Responsible digital agroecology, from farm to fork
	How can innovations in digital agriculture ensure inclusion and equity for all actors in the value chain?
	October 13, 2022
	16:00 - 18:00 CEST (14:00-16:00 GMT)
	Event type: virtual
	Today, new digital tools and services make digitalization more suitable to smallholders and could boost transition towards agroecology, climate-smart agriculture and inclusiveness. Research efforts must now concentrate both on technological development and on the organizational and policy evolutions necessary to maximize the benefits while avoiding risks. More, original ways to carry out research, in tight relationship with stakeholders (farmers, companies, decision-makers) are essential. After showcasing agricultural digitalization successes, North and South, this webinar ends up with a multi-stakeholder panel to identify the key issues to be dealt with in order to develop an ethical, trustable and responsible digital agriculture.
16:00 CEST (14:00 GMT)	Introduction Pascal Bonnet, #DigitAg/CIRAD (Montpellier, FR) & Jacob van Etten, CGIAR (Seville, SP)
16:15 CEST (14:15 GMT)	Panel 1: Digital technologies to support smallholders evolution towards climate-smart, sustainable agriculture and healthy products - Chair : Jacob van Etten, CGIAR (Seville, SP) - Shreya Agarwal, Digital Green (San Francisco, USA)  - Lini Wollenberg, Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, and Gund Institute (Cali, CO) - Carla do Nascimento Macario – Embrapa Digital Agriculture (Saõ Paulo, BR) - Julien Sarron, CIRAD (Montpellier, FR) & Hamza Bendahou, Sowit (Paris, FR)
16:45 CEST (14:45 GMT)	Panel 2: Digital technologies for a better inclusion into the society, territories and markets - Chair : Hannah Wittman, U. of British Columbia (Vancouver, CA) Introduction: Hannah Wittman, U. of British Columbia (Vancouver, CA) - Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Gueye, UCAD (Dakar, SN) - Isabelle Piot-Lepetit #DigitAg/INRAE (Montpellier, FR) - Jo Rodgers, Access Agriculture (Brussels, BE)
17:15 CEST (15:15 GMT)	Panel 3: Multistakeholder policy Panel - Chair : Pascal Bonnet, #DigitAg/CIRAD (Montpellier, FR) Introduction: Laurens Klerkx, WUR (Wageningen, NL) / U. of Talca (Talca, CL) - Daouda Hamadou, Novatech (Niamey, NE), Innovation cluster representative - Ishmael Sunga, SACAU (Centurion, ZA), Farmer’s union representative - Jérome Le Roy, President of La Ferme Digitale (Paris, FR), Private sector representative - Doris Macquard, DG Agri (Brussels, BE), Policy makers’ representative
17:50 CEST (15:50 GMT)	Conclusions  - Véronique Bellon Maurel, #DigitAg/INRAE (Montpellier, FR) - Maximo Torero Cullen, Chief economist FAO (Rome, IT)
	Contact: contact@hdigitag.fr
	Social media handles:@DigitAgLab

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Short synthesis of the Science and Innovation Forum 2022 webinar on « Responsible Digital Agroecology, from farm to fork. » -

read the article on arc2020 

How can innovations in digital agriculture ensure inclusion and equity for all actors in the value chain?

This 2 hours webinars was organized jointly by CGIAR-CIAT, #DigitAg, INRAE, CIRAD and University of Montpellier on Thursday 13, 2022, as a side-event of the FAO Science and Innovation Forum 2022. It was structured in 3 panels, an introduction and a conclusion. The objective was to give examples of digital innovations in agriculture that have already or will have a real impact on farmers’ work, quality of life and on sustainability, and then to exchange in a multistakeholder panel about the relevant policies to foster the development of digital technologies and services that would ensure inclusion and equity for all actors in the value chain.

First, various examples of low-cost digital tools and services to help farmers in their work (eg. SoYield from SOWIT, CowShed from UCAD, Plant disease identification and ICLF from Embrapa...) and in capacity building (eg farmer-to-farmers videos from Access Agriculture or Digital Green) were presented. Then, the webinar focused on policy issues to encourage the development of responsible digital agroecology. Most important messages are the following ones :

Regarding research

• Digitalization is not only a technical issue, but deals with the whole social cyber-physico system, in a systemic way, including the value chain ; « Responsible » means that the social and environmental aspects must be taken into account; 
• Participative approaches are successful ways for transformative changes coupling digitalization and agroecology, as shown by various experiences (Co-creation of agricultural practices, Participative Guarantee Systems, Farmer-to-farmer videos)
• Data governance* is a major issue with threats (data colonisation, power asymmetry) and opportunities (creating data value chains)

Regarding Policies

• Digitalization and agroecology must be promoted as supplementary approaches and digitalization must serve the agroecological transition
• Inclusion of farmers request that technologies and data be accessible in terms of costs
• Capacities, especially smallholders’ one, must be enhanced at large scale to really benefit from digitalization  
• Backbone digital infrastructure are still lacking and ther implementation should be supported by governments 
• Digital innovation ecosystems, gathering investors, governments, research, incubators, and  supported by strong policies (eg French AgriTech) are accelerating the development of digital tools and services for agriculture
• A mix of policies is needed to frame digital agriculture in order to make it inclusive and sustainable.

This very rich webinar will give birth to an article to be published soon.

* Data governance is also a policy issue