Di-JUST . Digital Food and Just Transition. Sustainability and Labour in Agriculture 4.0
Projet PRIN-PNRR 2022
- Start: 30 November 2024, duration 24 months
- Research Units: University of Pisa (Maura Benegiamo, PI); Bologna (Emanuele Leonardi, CO-PI); University of Calabria (Alessandra Corrado).
- The project’s main objective is to assess the impact of digitalisation in the agrifood system in Italy from the perspective of Just Transition.
- In particular, it aims to develop and test a set of qualitative indicators for inquiring risks and opportunities of digitalisation in specific supply chains and food-systems sub-sectors.
- It will provide policymakers, organisations and the CS with criteria for coping with digital innovation in different categories of labour and communities.
- Case studies will involve: logistics and hub and in-field production, from low to high-tech farm/value chain, North, South and Center of Italy.
Short abstract: The project addresses the issue of labour in relation to the transformation of Italian agriculture in the context of the sector’s crises and with particular attention to the climate/ecological crisis. It focuses on the processes of digital transformation, which are in turn inscribed in the vision of a digital agriculture or agriculture 4.0 promoted by the main institutions and policies targeting the sector.
Keywords: digitalisation, just transition, agriculture, labour, logistics, organisations, movements
Description:
The Di-JUST project (Digital Food and Just Transition. Sustainability and Labour in Agriculture 4.0) aims to examine the growing entanglements between the digital economy and the Italian agrifood system from the perspective of Just Transition (JT). This is a framework developed by the labour movement and adopted by different organisations (eg. ILO, COP27; EU), which implies that the transition to a climate-neutral economy must at the same time secure the future and livelihoods of workers and their communities. In a nutshell, it means that social justice with a special focus on decent work and quality jobs must remain at the centre of any environmental analysis and policy regarding the ecological transition.
The idea of a “digital transition” for the agrarian sector has been debated most insistently following the multiple crises and shocks that have affected food systems from the early 2000s until the present. Grounded on the proposal of Industry 4.0, digitalization is presented as an opportunity for agrifood systems to undertake effective and efficient transformation that increases productivity while fostering sustainability and food security. The Italian PNRR fully embraces this policy perspective, placing agriculture 4.0 as a key component of Mission 2 “Green Revolution and Ecological Transition”.
Building on a JT approach the project aims to inquire the entanglement between labour and the climate-ecological crisis at stake in the digital reorganisation of the Italian agri-food sector. It pays particular attention to the transformations in the organisation of labour and to the dynamics through which different types of innovation affect the agrifood chain: from input selection to harvesting, to logistics and distribution. Among its results, it forsees to develop and test a set of “just transition qualitative indicators” in specific supply chains and food-systems sub-sectors to provide policymakers with criteria for coping with digital innovation in different categories of labour and communities.
For further information: maura.benegiamo@unipi.it
Resources:
M. BENEGIAMO, A. CORRADO, M. FAMA – Digitalisation, agriculture, forestry and rural areas: methodological questions and research insights in a “just transition” perspective, Editoriale for the Special Issue on Digitalisation and Just Transition, REA-Italian Review Of Agricultural Economics, 78(2), 2023, pp. 3-5. Open Access: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/rea/issue/view/628/236
M. BENEGIAMO, A. CORRADO, M. FAMA – Agricultural digitalisation and just transition: a framework for the analysis, REA-Italian Review Of Agricultural Economics, 78(2), 2023, pp. 5-18. Open Access: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/rea/article/view/14491
M. BENEGIAMO, Digitalizzazione o giusta transizione?, Jacobin Italia, 22 february 2024, Open Access qui: https://jacobinitalia.it/digitalizzazione-o-giusta-transizione/
M. BENEGIAMO, The Labor of the Future, the Future of Labor? A Just Transition Critique of the Digital Agriculture Utopia, Berliner Gazette, 21 october 2023, Open Access: https://berlinergazette.de/a-just-transition-critique-of-the-digital-agriculture-utopia/