This report sees in agricultural automation both an opportunity and a responsibility to include those who experience higher levels of vulnerability, exclusion and marginalization through their livelihoods in agrifood systems. Among these are small-scale producers, pastoralists, small-scale fishers and foresters and forest communities, agricultural wage workers, informal microenterprises and workers, landless people, and migrants.2
These individuals are responsible for a large share of food production and are custodians of natural resources and biodiversity. Yet they remain marginalized, lack equitable access to resources, are without tenure rights, do not participate in policy- and decision-making processes, and are disproportionately affected by climate change and extreme climatic events. They are the most likely to lack safe, nutritious food, resources, markets, basic public and social services, infrastructure, tools and technologies, social protection and income-generating opportunities.2 Addressing the multiple barriers and constraints these actors face is essential for achieving an inclusive agricultural automation process, which will lead to sustainable, resilient, productive and efficient small-scale agriculture.
Poverty and extreme poverty should be a key focus of this process, as it cuts across all the above-mentioned population groups. Four out of every five individuals living below the international poverty line reside in rural areas and depend at least partly on agrifood systems for their livelihoods.50 Most are deprived of multiple dimensions of well-being and fundamental individual and collective human rights. Legal frameworks have an important role in ensuring that the human rights of all are recognized, protected and promoted. Governments should include measures to: represent marginalized and vulnerable groups (e.g. Indigenous Peoples and people with disabilities) in decision-making; identify the potentially adverse impacts of automation on human rights, especially of these groups; and implement special measures to prevent, end or mitigate the negative impacts of automation.
Gender and youth are two other critical themes for inclusivity. Within the FAO Strategic Framework 2022–2031, gender and youth are treated as separate cross-cutting themes to highlight their importance and ensure that these agendas receive special attention.2 Policies, legislation and investments should ensure human rights-based monitoring approaches, including collecting disaggregated data to measure impacts on the livelihoods, rights and opportunities of youth and women. Gender and youth are discussed separately in the following sections. Many others also face exclusion and marginalization from agricultural automation due to race, sex, poverty and socioeconomic status, language, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, caste, or other grounds. Indigenous Peoples and persons with disabilities are a case in point (see Box 22).
Box 22Inclusion of persons with disabilities
Persons with disabilities are often excluded from development processes based on psychosocial, physical/sensory and intellectual disabilities, preventing fair and equal access to social and economic opportunities. Poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition can be the causes of disability, while people with disabilities are more at risk of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Agriculture is one of the three most dangerous sectors to work in, with exposure to a wide variety of hazards, long hours and poor working conditions, often without appropriate occupational health and safety policies or legislation.
Automation can contribute to ensuring decent job opportunities that eliminate labour-related hazards and break the link between poverty, malnutrition and disabilities. Inclusion of people with disabilities may also entail: (i) adapting and improving existing, or developing new, agricultural automation technologies that meet their special requirements, using alternative communication media (e.g. large print, Braille, sign language) and adopting pictorial, audio (recorded tapes or discs) and electronic formats; and (ii) strengthening the technical skills of persons with disabilities in agriculture and broader agrifood systems.
It is particularly important to allow young people with disabilities to become independent and active. FAO has used its junior farmer field and life schools (JFFLS) to address the gap in access to education, as well as the stigma and lack of economic opportunities faced by people with disabilities, building on innovative technologies. This involves a simple, yet effective, methodology to educate vulnerable children and young people about agriculture while incorporating life skills.
Gender implications of agricultural automation
The gender implications of on-farm automation are complex and varied. They depend on the previous gender distribution in performing manual agricultural tasks that are newly automated and on the division of labour between genders in agrifood systems, as well as within households (e.g. distribution of assets). In many places, there are fairly rigid gender divisions on farms. For example, in Morocco, cultivation of the crocus flower, from which saffron is extracted, is a male-dominated activity, while processing of the flowers – involving tedious, labour-intensive work – is performed almost exclusively by women.52 Therefore automation in flower cultivation would release mostly male labour. Moreover, if it led to an expansion of flower production, there would be an increased demand for female labour. While this may be good news for hired female workers, it is bad news for family female labour.
In a case study in Zambia, men and women shared labour-intensive tasks (e.g. weeding). When tractor services were adopted for land preparation, cultivation increased, but this did not place a disproportionate additional burden on women or children. On the contrary, all household members were able to enjoy more leisure.35 Further evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa shows that, in many instances, the mechanization of land preparation replaces the labour of both men and women – but especially women, who are mostly responsible for weeding, which involves considerable drudgery.38 In Western Kenya, the adoption of motorized mechanization also freed up time for both men and women, and the household was able to increase investment in children’s education.53 These examples underline how assessing the impact of automation on women must include understanding specific gender roles; it is important to not make poorly founded generalizations about automation benefiting only men simply because it mainly automates the operations they perform. For other successful examples of agricultural automation technologies being used by women and youth, see Box 23.
