DiJust.Digital Food and Just Transition. Sustainability and Labour in Agriculture 4.0

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/





Università di Pisa
Lungarno Pacinotti 43, 56126 Pisa
P.I. 00286820501
C.F. 80003670504

Servizio a cura del
SIA - Sistema Informatico di Ateneo
help@people.unipi.it

Torna in cima