From ‘Green Revolution’ to ‘Data Revolution’: How India’s Emerging Ag-Tech Ecosystem Builds on the Capitalist-Colonial Promise of Technological Emancipation

Data-driven agricultural technologies (Ag-Tech) are becoming a global phenomenon. While much of the academic literature focuses on Ag-Tech in the Global North, there is much to be learned about the current push to expand the development and use of these technologies in the Global South. This paper explores India’s emerging Ag-Tech ecosystem, which, according to Agfunder, is among the top five countries when it comes to investment in this sector. Historically, India has also been the testing ground of many science-based agricultural innovations via the so-called ‘Green Revolution’, which has had a profound impact across the world. But what makes Ag-Tech funding in India more unique is the role of the Indian state, which is currently building a database to store data about farmers and their farming practices with the help of private companies.

We argue that this current wave of data-driven Ag-Tech, which prioritises science, technology, and corporate power over local knowledge and agricultural practices, has capitalist-colonial roots, which were followed by the British in the 19th century and later implemented by the Indian state post-independence with the help of American benefactors during the so-called ‘Green Revolution’. Through the lens of anti-colonial Science and Technology Studies (STS), we consider how the funders, developers, users, regulators, and activists understand and enact the foundations of India's Ag-Tech ecosystem. In doing so, we pay specific attention to the post-colonial context which shapes realities and possibilities in Indian farming.

Our aim will be to shed light on the Ag-Tech space in India, critically looking at the historical roots of the emerging data-driven Ag-Tech sector as well as exploring possibilities of alternative ways of seeing technology with the rural communities instead of the top-down imposition of technology by Ag-Tech firms.