Feeding the world is more difficult today than ever before. Around the world, farmers are facing depleted soils, the effects of climate change – such as droughts and floods – as well as the loss of biodiversity. Digital innovations aim to provide solutions to these struggles: big agricultural corporations have therefore joined forces with tech giants to benefit from the rapid development of artificial intelligence and cloud computing platforms.
Who benefits from digital innovation in agriculture?
Evidently, the agricultural sector is preparing for the future – from the production of seeds to the production of chemical inputs. But whose future exactly? In their report “Head in the Cloud” (2026), the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-FOOD) explains that agricultural innovations always reflect and reproduce the social, environmental, economic, and political circumstances within which they were developed. According to IPES-Food, what is deemed innovative and who stands to benefit from it is ultimately always a political decision.
Presently, artificial intelligence and cloud platforms mainly serve the interests of the companies involved. Their approaches, so IPES-FOOD, are often resource-intensive as well as harmful to the environment. What’s more, they are exclusionary: the needs of smallholder farmers and their profound knowledge of their land and crops are barely taken into consideration. When they are, it is at the expense of the farmers’ personal rights: companies survey their land with drones and gather data on their methods to ultimately persuade them to use their commercial methods and products.
Local responses to climate change
Digital advances in agriculture, however, should serve the farmers, rather than sidelining them in favour of big businesses. That is why SWISSAID and the non-profit tech start-up farmbetter are supporting farmers in Ecuador and Colombia with digital tools to improve their adaptation efforts to climate change.
Many of these farmers live high up in the Andes, where climate change has been increasing the frequency and intensity of frost, flooding, droughts and landslides. It is becoming more difficult than ever to plan the right time to sow seeds, and harvests are less productive or fail altogether. Hunger is part of the reality of the local communities.
The use of agroecological methods has already had a significant impact: for example, the use of climate-resilient varieties ensure sufficient harvests even during droughts. But selecting as well as implementing the various crops in a way that they strengthen the soil and ecosystem at long last requires time and knowledge. After all, agroecology is not a ready-made solution that can be applied to any size of land using fertilisers and pesticides. It needs to be adapted to the local ecosystem and is based on trial and error and the courage to try new things.
One app – by everyone, for everyone
In the SWISSAID pilot project ‘AeD-LABs’ – short for ‘Agroecological Adaptation Labs’ – farmers experiment and draw on traditional knowledge to develop their own solutions to strengthen their land against climate change: irrigation systems are now based on local weather data and the needs of individual crops, new hedgerows serve both as animal fodder and as windbreaks, sows plough the fields, and old and forgotten crops are being cultivated once again.
“We need to redefine our perception of what counts as innovation. What some sell and patent as innovation is in reality nothing more than the appropriation of innovations created by farmers – who, however, receive no recognition for them,” so Simon Degelo, SWISSAID’s seed expert.
Sharing knowledge, fostering innovation
The farmers’ experiments have given rise to innovative approaches. But what is the best way to document the results and practical recommendations from these ‘micro-laboratories’? A digital platform provides the solution: together, the farmers, SWISSAID and farmbetter have developed an app well suited to the needs of the farming families. It allows them to share their methods and highlight agricultural progress.
But the app offers more than documentation services: farmers can also connect with each other and exchange knowledge about agroecology, extending the use of some innovations beyond a single village to other places with similar agricultural conditions.
All in all, the participatory app makes information accessible to many people, recognises local knowledge, and draws attention to the immense, innovative work farmers carry out daily.
Creating equitable technological change
“There is an urgent need for technological innovations that help marginalised farming communities, ease their labour and support their incomes,” emphasises Sonja Tschirren, expert on climate change and food systems at SWISSAID.
“AeD-Labs”, however, points the way forward: it empowers farmers, strengthens their sovereignty, and promotes fair and sustainable digital innovation.