Why farmers and negotiators should be worried about AI
Beep boop beep boop… There’s been quite a bit of talk of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and “technical innovations” in this week’s Sharm el Sheikh negotiations on agriculture. ECO wonders: have agriculture negotiators become so tired of working unsuccessfully towards consensus, that they have decided to leave the fate of our food systems in the hands of AI? Clearly, they have forgotten that doing so may lead to the loss of their very own negotiating jobs and livelihoods? On the other hand, computer-led negotiations on agriculture and food security may finally make them reflect on the plight of small-scale food producers seeing their land grabbed to create sensors-and-drone-farming installations.
The recent informal note outlining a roadmap for the joint work on agriculture and food security included a dubious push for tech-based “innovation”, such as AI or biotechnologies, to be discussed at the next sessions. ECO is really concerned about the focus shifting away from small-scale food producers and their livelihoods, instead being concerned with sci-fi illusions and techno-fixes to the climate crisis that will lead to unchecked loss of livelihood in rural communities and ultimately hunger.
ECO would like to remind delegates that one quarter of the world’s population relies on agriculture for its livelihood. Sustainable Development Goal 2 is about creating a world free of hunger by 2030, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture. Agriculture not only provides the world with food, it creates jobs and incomes. The farming sector is the backbone of many developing countries’ economy. This threat to livelihoods from climate change and digitised technologies is no laughing matter.
Future UNFCCC workshops, for example the proposed topic on “sustainable approaches” to agriculture, should be framed by criteria of securing farming livelihoods amidst the threat of climate change.
Real, healthy, equitable, resilient innovation lies in farmers and Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge. Everywhere in the world, communities put in place innovative techniques towards more sustainable food systems, based on agroecology and social progress. These are the kind of solutions that climate finance should be all about.
Robots that could put hundreds of millions of small farmers out of work? Thanks, but no thanks.
