Agriculture is being transformed through digital technologies offering portability and mobility (smartphones, IoT, cloud-based services), smart and predictive functionalities (analytics and AI), as well as interconnected, data-driven systems (distributed data layer, Blockchain, etc.). Innovation has been increasingly improving production and productivity, ensuring faster time to market, streamlining the supply chain and reducing operational costs. However, there are potential drawbacks that need to be addressed such as cybersecurity and data protection, labour replacement and re-education, the digital divide and the risk of only increasing capacity within the private sector.

The Digital Agriculture Transformation Seminar, organised and hosted by the FAO, aimed to foster exchange among stakeholders (policy-makers, development partners, public and private sector, research and academia), and identify the challenges that the digital transformation brings to agriculture and rural systems, exploring pathways for assessing both the risk and opportunities from the digital transformation along value chains and within rural areas; and the need for a strategy to increase digital maturity in agriculture.

On the second day of the Seminar, GODAN Executive Director Andre Laperriere was asked to participate in a panel discussion on Data Protection, Ownership and Ethical Use: Protecting farmers and enabling markets, alongside Philipe Grelot from the French Ministry of Food and Agriculture.