HCI for Agroecology: Agri-Tech between Grassroots and Capitalism

Paper Title

HCI for Agroecology: Agri-Tech between Grassroots and Capitalism

Publication Info

• Topic area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in sustainable agriculture and agroecology.
• Keywords: Agroecology, digital agriculture, grassroots innovation, sustainable HCI, farmer-led design, technological sovereignty, agricultural transitions, collaborative farming, data practices, capitalism.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Current digital agricultural technologies primarily reinforce industrial farming practices, which are incompatible with agroecological values. These technologies often impose hidden data labor, reduce farmer autonomy, and fail to address the systemic challenges of unsustainable farming.
• Significance: Agroecology is recognized as a promising approach to transform unsustainable agro-food systems. However, its practitioners are poorly supported by appropriate digital tools, limiting its scalability and effectiveness.
• Motivation and related work: Previous research has shown that industrial agri-tech often leads to farmer dependency, surveillance, and ecological harm. While grassroots agri-tech initiatives offer alternatives, they remain niche and underexplored. This paper investigates the digital technology needs and practices of agroecological farmers in Northern England to bridge this gap.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The study proposes designing digital technologies that align with agroecological principles, emphasizing farmer-led innovation and technological sovereignty.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical insights into the technology and data practices of agroecological farmers in Northern England.
  2. Development of a design space for responsible agri-tech, including guiding principles and opportunities for co-design.
  3. Exploration of speculative futures for agri-tech beyond capitalist frameworks.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted qualitative fieldwork with 21 participants across 11 agroecological farms.
  • Used semi-structured interviews, farm tours, and thematic analysis to understand farmers' practices, challenges, and values.
  • Developed 12 design principles grouped into necessity, practicality, accessibility, and sustainability.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Farmers use accessible ICT tools like spreadsheets, social media, and email but avoid advanced agri-tech (e.g., IoT sensors, robots).
  • Hidden data labor is prevalent, especially in manual data recording and analysis.
  • Farmers prioritize tools that enhance human labor, are affordable, and align with agroecological values.
• Advantage over baselines: The study highlights the mismatch between industrial agri-tech and agroecological needs, proposing farmer-led, context-sensitive solutions that avoid technological lock-ins and surveillance.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Interviews with 21 farmers revealed diverse practices and challenges in collaborative farming, market interfacing, and data management.
  • Analysis identified unmet needs for automation, learning platforms, and collaborative tools.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited geographical scope (Northern England).
  • Future work includes co-designing tools with farmers, scaling grassroots innovations, and exploring speculative futures beyond capitalism.

Summary

This paper investigates the digital technology practices and needs of agroecological farmers in Northern England, highlighting tensions between agroecological values and market pressures. Farmers use accessible tools like spreadsheets but face hidden data labor and limited support for collaboration, learning, and market interfacing. The study proposes 12 design principles for agroecologically appropriate digital technologies and offers concrete design opportunities for HCI researchers to co-create tools that align with farmer needs. It also calls for speculative and infrastructural approaches to envision and build alternative agri-tech futures beyond capitalist paradigms.