoperability between the various data platforms means that a farmer will find it hard to switch, even if they are granted access to the data. This locks farmers into a relationship with particular platforms for particular company’s inputs,” said Bronson.
She concluded by noting that corporations are transitioning to focus more and more on extracting revenue and profit from their data platform products and services. For example, Deere has stated that, by the end of this decade, ten percent of the firm’s revenue will come from digital platform fees alone.
Bronson focused on one way in which corporations are gaining power; the other two panelists focused on complementary areas where similar corporate empowerment was occurring, often to the detriment of farmers and other citizens.
Tim Wise talked about his research for his recent book, Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food, and noted “the overwhelming power agribusiness firms wield.” He told NFU delegates about his meetings with farmers and officials in Malawi, Mexico, and elsewhere and how corporations such as Monsanto/Bayer are fighting for control of seeds and food systems around the world. In closing, he noted the provocative fact that agribusiness expends more money on lobbying than does the defence industry.
Stuart Trew rounded out the panel by focusing on nearly forty years of trade agreements and how these agreements “set limits on democracy” and constrain national policy spheres, including for food and agriculture. He concluded by noting, however, that “thirty years into this agenda, things didn’t really go as everyone had been promised. There was no explosion of jobs. There wasn’t massive growth in equality among people— inequality has grown in this period. We’ve seen a rapid degradation of biodiversity, and we’ve seen climate change worsen. Things are not going well for the global economy.”
All three speakers pointed toward pushback, resistance, growing interest in alternatives, and wins by citizens and civil society. Nonetheless, the panel painted a picture of the most powerful and dominant global entities using technologies, trade agreements, data, intellectual property law, mergers and acquisitions, and other means to increase their power, usually at the expense, literally, of farmers.