Box 23Inclusion of women and youth: evidence from case studies
Several of the case studies in Chapter 3 have a strong focus on women and youth empowerment through technology development. Successful examples include the following service providers:
Igara Tea. About 18 percent of users are women, of whom 4 percent are household heads. At the farm level, 65 percent of the labour force comprises youth. In processing tea leaves, women and young people comprise more than half the total workforce.
TraSeable Solutions. Women and youth represent approximately 40 percent and 15 percent of registered users, respectively.
Tun Yat. Approximately 30 percent of users are women, and 25–30 percent are young people aged up to 30 years. This is also a consequence of internal male migration, where men move to urban areas for work, leaving women to perform agricultural tasks. By focusing on employment of (local) women and youth, Tun Yat incentivizes women’s empowerment in rural areas. The company employs women and youth in food processing and food safety, and as tractor operators and mechanics.
SOURCE: Ceccarelli et al., 2022.54
Despite the potential of on-farm automation to ease women’s time and work burdens, while enhancing productivity, income and welfare, research suggests that women lag behind men in agricultural technology adoption due to barriers in access to capital, inputs and services, (information, extension, credit, fertilizer), limited physical accessibility, and cultural norms.55 By way of illustration, according to the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, 78.6 percent of female farmers in the coastal zone cannot access tractor services.56 Women are often unable to embrace automation technologies and cannot take jobs that require skills in farm operation and management due to lower literacy levels, lack of suitable tools/equipment, absence of infrastructure, and insufficient funds for women’s extension programmes.56
It is usually men who conduct commercial transactions of agricultural automation services at the farm level. Consequently, it is men who make the decisions and control the resources required to invest in automation (especially capital).56 Agricultural equipment and tools are usually designed to meet men’s ergonomic characteristics, with little attention paid to those of women.57 In Bangladesh, women do not use irrigation pumps because of their technological complexity, the physical requirements to operate them, and the difficulty of hiring and supervising labourers.58 There is a clear need to design and provide access to gender-friendly automation technologies. Indeed, a recent literature review highlights the need to incorporate – in future research and policy – gender differences related to design, promotion and adoption of automation technologies to reduce women’s work burdens and enhance welfare outcomes.55
These gender constraints must be overcome to increase productivity, safety and comfort, and reduce drudgery as part of an all-round sustainable development of society.57 To favour women’s adoption of technologies, policymakers and local implementation partners also need to assess the enabling environment and promote gender-sensitive technology development, dissemination and service provision. Gender-sensitive technologies are those suited to both male and female physical characteristics.59 Policies, legislation and investments should also promote women’s capacity and autonomy, as well as gender equality in ownership and/or control over key productive assets.60 Targeted strategies and actions which simultaneously address the technology adoption constraints that women face at the household, service and policy level can lead to positive outcomes. Evidence from Ghana, for example, shows that provision of training for women in typically male-dominated value chain nodes can have a positive impact on not only women but also the wider community (see Box 24).56
Box 24Women in the Driving Seat: advancing women’s empowerment through tractors
The Women in the Driving Seat tractor training programme aims to break down barriers for women in agricultural automation, traditionally a male-dominated area. The training programme’s objective is to sustainably drive women’s participation and leadership in operating agricultural machinery in Ghana.
As a result of the programme, 182 women tractor operators have received certificates since 2018. The successful completion rate has shown that women can excel in tractor operation and maintenance. Graduates established the Women in Tractor Operation Association to organize and support each other.
Women’s involvement in automation has helped shift the mindset, not only of women, but of practitioners, employers and the wider society. These newly employed women now contribute to the security of a stable home environment and make critical household decisions about resources and income. The operation has thus promoted gender equality in the workplace and at home.
SOURCE: GIZ, 2020.56
A review of the differences in women’s and men’s involvement in emerging markets for reaper harvester machinery services in Bangladesh also highlights the potential of hiring services.58 In particular, women benefited from managing and sometimes owning machinery services, as well as from the direct and indirect consequences of hiring such services to harvest their crops. Initiatives promoting hire services should focus on engaging women, both as business owners and as machinery users.
Involving rural youth – opportunities and challenges
Young farmers appear to be the first to embrace agricultural innovation. They are therefore perceived as instrumental in generational change and agricultural transformation.54 Agricultural automation promises new types of jobs that differ from traditional jobs in the agriculture sector, which are often associated with inferior, more hazardous and underpaid working conditions. These new jobs involve innovative technologies that require distinct skills to make productive use of them, leading to decent wages and safer working conditions.
A recent paper on stakeholder perceptions on mega-topics for African agricultural transformation finds that, overall, there is great optimism that farming can attract youth, with 78–98 percent of stakeholders agreeing with this statement. Nevertheless, a large share of respondents feel youth are not sufficiently involved in policy processes (72–97 percent), and a significant share said youth lack role models in agriculture (48–79 percent). There is also the perception that education systems do not prepare youth adequately for the job market, in particular in Benin (70 percent) and Kenya (63 percent).61 Highly skilled jobs are out of reach for most rural youth,62 and it is therefore essential that youth acquire the necessary skills. A strong human capital development and capacity-building agenda, with a focus on youth, should be prioritized in government policies and investments.54
