Globalising Fields: Precision Agriculture and Agrarian Change in Global Production Networks. The Case of Cederberg Valley, South Africa

In today’s context of widespread precision agriculture(PA) technology adoption and enthusiasm across policy, media, development and technology circles, this thesis examines the impact of PA technology in shaping agrarian change. Specifically, it investigates how PA technologies reshape existing social relations of production and lead to the emergence of new relations, actors, and dynamics. The main research question is: How do PA  technologies shape agrarian change? Agrarian change is conceptualised as a process driven by local-global interactions within commodity production networks, in which PA technology is both a constituting and mediating actor. Empirically, the thesis focuses on global citrus production network and one of its production nodes, the Cederberg Valley in South Africa. The main conclusions drawn about the impact of PA technologies on agrarian change are that PA technologies enhance the competitive dynamics of global trade centred on issue of quality. They also play a mediating role in the processes of exclusion and inclusion of  regions and regional actors in global production networks.