Digitalization and the third food regime

Louisa Prause (), Sarah Hackfort and Margit Lindgren
Additional contact information
Louisa Prause: Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin
Sarah Hackfort: Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin
Margit Lindgren: Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin

Agriculture and Human Values, 2021, vol. 38, issue 3, No 6, 655 pages

Abstract: Abstract This article asks how the application of digital technologies is changing the organization of the agri-food system in the context of the third food regime. The academic debate on digitalization and food largely focuses on the input and farm level. Yet, based on the analysis of 280 digital services and products, we show that digital technologies are now being used along the entire food commodity chain. We argue that digital technologies in the third food regime serve on the one hand as a continuation of established information and communication technologies, thus deepening certain features of the existing food regime such as the retail sector’s control over global commodity chains. On the other hand, digital technologies also introduce new forms of control and value extraction based on the use of data and pave the way for large tech companies to take over market shares in the agri-food sector. Finally, we find that multinational agri-food companies are starting to take on the business models of leading digital tech companies, for instance by developing digital platforms throughout the agri-food system. We argue that this shows that the broader economic restructuring of neoliberal capitalism towards digital capitalism is also making its way into the agri-food system.

Keywords: Food regime; Digital agriculture; Agri-food system; Food commodity chain; Agrarian labor; Digital platforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10460-020-10161-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:38:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s10460-020-10161-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10460

DOI: 10.1007/s10460-020-10161-2

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture and Human Values is currently edited by Harvey S. James Jr.

More articles in Agriculture and Human Values from Springer, The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().