Digital platforms and access to agricultural equipment in family farms in mexico

• Title of the project: "Digital platforms and access to agricultural equipment in family farms in Mexico"; INRAE.
  • PhD student: Guillaume Panas.
  • Affiliated unit: INRAE, UMR 0951 - Innovation – SIRA.
  • Co-supervision:
    • Frederic Goulet (CIRAD);
    • Liliana Doganova (Ecole des Mines de Paris).
  • Doctoral school: École doctorale 60, Territoires, Temps, Sociétés et Développement.
  • Project duration: 2023–2026.

Project summary:

This research lies at the intersection of several fields of social sciences research: science and technology studies (sts), digital sociology, economic sociology, and labor sociology. It will contribute to the analysis of factors that encourage farmers and suppliers to adopt digital tools that reconfigure agricultural practices. Specifically, it will aim to provide a better understanding of how a digital platform for renting agricultural equipment integrates into conventional rural community systems. In other words, the lessons learned from the field study analysis will provide insight into how and what effects a set of socially situated tools and knowledge integrates into the daily life of family farms. Special attention will be paid to the co-evolution between access to "well-sized" agricultural equipment and agricultural practices. The research will be based on a case study: the diffusion of the Tractilus application, developed within the framework of a public-private partnership between CIMMYT and the think tank Verne Venture, specialized in social and entrepreneurial development. The application was developed by integrating a series of innovations such as mechanization adapted and personalized to the needs of each farm and promotes rationalized and productivity-oriented practices. The research will therefore focus on 1/ a review of the interactions between producers, application developers, and agricultural service providers; 2/ the analysis of the application's objectives, as well as the study of the strategies and discourses carried out to generate interest among farmers and more generally among all actors in agricultural and rural development; 3/ finally, it will analyze how the application contributes to establishing an economic rationalization that fits within agrarian and platform capitalism.